Dysthymia - Anyone else realised they have this and managed to turn their life around?

[misssounsure]

I'm 32 years old and when I look back over my life, in particular my childhood I've almost always had an underlying feeling of being unhappy. As a child I was extremely unhappy, with confidence and self esteem issues. I cried myself to sleep most nights. I would worry excessively about my parents or my siblings dying in car crashes etc.

My whole life I've had a big black cloud over me. I've tried hard to get on in life with a good job and a relationship but always struggled to feel happy. I finally found a nice partner and had a child. I thought this would make me happy. Unfortunately the past few years although I've not been majorly depressed I've clearly been a bit down and irritable a lot of the time. My partner has ended our relationship as he's exhausted from my irritability and the fact I'm just "never happy", I'm critical, I'm touchy highly strung, regularly bursting into tears etc... (this past year I've been particularly bad since having a child). (To be honest though I did always have my doubts about the relationship from day 1 because I just didnt feel as though he was my soulmate. I stuck with him though as he is so great in every way... kind, caring, generous, loving etc.

Unfortunately my relationship has now ended and I'm now extremely down and stressed due to the fact I'm going from having a nice partner, money and a nice life to a single mum struggling for money.

I feel so angry at myself that I've been unhappy my whole life, craving a stable relationship and family, I finally got what I'd always dreamed of and now I've sabotaged it due to having this constant low mood my whole life.

Anyone else had a similar experience and come out the other end... I.e come out and now leading a happy life? I feel like before I just had depression but now I have not only depression but the fact that I'm a single mum struggling for money to deal with

I'm sorry you feel like this, I could say the same about myself, funny thing is, people do think I'm the happiest person, only my third and current husband and my daughter know the truth, and they suffer because of my unhappiness.
Let's hope for an answer.

it's a chronic condition, you cannot 'snap out' of it or be 'cured' -esp if yours has familial genetic links. you can, however, learn to manage it and live a happier life. for some, talking therapy alone helps, for others it's a combination of therapy and medication. have you spoke to your gp re this or ever been on medication for it? anti-depressants do help but it's a case of trial and error to see which medication and regime works for you. you need the support of like minded people, regular people just don't quite understand it i find.

please let me know how you're doing. i don't want you to suffer like i did, depression on top of dysthymia is called 'double depression' or 'double dip'. in my case i never knew what i had at the time and it led to two breakdowns over the course of 5 years. it was an awful, awful time and looking back i'm surprised i made it through.

as with Dorange, to look at me you would never guess i was ever unhappy or depressed let alone had dysthymia. i recall one time i allowed myself to be out amongst people and didn't behave like my usual 'chirpy happy self', one girl turned round and said 'oh i'm glad to see you're feeling down n depressed, you're always so happy (it isn't fair)!'

i'm a lot better nowadays, more positive, it's not quite so dark anymore. but it's always there lurking in the shadows, just waiting for an opportunity to 'grab' me so to speak.

you're never alone. never. remember that. always remember that. xxx

I've made an appointment with a GP next week to say I'm sure I have this condition. I found about it nearly a month ago now I think, on another thread started by the OP & it's taken me this long to even make the appointment. I'm anticipating the "oh, there's nothing really wrong with you" attitude, even though I've never been to a GP about anything like this before. I am so tired & fed up of it & want to enjoy some of my kids' (& my own) life whilst they are very young still. One of my main reasons for having kids in the first place was to see if they could provide some scrap of pleasure for me, especially in later life. That sounds so disrespectful to them but is true unfortunately.