Getting over the thought that I could always be doing something more productive is the hard part, and it sucks away the enjoyment of things even when I try to do them. Ironically I get so overwhelmed by this constant anxious thinking that I just end up doomscrolling to clear my head and end up being less productive than ever. Less productive increases that guilt and the cycle continues.
This video really resonated with me after the first time I've watched it, but I needed few days to process it and connect the dots. If I didn't do the 2 years of the therapy, I would probably lack the skills to reflect on that video, so I think therapy helps even if most of the times it feels like it's doing nothing.
@@aidorukuzan1668 So what you're telling me is your doctors are providing you with your sense of happiness? 🤣🤣 This is so mentally complicated to understand
This explains why I lived life assuming I have an anxious attachment style (needing someone from the outside to tell me that I'm living my life the right way), but later realized I'm avoidant. I'm already independent, but just waiting for God or smth to tell me I'm living life right so I can relax and enjoy life.
As a therapist myself I've found that life long dysthymia seems to be highly correlated with childhood emotional neglect. One of the only ways to treat it, as cheezy as it sounds is to find the depression/alone/neglected child inside and work to give this ego-state a new attachment experience. He's right, most normal good therapy and self help and life connection doesn't touch much of chronic dysthymia.
@@d.k.1545 Research Internal Family System therapy. Neglect and abuse in childhood can be categorized as trauma and can lead to complex PTSD. So you can treat it the same way you treat other types of PTSD, by going back to the experience and taking the power away from it, there are many ways to do it but normal talk therapy like CBT while helpful usually fails to really dig deep enough into it to really do that. On the other hand, childhood neglects disconnects you from yourself and others around you, so I think the attachment in question is forming a bond with yourself or in other words learning to love yourself through understanding and grieving what happened to you. One method for doing this that I've done extensive research on for a friend of mine is IFS, but I'm not a therapist, just a friend who cares and has a hyperfixation on research so do your own research and take what I say with a grain of salt.
I feel like if anybody is self diagnosing I feel like dysthymia is a generally a harmless one. Besides, most psychs will only provide the unspecified MDD diagnosis and never actually look further into it
Yeah I didn't know shit about alexythimia and then dr alok started takling about it, and now I'm convinced I have at least a 90% chance of being alexythmic.
I'm 38 and was diagnosed with Dysthymia when I was in high school around age 16. I got married fairly young at 23 and over the years I felt like the Dysthymia was mitigated or eliminated. Earlier this year, my wife passed away and ever since then I've just had this feeling of being "off" and couldn't really put a finger on it beyond just general grief and depression. After watching this video it occurs to me that my Dysthymia may have never truly gone away but that my wife became the dominant other in my life. I've got so much reflection and learning to do. I want to learn more and try and improve my mental health. Videos like this give me hope that there's a way forward for me.
Can we just take a moment to give Dr.K some recognition. I think all of our lives would be worse without him. Thanks Dr.K so much, all the way from Britain.
I was diagnosed in my teens. Nothing really works, and nothing brings me joy, so after many, many years I stopped looking for happiness and instead started looking for comfort and contentment. I don't feel as miserable and can definitely cope much better, but there's still always an underlying depression. I can just live with it now. I don't get anything from achieving things, from going to concerts, from doing something new and "exciting". You put this all in words much better than I've ever been able to. Thank you for this.
I've found myself in a similar situation. For so often I wondered "What is happiness?" to the point that I've actually forgotten it, or at least, can't really describe it anymore. And so I've sort of moved on from that to trying to just not be miserable. Instead of trying to be "happy", I'm trying to be "okay". Essentially, it's a 'new normal' and... within that normal, I've been starting to figure out what I can do to make my life better.
I know I felt happiness as a kid, sometimes I wish I never had experienced those moments, perhaps the next 20 years would had been easier. My situation is highly abnormal. Also it sucks to not be able to be able to angry-blame someone. For example, my parents were golden hearted, just ... really REALLY stupid (at least with many things)
@@SebHaarfagre much the same for me. I know it was unintentional from my parents, but the damage happened. I'm 25 now and have only in the recent year felt at peace with myself and life. I avoid alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gambling etc because I know I'm easily addicted. (To the point where when I was a teen I was addicted to buying from vending machines, just because it gave me a semblance of joy for a few seconds.) I find my "happiness" in collecting things and learning facts now. I dedicate myself to things that I find satisfying to do, rather than expect a result from it. I like making things out of clay. I make things and don't care about the outcome bringing me joy, but rather just enjoy the process.
@@MatthewDurden seek a diagnosis! Dysthymia is a specific condition that needs to be diagnosed, and shouldn't be self diagnosed, as it has a different origin and chemical/hormonal appearance than your average depression. The treatment methods are VERY different, so it's important that a doctor diagnose it to make sure you're working towards improvement in the right manner!
I would highly appreciate a sequel video about dysthymia as I have never heard of the concept before, but now that I hear it being explained to me, it''s pretty obvious that this is what I've been dealing with for most of my life. I'm not going to write about my life story here but I will write about a personal experience that's been on my mind. I've noticed that whenever I'm terribly sick, there's some sense of comfort, serenity, and contentedness that is notably absent when I am healthy. I think it comes from the fact that you cannot be reasonably expected to work, study, or socialize while you are sick. Instead, the best thing to do is simply to rest and deal with your illness. So, not needing to worry about lofty expectations and accomplishments, I quickly learn to appreciate the simple act of living. Once the illness is gone, those expectations come back, and so the feeling disappears. In a way, it's unintentionally cruel to ourselves to deny our own happiness when we are capable, only allowing ourselves the privilege of internal self-esteem when we are powerless.
Yes, I had this same feeling when I suffered a back injury recently. At first, I still had this sense of guilt that I wasn’t able to work but then I started to feel relaxed because I knew that there was nobody I had to please for the next few days
Same here! I feel like I got to a point though were I would act so perfect all the time that no one would believe me when I was sick. Only with bad colds would I feel this way.
This is so relatable. When I was a kid, I used to pray that I'd get cancer so that I could just do nothing and not feel guilty about it. I didn't want to die. I just couldn't think of any other way to have an excuse to not be perfect all the time.
I think this is partially why I like winter. There's fewer expectations on social life. Everyone's mostly just cuddled up on the couch watching movies or whatever instead of being expected to be out doing "fun" activities. Also, since my baseline is depressed but not super depressed, I start to feel like maybe I'm a happy person in the winter because everyone else gets so down.
@@tiptapkey yesssss, I've been like this since my early teens, which coincides with the time I struggled to make close friends when I started secondary school
I think this is actually one of the worst things you can struggle with. Because it's so well hidden. It's very cathartic to hear my pain and experiences put into words from another person and hearing there's a path out.
I hope everyone here gets better. I was reminded of a time I came home from school (school was my safe place 😔), and my mom demanded out of me why I was smiling. I literally was not smiling, I simply had a relaxed expression. She was so insistent that I explain, which I had no explanation, except that I could not be happy at home, but could be happy at school. From that day forward, I would stretch my face into a frown before I came home so I wouldn't get interrogated again. There's much more, but that's one moment 😭
I was diagnosed with dysthymia when I was 17. I am now 22 and have overcome it. It took a lot of existential crisis, deconstruction, and pain but it’s not a life sentence and I LOVE my life now
i feel so very understood by this video. it makes me so glad. i always feel like im not allowed to be happy unless someone gives me the permission. if they are disappointed or dont like me then its my fault and i have to stay in guilt until they like me again or i made them happy again. i have everything in life that should make someone happy but it feels as plain and worthless as having absolutely nothing. i tried everything therapists told me to do but all those things are happening in a whole different sphere than my dysthymia. the dysthymia doesnt care what i do, everything is meaningless. even laughing is meaningless. thank you dr . k,
As an early diagnosed dyslexic, I may have used special education to get out of work. In truth, I was spending more time accomplishing the same tasks as others, which caused resentment. Forced to do homework at home, I refused to turn it in. I was alienated and isolated, not allowed to participate in activities like recess or class work. This led to self-loathing, as nothing was ever good enough. Today, I rely on others to help me find self-value. I don't know what depression is, but I do know what it means to depend on others for happiness. Your explanation resonated with me, and I thought I would share my personal reality.
I've never cried before to a simple video. but this... I never got the exact words or concepts to explain how I feel during almost all my life, but this video is the exact description. I've tried a lot of things and "therapy", but every time the result was the same "nah bro, you are just depressed, take this and be happy until next visit". Now all clicks together.
That would explain why after one and a half years of therapy, my highest priority in the review session was to reassure my therapist that they did a good job. And why, whenever I ry to do something for myself, a voice in my head says I'm only allowed to do it if it fixes me to a point where I can be of service for other people once again. Thanks for this video. I may finally have found a word that moves things in the right direction.
I was diagnosed with dysthmia and Dr. K is definitely spot on when it comes to my internal struggle. My past didn't fit his description, though (it is way more complicated, as humans tend to be), but the characterists are spot on. Especially people punishing you for living, the repressed thoughts, and how fixing your shit is like building a house. The part of therapy was also super accurate to my experience, which is why therapy was so ineffective until I threw my hands up and absolutely resolved talk about everything with zero filter. Before that I kinda was acting in a way that I thought I should rather than how I truly felt. This wasn't on purpose, though. It is just that my true self was buried through so much people pleasing repressed BS that it was hard to bring it out.
I never knew how hard it would be to actually say the words out loud to my primary care doctor. When she saw my written "depression screener" she said, "this looks a lot different than all the other times you've filled this out." Yeah cuz I've been lying about it my whole life. I'm fine. I'm good. Of course I'm excited. All lies with the intention of making other people feel neutral and stop asking me questions.
I stumbled on this video. I always thought I can’t be depressed because I function in life. Depressed people I’ve known can’t get out of bed or shower for days on end. But you described me 100%. I’m processing this. Funny though, I’ve actually come to the conclusion about how to treat this as you said at the end, and have been trying to do things that I want to do, not because it will please someone else while I don’t enjoy it at all. Thank you for explaining this. This helps a lot.
I can't imagine the guilt and self-hatred I'd feel if I stayed in bed or didn't shower. It would be worse than the depression. That's definitely one spot where we differ from people with normal depression. It just seems incomprehensible to me.
@@tiptapkey major depression that severe doesn't really leave any emotional bandwidth for anything else. From what I understand from friends who've been that bad and the rare instances I've gotten close myself, the frustration, guilt, disgust, and self-directed hate are pretty much all in there already but the despair is so damn loud that they're usually not enough to unstick the person and frequently the progressively more obvious their dysfunction is the stronger that gets, just one more painful thing adding to their emotional burden rather than an assisting push to act. Major depression almost works more like a migraine or something IMO; it's a debilitating source of pain that doesn't have an easily treatable source and is invisible outside the effect it has on the person going through it, it's just intense emotional pain rather than damage report feedback. Dysthymia is closer to having someone that follows you everywhere, reflexively shits on anything you enjoy while you're trying to enjoy it and provides the most cynical possible summary of past events.
@@mechalith2791 That's an amazingly accurate description of dysthymia for me, in what you wrote in that second paragraph. It's just been a part of me so I've just tried to cope with it being there while it attacks everything I do.
I used to believe that my disdain of life was basically part of my personnality and that there was nothing I could do about it. Learning about dysthymia was therefore quite the epiphany. Now the hardship is to understand what is the "true me" and what is the dysthymia. I'm unsure whether the root causes evoked in this video really correspond to what I've experienced, but on the other hand, the symptoms you described are right on target. Especially, it has helped me understand why my attemps at fixing myself through my activities were doomed to fail. In a way, it feels like I've been trying to just bruteforce my way through it, like if at some point my brain would simply say "ok mate, now you've actually achieved enough things so that I can stop telling you that you suck and that your life is without purpose." I hope I can someday recover, at least enough to be grateful of being alive.
There is no true you, that's not how mental disorder works. It's not this broken filter over a pure uncorrputed "real personality". That's just how your neurons are connected, it's as much a part of your personality as any of your other thoughts or emotions. Because of that, you're not going to be "discovering" a better you, you're going to be "creating" a better you. And you get to choose who that future you is.
The dysthymia is as much you as the cowlick in your hair or the mole on your cheek. It's literally the way you are. You can either fight it and constantly suffer for it, or you can accept it and cope. I choose to cope.
I think I was diagnosed as dysthymic at 19. I've realized that ADHD is upstream of most of those problems. I think it's worth refining, that its not always a "you could do better", but what gets noticed .My mom has worse ADHD than I do, and just didn't seem to notice anything I did. I just had to take care of my brothers and would hear about what I did wrong, and everything happening to everyone else. Ugh. Dr.K strikes again 😂
OMFG! I've seen about 50 psychiatrists and psychologists since age 11, and not ONE ever mentioned anything like Dysthymia. Every single psychiatrist went RIGHT to antidepressants, none of which ever worked, half of which caused bad reactions. Every single psychologist listened without ANY sense of comprehension. But since kindergarten, I have only derived pleasure from the friendship of my peers, especially female peers (I promise, nothing to do with my mom). To this day, I am only happy when I'm loved by a woman I love, which of course makes it all the more difficult to find that woman.
Have they mentioned Persistant Depressive Disorder? If so, they've mentioned dysthimia. Also, that last bit sounds so gay, no offense intended. I'm the same way.
After over a decade of searching, I finally was given an answer to what this feeling was. I cried 8 times just hearing my problems be given solutions. I'm crying even typing this. To finally be shown how to fix myself, given the many many many many different things I've tried, it makes me cry. Happily. Now that I can FINALLY start taking proper steps to break away.
I was *just* diagnosed with dysthymia (Persistent Depressive Disorder) TODAY. Dr. K, I humbly request that you tone down your mystical source code powers. They're becoming a bit overwhelming at this point. :P
You took your phone into the doctors office with you. It listened to everything you and your doctor talked about and then yt took that info and tried to promote content related to it, to you.
"Wait, so I basically am dependant on other people for my self-esteem and gratification? HOLY SHIT I MUST BE SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT TO THEM 😭" - Every dysthymic person after watching this video
Legggittttt. This video explains SO much why I constantly feel like I'm not enough for others, or to deserve compliments or good words about me. I play down every good aspect of myself, and emphasize all the bad parts.
It feels like you're describing my life exactly. I always did well in school, but my dad never acknowledged it. Instead, our relationship deteriorated because I wasn’t good at handling daily tasks at home. Now, at 28, I’m really struggling with where I am in life and feel lost about what to do next. Thank you, Dr. K, for sharing this wisdom.
This is my exact experience here. Exactly what you wrote. It has had a profound effect of just feeling like I'm living an unfulfilling life. This video was very relatable to me and I've just been told by professionals that I have mild depression and anxiety. Maybe this is a way for me to attack it with a completely different approach. Hope things get better for you. Life shouldn't feel like this.
I do have dysthymia like nothing I do for myself feels like an accomplishment and makes me feel like crap. The worst experience for me was I will only eat one meal for a month because of the stress. I am going through therapy trying to slowly getting out of this
This is really interesting. The underlying description and mechanics are me to a T, but the overbearing or needy parents doesn't quite match. It's a little more like I experienced a series of life events that told me what brought me joy wasn't actually good, that my judgement was wrong, and that joy would always get snatched away. Just a series of painful events. I was just talking with my therapist about how I feel like all my memories end up sad, even if I had fun for a while, they get colored by negative feelings eventually.
@@piquantement Oh wow, that last sentence truly describes my experience as well. Even if I do said “fun activities” objectively, I always “feel sad” or negative. It’s like everything is black and white and there’s just no colour to anything in my life. I could be on vacation on a beach and it’s “supposed” to be a happy time but it never is, I just can’t feel joy from anything, or it’s like when I look back on it it was sad or meh.
this really reminds me of when I was going for the IELTS Test (they grade how well your english is as a foreigner) and the last task was to answer a question, where you had to talk freely for a bit. The lady asked me, "tell me about the last time you felt happy".. i made sth up about going to a christmas market that evoked some happy childhood memories.. yeah.. a lot of stuttering.. i was contemplating to just tell the truth and say i don't remember the last time i felt happy, but there is this voice that i also recognize from this video, telling me that i absolutely can't mess up the task. fun times.
I’ve never heard of the term dysthymia before but this video did make me realize I genuinely can’t comprehend the concept of happiness not being circumstantially or externally dependant. Will have to look more into this!
I feel like that was my problem when I did HG coaching; I’m great at staying true to what I said I would or trying to “impress” others when they’re there, but when it’s just me I completely let off. I’m not sure how much this plays into dysthymia or more just people pleasing and having no sense of direction.
@@illumistrationThat's very interesting. I feel like I have a similar experience of life. Whenever I'm with other people, everything inside me seems to function like clockwork; I just go with the flow and, just like you, I do my best to do what is expected of me (unless I feel like it's too much). Now, if I'm alone, I pretty much turn into someone else and every step I take needs to be calculated, lest I fall into the proverbial chasm.
@@kveller555 YES, I feel the same way, the way I describe it to my friends is that when I'm in a social situation, I'm a functioning human, but if I'm left to my own devices, I basically get forcibly shoved into power save mode. I've become desperate to be put into social situations because that's the only time I feel alive, which forseeably just ended up making people feel crowded and alienating me, which has really been sending me into a downwards spiral that it's been incredibly difficult to pull out from.
More videos on this topic please!! Nobody has ever explained this to me and it all suddenly starts to make sense. Maybe you can give us some more examples, I now understand that nothing can “make” me happy but how am I gonna be happy then?😂 the things that I do don’t make me happy and everything I used to like just feels like a waste of time bc I can’t share it with anybody. It’s exactly like you described… it’s almost as if my life didn’t matter on its own, it only matters in relation to other people. I constantly suffer bc I live alone, the people I like live far away and I don’t feel like spending time with people that I don’t “vibe” with… if I could just become more independent (emotionally), a weight would be lifted off my chest. I understand that nothing can make me happy, I just don’t understand how to feel that joy inside me lol most things just aren’t fun to me anymore.
@@liloliu5713 same, but i try to think that having a good time on earth is the real purpose to life, not bEinG pRoDUctIVE as society wants you to. So im terribly failing at the purpose of life
i disassociate and then seek inspiration, it sometimes takes me months but eventually i'll do something cool, and ride that out for a few months, i'm really glad i have low standards or i would still be in the pit of my depression and existential crisis.
Timely. My MDD diagnosis has been reinterpreted as Dysthymia by my new therapist(or most likely, both, actually), which makes a whole lot more sense because I've been like this for about as long as I can remember.
Not to tell you your own brain, but as someone who has both diagnoses: it might be worthwhile to consider whether it is more along the lines of 'dysthymia complicated by recurring major depression', if you feel like dysthymia doesn't quite match up with your lived experience. (If you feel like it does match up then that's awesome you've got a solid diagnosis, feel free to ignore me.) I'm dysthymic but every once in a while, usually if I'm more stressed and tired over a long period than usual, something particularly upsetting will send me into a fast and ugly downward spiral that can last for days and is a real bastard to fend off once it gets going. Treatment is mostly the same, but it does mean that I have to keep an eye on myself and try to catch it if things start circling the metaphorical drain.
The text Dr. K references here is filled with absolute bangers. When the pages come up you should absolutely pause and read the whole thing. "I found the individuals of this type that I have treated to have been profoundly angry at their parents and, later, to have transferred this anger to all authority figures. Much of their behavior can be understood as an oppositional yet self-defeating vendetta against alleged (and often real) injustices inflicted on them in childhood." Which, now that I think about it, is a good explanation for what he says in the preceding paragraph: "Such individuals appear closer to schizophrenia or psychopathy than to depression." A somewhat logical conclusion to internalizing the belief that authority figures can't be trusted and are out to get you.
Bemporad J. Psychotherapy of the depressive character. J Am Acad Psychoanal. 1976 Jul;4(3):347-72. doi: 10.1521/jaap.1.1976.4.3.347. PMID: 1025075. I found a copy on sci-hub
Most of this doesn't track for me personally. Like, my parents have never been abusive or demanding and there has never been any guilt. It's just that even as a child, I didn't get anything out of activities other people found fun, and didn't get satisfaction from my achievements, even when my parents were proud of them. There's no dominant other, to me it doesn't matter to me that I have good reputation among my colleagues, or that my parents are proud that I have a well paid job. I just do the job because I need the money, any accomplishments or acknowledgement I get in the process are worthless to me.
Thank you so much for making this video and thank you God for guiding me to this video. I am 32 and have felt this way since middle or high school and apparently been building up since I was a kid. I literally started crying because I finally found the reason why I have always felt different in a way regarding depression and have felt numb and barely ever able to achieve true happiness. Even though I am making good money and just bought a house this year, I just still dont feel like I am as happy as I should be. This video will have started the new chapter of my life to where I can get my happiness back. Thank you so much Dr. K... seriously.
This is more of a self-diagnosis but I think I have dysthymia (with episodic) Major Depressive Disorder) because it honestly explains my symptoms most of the time. I was raised in an abusive and toxic household where I was taught that its not okay for me to have my own happiness so my whole being and happiness and survival depended on making my caregivers and other people in my life happy. My dad wasn't much of a father as he was around but he didn't really act like a parent. My mom was narcissistic and highly anxious so when she passed away, I basically lost my purpose for living. Even 5 years later today, I don't know what to do with my life. I clearly notice that I do way too much for my family, even to this day. So, they treat me as if I have all the free time in the world and have no autonomy, basically making decisions for me. And at work, its a super toxic environment where I'm expected follow marching orders and am not allowed to practice autonomy in my decision-making. A part of me wants to break off from my current life and go live somewhere else independently but there's a lot of fear with that.
Sounds rough man. Like Dr. K said, those who benefit from it will try to punish you, try and imagine what your life could look like if you pull through though. I imagine it will bring quite a bit more peace (and confusion because now that other people aren't a forced priority anymore, what do you do? Build your life I suppose). Hang in there and try to move forward *if you can* without being too rash about it, that's what I hope for you anyway. :)
Generational trauma will feed this. If your parent is sick and they cry when you go out to have fun, they probably feel guilty themselves. Sure some parents will intentionally manipulate your feelings. But if they also have dysthymia, they also probably only ever got happiness from external sources. If they can't make you happy and you have to go somewhere else they might feel guilty and like a burden. Even if they think they are hiding it, your dysthymia will notice and you will also be unhappy and stay to try and make them happy. That's why it hurts so much on both sides when you chase independence
Thank you. I've known for decades I have dysthymia, but at the time my therapists thought of it as low-level, constant depression that I had to learn to live with. This explanation has completely changed my views. For me the "dominant other" has been school then my jobs and, for a time, the Church. I now better understand why it's more pleasurable to do my job than do things that aren't related to my work.
I've struggled with dysthymia for years - but I never knew the link with dependence on others. This just explained a whole lot for me. I'm a very avoidant person but I also depend on others, and I can't enjoy my life alone. I grew up with my parents always in control (too much control), but it gave me comfort. When I became an adult, I didn't have anyone to dictate my life, so my depression reached the worst it's ever been. And the "It's not always a person" part - I went from a laid-back job, where I had no purpose left in life. To a new job with tons of pressure - and it's actually improved my wellbeing a lot. I just need direction from something outside. This makes so much sense now.
Same, same. Got the diagnosis back when I was 18, and I've semi-recently gotten the avoidant personality disorder diagnosis as well. Yet I currently do work that genuinely makes me feel good and better, and it's improved both sides.
@sebben13 People get it wrong, of course someone can bring happiness and joy into your life. The issue arises when you neglect your own life and stop growing / improving.
You dont love when you need someone, you just become dependant, which falls into the exact problems described in this video. I used to expect my partner to fix me and every time I found that savior, the relationship was doomed and turned to shit. Once I hit rock bottom after a break up, I realized that the only constant and the only person who can actually fix me is ME. That was such a rough and long process. Breakup and Relationship have always forced me down to my knees, but now I can build a life, that doesnt have to be about a significant other. Best thing about it is: Once I realized this and kept going for myself, I apparently became more attractive to women since determination is something that most women respect in a man. What can I say, I am going to be married soon. Something I was always chasing. In the end tho, once I gave up the chase, it came all by itself. Much love to you, I hope you will be okay.
It's not about being happy TO BE alone, just that you are generally content and happy with your life and yourself regardless of no one else being around. Think about it like this, if you aren't happy with yourself or your life without another person, that means that youre looking for someone who's going to be attracted to someone who isn't happy. Whoever this person is, is going to have to be attracted to an unhappy person which in this case would be you. And how would you feel knowing that they know they are the source of YOUR happiness? No one wants that kind of pressure and it eventually makes them grow to resent you for putting that responsibility on them.
@@MossMan4288 True, but it's not like I appear unhappy. I guess it would be more precise to say that I struggle with being motivated to do things for my own sake, but I have motivation to do things for others. I've always felt like this, and doing things for other people seem to be my only way of feeling motivated. I guess it's just like he says in the video, but I had no idea it was linked to my depression.
Almost 5 decades since first being diagnosed with this condition. This is the best explanation I have heard so about causes and possible solutions. Thank you.
Holy shit. I clicked on this not expecting anything relatable and well... Holy shit. There was always something a bit off with my attitude towards life, but it was so subtle I could not put my finger on it. Terrifyingly accurate.
im 20yo and the past year I went through a therapy process where I finally realized that happiness was never about external things, nothing in my life changed actually, I only changed my perspective, worked on myself, worked on self-knowledge and that eventually made me find happiness discovering my identity and what actually is important to me, finally that led to fundamental changes in my daily life, relationships, habits, hobbies, dreams, emotional management, acceptance, and what is most important to me, I learned how to enjoy my own company, and found joy on the little and simple things in life.
I'm a small business owner, managing a nonstop stream of government, employee, and customer demands -- on every dimension, failure jeopardizes my livelihood and my ability to support myself. Nothing explained what was breaking in me until I found this channel. Thank you.
Dysthymia is indeed a tough nut to crack, and as someone who has cracked it quite a bit in her own life, I have to say to anyone reading who experiences it, the work is well worth it. It can takes years or a lifetime, but when you do, your ability to enjoy life is all that much richer for having overcome it because not only will it be colored with satisfaction, but also immense gratitude that *you* feel toward *yourself* for what *you* did to save *your* life.
I've been dysthymic for over a decade. What I got for this video is that I need to live for myself (whatever that means) and if people punish me for it, that means I'm on the right track. More punish = more good.
Sounds like you're still attributing your happiness to an outside source, in this case the reception of punishment for others becomes your 'dominant other'
@@390vaibhav i said nothing about being happy or attributing my happiness to anything. I just said, I'm doing what I should be doing if others are pissed off
@@DaanSnqn I honestly think while this might be an indicator, this doesn't have to be true for everyone. It really depends on your social circle. You could for example try to exlplain the why to your changed behaviour and if they're decent people they will probably not be pissed. The point is to be able to be real with oneself about wether or not one is actually ok with what he is doing. Is it something I really want to do/experience or is the only reason I do this the pursuit of making someone else happy, in order for me to feel accepted,good enough or worthy. Hope this make some Sense to you.
@@jsqueeks Probably get worse few times, I know there some people on internet say they don't recommend to take medicines. They say they take Fluoxetine meds and their mind get imbalance. But I am not sure why they choose to get addicted to smoking to help them.
Can i say it? Finally. Dysthymia is a particularly hard to find subject to be talked about, despite being one of the possible side-disorders associated with the autistic spectrum, so it's nice to finally see a video about it.
@@Profinoob1337 it doesn't fall under the autistic spectrum itself but i've been told autistic spectrum when diagnosed is often accompanied by a/some extra mental disorders et similia, with dhystimia being what i got. as for "anything that helps"... i got given meds which *did* work, but the sideeffects were too strong and not worth the candle, overall i didn't really find a solution to the issues that it creates, but i am working on personal projects of self-improvement by helping out a friend with similar-but far lighter- issues, it's... not ideal as we end up being co-dependant, but at least we get things done. until i figure out how to do things for just my own sake, keeping in mind short term goals that i really value(i.e. getting money to make a trip to meet a friend) that i can easily renew once i reached them is probably the best course i can take, but it's also a risky one as if i don't manage to find one such goal again, i'm just gonna fall back into habits of not doing anything due to not finding true enjoyment in anything. i hope unlike me you'll be able to find a better solution.
Bro, I was just looking up and learning about dysthymia yesterday while doomscrolling in the midst of a mental health crisis. I don’t fully know yet how well dysthymia applies to me, but this will definitely help me understand what it is. Thanks for this, Dr. K.
SO very accurate, pretty much all of it. Was diagnosed in college, but had it my entire life. Also am AUDHD. A lot overlap and nuances make this all very challenging to detangle and deal with.
I have something like this. The entirety of my existence revolved around my mom for 20 years. I still live with her, and every movement I make to try to get away from her and become healthy and content with myself is punished. I need to get away from her, therapists, friends, and family have told me this over and over again, but I see no way out. I need help.
@@theharbinger3063 you need to do it yourself :) you mention your friends, therapists etc, and then you mention you need help. Everyone tells you to leave, go live your life, well do so:) only help you need is from yourself, letting yourself do this and be free! Been there myself with my mom at your age, you can do it!
same. now i am getting married and will stay with parents still. don't know why i couldn't muster the courage to find myself outside the comfort of my home. maybe because it's common for indians to live with their parents.
But it is also a good sign people are interested in the topic. Same problem is endometriosis, it is kicking me out of normal life every month. So many people don't know about and thought I was lazy or played my woman card for more freetime, but when they find out what it does to me I got a lot more understanding.
i used to be like this. up until i was 28. if you're wondering how to overcome it, my solution is the same as how to overcome fomo. you fear of missing out? just miss out on purpose. you fear of disappointing other people? you guessed it. im not saying just be evil, im saying just relax. we are all human. we make mistakes, we grow, and we live, and we die. there is not a single destiny that will not come to fruition. just do good, as much as you can because you doing good has a higher chance of good destiny, but nothing is guaranteed. hope God have mercy on you.. truly
That's actually a great viewpoint! I was really anxious at school because I didn't want to fail and was one of the top students. That life is very stressful though and thinking about every little point is exhausting. Welp guess what, bc I was so good I could strategically get 0 points on tests and still pass with the previous one, so then was like idgaf and for most of the year I simply relaxed to just barely pass and built other speaking skills. Guess what? The speaking skills helped me more out than the .1 better grade I would've had, but with depression and anxiety 😂
Its that "as much as you can" part that screws me over endlessly. I rarely feel like Ive hit my limit, as much as I can is still so far away that I shouldve been better
Cyclothymia next please :) It's unknown, even by professional psychiologists. They usually ask for signs of mania or hypomania, but the lighter version of bipolar, cyclothymia, is forgotten. It does however, do a lot of damage due to the fast mood swings and depressed feelings.
Ive never discussed this dominant person concept at all as possibly part of my problems w a therapist or psychiatrist, but I quite literally tell my parents about fun stuff on the horizon LITERALLY to get the green light externally to tell me its okay to go do fun stuff now
Omigosh I think this is my ex. He said he couldn’t even remember a time when he didn’t feel like did, he first remembered this unhappiness around 5 years old. He used recreational drugs a lot to try and create happiness, and needed to socialise a lot to stop himself sinking into depressive episodes, even if his friends were doing things he wasn’t really into. He did hours of counselling, which only seemed to help while he was doing the counselling, and it seemed like he got addicted to it to me.
When I meet new people and let them know about my constant depression, some of them love to make suggestions on how to get out of that 'rut'. I get looks like I'm an alien when I tell them I've tried all of their suggestions and let them know the depth to which I've gone to treat myself which usually go deeper than what they suggest. I feel like I've become an expert on this subject but it always feels like I'm constantly crawling up a sand pit that doesn't have a top. Ketamine is the single best treatment I've found that helps with it but it has a half-life and treatment is expensive. Maybe someday I'll be free of it fully. One can only hope.
My parents never told me they were proud of me, not with good grades, not when I became champion in the sport I was doing, never. But whenever I did something I wasn't as good in, they would be disappointed. I got diagnosed with dysthymia at 16, and at 23 now I still struggle with it. The 'dominant other' is the only thing that changes. Parent, social worker, therapist, s/o. I didn't realise I was still doing this pattern, and I feel guilty over making the other so important for my happiness. I will try to follow the steps at the end of the video, but I already know it will be difficult
Thank you so much Dr. K! I’ve been going through a slow, 5 year-long journey, and this is one of the many puzzle pieces (let's just say I filled out most of the boxes on the *mental illness bingo cards*™️) that I (and sadly for them, my parents as well🤣) had to discover alongside both my Psychiatrist and Therapist. So it really warms my heart to see you share this life-changing information (which I have been searching for quite some time) with us. So, as one of your indirect patients, I thank you for all the time and energy you spend on us! May the blessing that you are to us be returned to you a thousandfold.❤️✨
I watching this video and going "I _think_ I have Dysthymia" for a while. Watching/listening to this video over the course of a few days, the specific example of someone's parents revoking their kid's access to LEGO didn't just hit close to home, it launched a nuclear warhead with such pinpoint position the tip managed to perfectly align with the corner of my desk down to the atom. Now that I know what I'm gonna need to work on, I'm just gonna have to do it. Work on myself until the glorious day I can say that I did something for me and feel proud _of _*_myself_* for it. Thank you so much!
I think this is the first Dr. K video that really felt like he was talking about me. I have struggled with Depression, schizoaffective, and PTSD for a long time. mostly the depression in early life, the others with the last decade. The description of the never satisfied parent where nothing you ever do is good enough is 100% how my father was. And I've always felt like no one takes me seriously with my issues because I made good money, I was very capable, but I do everything for other people. I still remember climbing up the top of my local volcano because my father wanted me to, beat him to the top, getting up there and looking down at the clouds, with the blistering wind standing on a glacier. And my only thought was, why the hell does anyone do this? I just want to go home.
This is describing how I feel in relationships. I derive waaaay too much of my well-being from my parter. I am in therapy for over a year now, for multiple reasons but I cant get over this... I don't know how to fix this :(
I was diagnosed at 18, I am 32 now. I've seen strides but a lot of these points still ring true. I have moved more towards intense anhedonia and purposelessness from an intense drive on a specific thing bringing me external fulfillment.
Dude. I got so much hate at work when I went from being the person that my peers would send all the upset customers to because I wouldn’t say no to the person who was like: “I’m not a manager, that’s not my job, call a manager” This process really builds up a persons ability to set boundaries. Set them and enforce them too. By the time that I left that job no one f-ed with me.
I was hit with this diagnosis like 10 years ago. I'm 27 now. And lemme tell folks, it just kinda makes every task a massive chore. Getting up in the morning? Horrid. Making food? Eh I'd rather sit here and stare at a wall. Going to work? Holy fuck I crave nonexistence. Grocery shopping? An aneurysm sounds more fun.
It's almost as if Dr. K and I met with how scarily spot on he is about feeling guilty after doing something fun... Even when I've managed to find a rare find at a bookstore or enjoy/share some good food, the fulfillment fades as soon as I am alone heading my way back home
I remember listening it somewhere that if cause of anything bad happened to you in ur life is ur parents then same applies for anything good... therefore seems like accept it is what it is ...life ! Fuck it lets just do our best 😅
The cause may be out of your hands, but the responsibility of yourself is completely and fully yours. The path toward accountability, authenticity, and emotional independence is worth seeking to have a fuller life.
Is this why even as a 30 year old grown man, I constantly ask my wife 20x if she likes whatever home improvement I've done? If she doesn't literally jump for joy, I tear apart my work in 30 seconds and nitpick myself to death. I only feel happiness when I smoke myself stupid and forget that I'm a real person. Then the anxiety and guilt kicks in 20 minutes later. 😂
Im 38 y/o, and diagonosed with dysthymia (in my country called as 'dysthymic mooddisorder'"). This was even harder confirmed when I asked about how my father and grandfather were: loners, often times not happy. When mentioned to the professionals that my life seemingly lost color just after I was 16 years old, also was a tell for them. I honestly felt I never lived. I hate that I never was able to and I hate that is just didn't end it myself sooner, when I knew I wanted to. I've been taking antidepressants for over 5 years now, and I don't feel like it makes a difference. Making friends seem impossible. It seems like people don't talk to me, and I always have to break the ice... My career is also just over, as no one wants to work with a silent, somber guy. Thank you for the video. I will def give it a watch, but I honestly feel like it is over for me.
Depression has always been weird for me. I grew up quite isolated due to homeschooling, and while I assume that at some point as a kid I wasn't depressed, I actually don't know when I did become depressed. I think for me a lot of it ties back to puberty (I'm trans, so that was definitely a big part of it) but I don't remember anything that clearly. It may have also been because of being undiagnosed and just coping with ADHD and autism, and when I did finally get diagnosed with them, I accidentally also picked up anxiety and depression diagnoses. That was so weird because I had just figured that was what everyone experienced, and then I go to a psychologist and get told that not everyone has these experiences. At first that made it way worse tbh because I couldn't just ignore it and bottle my feelings away but I'm doing better now because I actually can work on things... But because I didn't even realize it was a problem, I don't know when it started. All I know is that it was years and years before, long enough to feel like my normal. blech
Ugh damn it. I see myself in a Dr. K. video again. UGHHHH ok stay positive, it's good to be aware of the problem so I can continue to fix it 😅 But man. It was almost painful listening to this. It pretty much described every single day of my life since I was a kid.
Thank you Dr. K this is something I needed to hear (*instantly shifts into thinking about getting approval from Dr K and then tries to remember that is not how it should be, so worries about getting approval about who reads this and still posts because I CAN - with some discomfort about standing up for myself of course. Who knows if I still worry about approval?)
Eventually, you'll end up using an idealized yourself as your dominant other and become a negative feedback loop machine of trying to improve yourself just for the sake of it and not feeling any satisfaction from it.
I still don’t know if what I feel is dysthymia, but it’s this feeling of loss and despondency as I notice my once-interests fading away. I feel like I am missing that internal motivator, like… the “meaning” of the action is fading or missing
All I know is that when I'm numb, I can deal with that constant dull ache, if I don't repeat my mantra of "I don't feel" it's just unbearable. Frankly every hour I can manage to only say "I want to die" in my head less than three times is a win.
@@involuntaryanalysis I didn't say it was a beautiful thing. I said beautifully put. Which I thought was self evident in it's meaning. I just meant you summed up an abstract thing quite well, you worded the feeling in a comprehensible way
i had emotionally neglective parents and no matter what i did no one was proud of me. so i was never proud either, and thought that anything good in my life had to be a mistake since i didn't deserve good things... i relate to all the personality traits you bring up, but not how they formed.
Well at age 45 after a lifetime of ineffective or downright deleterious treatments for chronic depression, I come across a descriptor that details my experience perfectly. So much so, that I had explicitly figured out a version of the dominant other for myself, just no clue what to do about it. Would have been nice if one of the countless shrinks I've seen would have mentioned this word. I feel like half my life never even happened.
Thanks for the deep insight! The condition is definitly not hopeless!How should we reconcile this with the lemon-squeezing analogy, when there is (should there be) a feeling of guilt when doing sonething dopaminergic in the morning? Hope you can shed more light on this. Thank you.
This is me to my core. My mom was chronically ill, had BPD (I'm almost certain, but it was untreated), and never thought anything I did was good enough, with a twist of being mean and dragging me down when I did well or was happy. I could get straight A's for the first time and she'd say, "If you can do it now, why haven't you been doing it the whole time? You've clearly just been lazy." I could be excited about a new hobby, and she'd call it a waste of time. Hell, I had to read in secret a lot because sometimes she'd get pissed if I simply showed more interest in something above her. The guilt trips were constant because she could always "be dead soon," then she'd cry for a week. It was an impossible situation.
@@BOSSDONMAN unstable moods, fear of abandonment, manipulation to keep me close and focused on her, inappropriate anger--usually biting critical sarcasm, mild narcissistic traits, going from seeing me as her perfect angel one minute to a useless disappointment the next
My main problem is I don't enjoy doing anything in my free time because my free time typically ends up just being a small waiting period between my next life task. I play video games now literally just to pass the time, I do not enjoy them anymore. I tried working out instead, don't enjoy that either. Tried hiking, the nature of beauty becomes dull when life is bleak. I can't stay focused for long enough to read books anymore. Everything feels like a dead end.
i enjoy nothing anymore. The weekends do not feel good and I do not look foward to them. Yet I also am not fond of my job. So more than 45 hours a week i am constantly stressed and feeling shit.
But if a dysthymic person tends to do dopamine intense activities and now he sould do activities that are enjoyable, isn´t he just doing those dopamine intense activities again instead of really wanting something for himself that does something good to him? I guess there is a major difference in those activities
This is the video and knowledge I've spent years searching for. I can't believe it just found me and fell on my lap. I've heard you have to "name it to tame it" but never had a name/term for what's going on. Now it's time to put your knowledge to good use- and put in the rest of the work myself. Thank you again
Anyone else mainly suffer dysthymia when in a relationship? When I'm single/independent, I can find the happiness within. I find joy in life and the little things. Being in a relationship though is a constant battle with depression and it's because I feel like I can't be in control of my own happiness. The second I feel happy/joy... someone else's emotions, needs, etc are killing it. I know this is because I was trained for misery and compliance as a kid. I've worked through a lot of those issues, but I just can't seem to create a boundary for joy.
I have similar experience, I thought it was because when I'm by myself I can be sad and dissatisfied by myself and I don't feel the pressure to be jolly and excited about life. But in a relationship seeing, how normal people feel day to day makes me feel miserable. But idk man
I've also noticed that in certain moments, my SO intentionally quashes my joy. So, I've learned to keep any happiness I might feel away from him. It has made for a painful life. Just be careful that the people you are in relationship with aren't undermining you when you're in a good mood. In other words, it might not be a you problem. It might be their behavior toward your "up" mood and your instinct is to quash your own joy before they say something shitty to you.
If you can change that behavior by calling it out right when it start then stay, if not, get out of that relationship. If it actually makes you sad you don’t need that.
I'm not sure that's dhystymia, because if it was, you'd be deriving happiness from complying to the other's needs. What it is? I dunno, but it sounds if anything like the opposite of dhystymia, with the only correlation beibh the sense of guilt.
Something that might be worth asking yourself is whether part of the problem is the people you're in a relationship with. Having a history of abuse tends to skew what people think is healthy/normal even when they're trying to compensate for their own biases. Maybe more to the point though, it sounds like you've got a decent handle on what it is that is posing a problem for you and what the source likely was; it'd probably be a good idea to talk to a therapist about it if you aren't already and see if they can find a good way for you to build a mental framework that is better for prioritizing your own needs and happiness.
Oh, I think that's what I've developed over the past 4 years ever since I lost my sense of smell from Covid-19. Now it all makes sense, because I'm conditioned to only receive partial pleasure/joy from food...😢
Never formally got diagnosed with dysthymia but it sums up most of my struggles. Been working on this for a while and I can say: you CAN become happy and content again, you can chill out in peace again, something that really helped me is to uncover your values and purpose, when you do things that you care about you can enjoy them and be proud that you did them It was also huge to acknowledge your suffering with compassion as much as you actively acknowledge your good deeds It also helps to get in tune with what is it that you actually want and need in life, make time to fulfill those wants and needs, for your own sake, not to get happiness, you'll be surprised of what you may feel I still struggle to be in relationships without trying to get happiness from a partner but I'm hopeful for y'all, never give up on yourselves, there is a way to a better life.
It's like he read my mind. Been so out of it lately. I've been through so much and even though I'm in a place I've dreamed of being for years and years I'm still so empty and struggle being in a great mood all the time or finding the purpose in things. My brain constantly seems to want to know why about alot of things. And this sends me into a loop hole. And not having good real authentic people to talk to is the toughest part. Making friends is literally harder than getting into a relationship and that's sad.
As somebody suffering from dysthymia for the past +12(!) years, I am extremely grateful for Dr. K to finally talk about this topic. Antidepressants didn't help. Therapy seems to have little effect. Every day is a struggle to feel anything all. Hobbies don't bring joy. Relationships are strained and dating is hell, as you have a hard time feeling anything for anyone. To anybody else suffering from this, stay strong and I hope you manage to get out of it.
Getting over the thought that I could always be doing something more productive is the hard part, and it sucks away the enjoyment of things even when I try to do them. Ironically I get so overwhelmed by this constant anxious thinking that I just end up doomscrolling to clear my head and end up being less productive than ever. Less productive increases that guilt and the cycle continues.
literally me
@@PepsiMaxVanillame too..
YEP. It sucks so much, doesn't it?
Amen
Wow you... literally described my entire adult life.
feels good that a 35 minute long video has done more for me than 4 years of therapy
FR. makes me want to show this video to all my doctors as an “aha” moment
This is why I never bothered doing it
This video really resonated with me after the first time I've watched it, but I needed few days to process it and connect the dots. If I didn't do the 2 years of the therapy, I would probably lack the skills to reflect on that video, so I think therapy helps even if most of the times it feels like it's doing nothing.
@@aidorukuzan1668 So what you're telling me is your doctors are providing you with your sense of happiness? 🤣🤣 This is so mentally complicated to understand
I know this feeling sadly but also you likely would not have absorbed this video the way you have without the therapy
This explains why I lived life assuming I have an anxious attachment style (needing someone from the outside to tell me that I'm living my life the right way), but later realized I'm avoidant. I'm already independent, but just waiting for God or smth to tell me I'm living life right so I can relax and enjoy life.
there is no wrong way to live life, you're here to invent the right way for you.
-God
@@rongike ahahahahhaha
@@bubidubi3149 sup bro. I'm not God but I sure am SMTH!
You're doing just fine!
I don't even know how to begin to thank him/HG. He's really helped me change my life and how I feel. Edit: whoops wrong comment.... oh well
@@rongike So this is one those "mysterious ways" I keep hearing about, huh?
As a therapist myself I've found that life long dysthymia seems to be highly correlated with childhood emotional neglect. One of the only ways to treat it, as cheezy as it sounds is to find the depression/alone/neglected child inside and work to give this ego-state a new attachment experience. He's right, most normal good therapy and self help and life connection doesn't touch much of chronic dysthymia.
@@Shibby27ify and how would one do such a thing?
@@d.k.1545 I'm wondering too
what do you mean with attachment experience?
@@ChillnLearn-pm4yn I guess, to attach but have the pleasure come from yourself? To "train" to separate some things, I guess
@@d.k.1545 Research Internal Family System therapy. Neglect and abuse in childhood can be categorized as trauma and can lead to complex PTSD. So you can treat it the same way you treat other types of PTSD, by going back to the experience and taking the power away from it, there are many ways to do it but normal talk therapy like CBT while helpful usually fails to really dig deep enough into it to really do that. On the other hand, childhood neglects disconnects you from yourself and others around you, so I think the attachment in question is forming a bond with yourself or in other words learning to love yourself through understanding and grieving what happened to you. One method for doing this that I've done extensive research on for a friend of mine is IFS, but I'm not a therapist, just a friend who cares and has a hyperfixation on research so do your own research and take what I say with a grain of salt.
babe wake up new self-diagnosis term just dropped
@@eebbaa5560 right lol
I feel like if anybody is self diagnosing I feel like dysthymia is a generally a harmless one. Besides, most psychs will only provide the unspecified MDD diagnosis and never actually look further into it
🤣🤣
Yeah I didn't know shit about alexythimia and then dr alok started takling about it, and now I'm convinced I have at least a 90% chance of being alexythmic.
This isn't new, at all. Knew about this when I was like 14
I'm 38 and was diagnosed with Dysthymia when I was in high school around age 16. I got married fairly young at 23 and over the years I felt like the Dysthymia was mitigated or eliminated. Earlier this year, my wife passed away and ever since then I've just had this feeling of being "off" and couldn't really put a finger on it beyond just general grief and depression. After watching this video it occurs to me that my Dysthymia may have never truly gone away but that my wife became the dominant other in my life. I've got so much reflection and learning to do. I want to learn more and try and improve my mental health. Videos like this give me hope that there's a way forward for me.
She's watchin. Make her proud brother.
@@Yamaazaka dont make him make his wifes ghost the dominant other bruh 😭
@@Raian85 your tears are like poison.
@@heuvelke1065 thanks
@@Yamaazaka No, wait, that’s the trap!
Can we just take a moment to give Dr.K some recognition. I think all of our lives would be worse without him. Thanks Dr.K so much, all the way from Britain.
... and Australia
... And Philippines 🇵🇭
India ❤
Poland ❤🎉
„All the way from Britain“ is such a funny statement
I was diagnosed in my teens. Nothing really works, and nothing brings me joy, so after many, many years I stopped looking for happiness and instead started looking for comfort and contentment. I don't feel as miserable and can definitely cope much better, but there's still always an underlying depression. I can just live with it now. I don't get anything from achieving things, from going to concerts, from doing something new and "exciting".
You put this all in words much better than I've ever been able to. Thank you for this.
I've found myself in a similar situation. For so often I wondered "What is happiness?" to the point that I've actually forgotten it, or at least, can't really describe it anymore. And so I've sort of moved on from that to trying to just not be miserable. Instead of trying to be "happy", I'm trying to be "okay". Essentially, it's a 'new normal' and... within that normal, I've been starting to figure out what I can do to make my life better.
I know I felt happiness as a kid, sometimes I wish I never had experienced those moments, perhaps the next 20 years would had been easier.
My situation is highly abnormal.
Also it sucks to not be able to be able to angry-blame someone. For example, my parents were golden hearted, just ... really REALLY stupid (at least with many things)
@@SebHaarfagre much the same for me. I know it was unintentional from my parents, but the damage happened. I'm 25 now and have only in the recent year felt at peace with myself and life. I avoid alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gambling etc because I know I'm easily addicted. (To the point where when I was a teen I was addicted to buying from vending machines, just because it gave me a semblance of joy for a few seconds.)
I find my "happiness" in collecting things and learning facts now. I dedicate myself to things that I find satisfying to do, rather than expect a result from it. I like making things out of clay. I make things and don't care about the outcome bringing me joy, but rather just enjoy the process.
I didnt even know there was a word for this, but this is me to a fucking T. I am in one mood and it is generally content or depressed.
@@MatthewDurden seek a diagnosis! Dysthymia is a specific condition that needs to be diagnosed, and shouldn't be self diagnosed, as it has a different origin and chemical/hormonal appearance than your average depression. The treatment methods are VERY different, so it's important that a doctor diagnose it to make sure you're working towards improvement in the right manner!
I would highly appreciate a sequel video about dysthymia as I have never heard of the concept before, but now that I hear it being explained to me, it''s pretty obvious that this is what I've been dealing with for most of my life. I'm not going to write about my life story here but I will write about a personal experience that's been on my mind.
I've noticed that whenever I'm terribly sick, there's some sense of comfort, serenity, and contentedness that is notably absent when I am healthy. I think it comes from the fact that you cannot be reasonably expected to work, study, or socialize while you are sick. Instead, the best thing to do is simply to rest and deal with your illness. So, not needing to worry about lofty expectations and accomplishments, I quickly learn to appreciate the simple act of living. Once the illness is gone, those expectations come back, and so the feeling disappears. In a way, it's unintentionally cruel to ourselves to deny our own happiness when we are capable, only allowing ourselves the privilege of internal self-esteem when we are powerless.
Yes, I had this same feeling when I suffered a back injury recently. At first, I still had this sense of guilt that I wasn’t able to work but then I started to feel relaxed because I knew that there was nobody I had to please for the next few days
Same here! I feel like I got to a point though were I would act so perfect all the time that no one would believe me when I was sick. Only with bad colds would I feel this way.
This is so relatable. When I was a kid, I used to pray that I'd get cancer so that I could just do nothing and not feel guilty about it. I didn't want to die. I just couldn't think of any other way to have an excuse to not be perfect all the time.
I think this is partially why I like winter. There's fewer expectations on social life. Everyone's mostly just cuddled up on the couch watching movies or whatever instead of being expected to be out doing "fun" activities. Also, since my baseline is depressed but not super depressed, I start to feel like maybe I'm a happy person in the winter because everyone else gets so down.
@@tiptapkey yesssss, I've been like this since my early teens, which coincides with the time I struggled to make close friends when I started secondary school
I think this is actually one of the worst things you can struggle with. Because it's so well hidden.
It's very cathartic to hear my pain and experiences put into words from another person and hearing there's a path out.
As a survivor of narcissistic abuse, I literally wasn’t allowed to be happy with myself
Yeah damn
I’m fifteen and my father was emotionally abusive and yup he hated whenever I was happy even if I wasn’t doing anything wrong
Same here. I hope you're doing a lot better now. I'm still trying to break out of the pattern of thinking he instilled in me. It's been years.
I hope everyone here gets better. I was reminded of a time I came home from school (school was my safe place 😔), and my mom demanded out of me why I was smiling. I literally was not smiling, I simply had a relaxed expression. She was so insistent that I explain, which I had no explanation, except that I could not be happy at home, but could be happy at school. From that day forward, I would stretch my face into a frown before I came home so I wouldn't get interrogated again. There's much more, but that's one moment 😭
@@LainL-ks1pd that sounds like envy, he was jealous that you knew how to be happy
I was diagnosed with dysthymia when I was 17. I am now 22 and have overcome it. It took a lot of existential crisis, deconstruction, and pain but it’s not a life sentence and I LOVE my life now
🎉
Congrats
I'd love to hear your story! You should make a post on the Healthygamer subreddit! I reckon you'll be able to help a lot of people!
@@claudiaj2138 damn just 5 years, what a champ. Good job
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
i feel so very understood by this video. it makes me so glad.
i always feel like im not allowed to be happy unless someone gives me the permission. if they are disappointed or dont like me then its my fault and i have to stay in guilt until they like me again or i made them happy again.
i have everything in life that should make someone happy but it feels as plain and worthless as having absolutely nothing.
i tried everything therapists told me to do but all those things are happening in a whole different sphere than my dysthymia.
the dysthymia doesnt care what i do, everything is meaningless. even laughing is meaningless.
thank you dr . k,
23:34 people with dysthymia go to the therapist: ✨ therapize me ✨💃🏻
Unironically yes.
...
Remember that tweet that went “Trying to get an A in Therapy, a thing that is both normal to want and possible to have.”
@@kaleenar963Me, very me. I hate myself 😊
As an early diagnosed dyslexic, I may have used special education to get out of work. In truth, I was spending more time accomplishing the same tasks as others, which caused resentment. Forced to do homework at home, I refused to turn it in. I was alienated and isolated, not allowed to participate in activities like recess or class work. This led to self-loathing, as nothing was ever good enough. Today, I rely on others to help me find self-value. I don't know what depression is, but I do know what it means to depend on others for happiness. Your explanation resonated with me, and I thought I would share my personal reality.
Sounds like you DO know what it feels like.
I've never cried before to a simple video. but this...
I never got the exact words or concepts to explain how I feel during almost all my life, but this video is the exact description. I've tried a lot of things and "therapy", but every time the result was the same "nah bro, you are just depressed, take this and be happy until next visit". Now all clicks together.
I know exactly how you feel bro. I too let off some tears after listening to the examples and made some connections.
Same but unfortunately I don't cry
at least that means you feel something.. which doesn't sound the same. vs just feeling nothing..
That would explain why after one and a half years of therapy, my highest priority in the review session was to reassure my therapist that they did a good job. And why, whenever I ry to do something for myself, a voice in my head says I'm only allowed to do it if it fixes me to a point where I can be of service for other people once again.
Thanks for this video. I may finally have found a word that moves things in the right direction.
Impeccable timing from Dr K again, is he watching me somehow 👀
No he's watching both of us😂
All of us..
No one would watch me😢
To be fair, if we're depressed all the time then any minute of the day would be perfect to drop a video
I literally just came to the conclusion that I may be suffering from dysthymia today and he uploads this now! 😅
I was diagnosed with dysthmia and Dr. K is definitely spot on when it comes to my internal struggle. My past didn't fit his description, though (it is way more complicated, as humans tend to be), but the characterists are spot on. Especially people punishing you for living, the repressed thoughts, and how fixing your shit is like building a house. The part of therapy was also super accurate to my experience, which is why therapy was so ineffective until I threw my hands up and absolutely resolved talk about everything with zero filter. Before that I kinda was acting in a way that I thought I should rather than how I truly felt. This wasn't on purpose, though. It is just that my true self was buried through so much people pleasing repressed BS that it was hard to bring it out.
I never knew how hard it would be to actually say the words out loud to my primary care doctor. When she saw my written "depression screener" she said, "this looks a lot different than all the other times you've filled this out."
Yeah cuz I've been lying about it my whole life.
I'm fine.
I'm good.
Of course I'm excited.
All lies with the intention of making other people feel neutral and stop asking me questions.
I stumbled on this video. I always thought I can’t be depressed because I function in life. Depressed people I’ve known can’t get out of bed or shower for days on end. But you described me 100%. I’m processing this. Funny though, I’ve actually come to the conclusion about how to treat this as you said at the end, and have been trying to do things that I want to do, not because it will please someone else while I don’t enjoy it at all. Thank you for explaining this. This helps a lot.
I can't imagine the guilt and self-hatred I'd feel if I stayed in bed or didn't shower. It would be worse than the depression. That's definitely one spot where we differ from people with normal depression. It just seems incomprehensible to me.
@@tiptapkey major depression that severe doesn't really leave any emotional bandwidth for anything else. From what I understand from friends who've been that bad and the rare instances I've gotten close myself, the frustration, guilt, disgust, and self-directed hate are pretty much all in there already but the despair is so damn loud that they're usually not enough to unstick the person and frequently the progressively more obvious their dysfunction is the stronger that gets, just one more painful thing adding to their emotional burden rather than an assisting push to act.
Major depression almost works more like a migraine or something IMO; it's a debilitating source of pain that doesn't have an easily treatable source and is invisible outside the effect it has on the person going through it, it's just intense emotional pain rather than damage report feedback. Dysthymia is closer to having someone that follows you everywhere, reflexively shits on anything you enjoy while you're trying to enjoy it and provides the most cynical possible summary of past events.
@@mechalith2791 That's an amazingly accurate description of dysthymia for me, in what you wrote in that second paragraph. It's just been a part of me so I've just tried to cope with it being there while it attacks everything I do.
I used to believe that my disdain of life was basically part of my personnality and that there was nothing I could do about it. Learning about dysthymia was therefore quite the epiphany. Now the hardship is to understand what is the "true me" and what is the dysthymia.
I'm unsure whether the root causes evoked in this video really correspond to what I've experienced, but on the other hand, the symptoms you described are right on target. Especially, it has helped me understand why my attemps at fixing myself through my activities were doomed to fail. In a way, it feels like I've been trying to just bruteforce my way through it, like if at some point my brain would simply say "ok mate, now you've actually achieved enough things so that I can stop telling you that you suck and that your life is without purpose."
I hope I can someday recover, at least enough to be grateful of being alive.
There is no true you, that's not how mental disorder works. It's not this broken filter over a pure uncorrputed "real personality". That's just how your neurons are connected, it's as much a part of your personality as any of your other thoughts or emotions. Because of that, you're not going to be "discovering" a better you, you're going to be "creating" a better you. And you get to choose who that future you is.
The dysthymia is as much you as the cowlick in your hair or the mole on your cheek. It's literally the way you are. You can either fight it and constantly suffer for it, or you can accept it and cope. I choose to cope.
I think I was diagnosed as dysthymic at 19. I've realized that ADHD is upstream of most of those problems.
I think it's worth refining, that its not always a "you could do better", but what gets noticed .My mom has worse ADHD than I do, and just didn't seem to notice anything I did. I just had to take care of my brothers and would hear about what I did wrong, and everything happening to everyone else.
Ugh. Dr.K strikes again 😂
REALLY THO 😢
I noticed it as well. My dysthimia started pretty young, and it was after being treated differently with my ADHD.
OMFG! I've seen about 50 psychiatrists and psychologists since age 11, and not ONE ever mentioned anything like Dysthymia. Every single psychiatrist went RIGHT to antidepressants, none of which ever worked, half of which caused bad reactions. Every single psychologist listened without ANY sense of comprehension. But since kindergarten, I have only derived pleasure from the friendship of my peers, especially female peers (I promise, nothing to do with my mom). To this day, I am only happy when I'm loved by a woman I love, which of course makes it all the more difficult to find that woman.
Have they mentioned Persistant Depressive Disorder? If so, they've mentioned dysthimia.
Also, that last bit sounds so gay, no offense intended. I'm the same way.
After over a decade of searching, I finally was given an answer to what this feeling was.
I cried 8 times just hearing my problems be given solutions. I'm crying even typing this.
To finally be shown how to fix myself, given the many many many many different things I've tried, it makes me cry. Happily. Now that I can FINALLY start taking proper steps to break away.
I was *just* diagnosed with dysthymia (Persistent Depressive Disorder) TODAY. Dr. K, I humbly request that you tone down your mystical source code powers. They're becoming a bit overwhelming at this point. :P
he's winning, let him cook!
I was diagnosed on Monday lol
I also started treatment on Monday
You took your phone into the doctors office with you. It listened to everything you and your doctor talked about and then yt took that info and tried to promote content related to it, to you.
@@prodr0xxthefirst267 this reflects our current reality now, very plausible. let them enjoy the spiritual journey idk but thanks for contributing (:
"Wait, so I basically am dependant on other people for my self-esteem and gratification? HOLY SHIT I MUST BE SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT TO THEM 😭"
- Every dysthymic person after watching this video
Legggittttt. This video explains SO much why I constantly feel like I'm not enough for others, or to deserve compliments or good words about me.
I play down every good aspect of myself, and emphasize all the bad parts.
It feels like you're describing my life exactly. I always did well in school, but my dad never acknowledged it. Instead, our relationship deteriorated because I wasn’t good at handling daily tasks at home. Now, at 28, I’m really struggling with where I am in life and feel lost about what to do next. Thank you, Dr. K, for sharing this wisdom.
This is my exact experience here. Exactly what you wrote. It has had a profound effect of just feeling like I'm living an unfulfilling life. This video was very relatable to me and I've just been told by professionals that I have mild depression and anxiety. Maybe this is a way for me to attack it with a completely different approach. Hope things get better for you. Life shouldn't feel like this.
I do have dysthymia like nothing I do for myself feels like an accomplishment and makes me feel like crap. The worst experience for me was I will only eat one meal for a month because of the stress. I am going through therapy trying to slowly getting out of this
This is really interesting. The underlying description and mechanics are me to a T, but the overbearing or needy parents doesn't quite match.
It's a little more like I experienced a series of life events that told me what brought me joy wasn't actually good, that my judgement was wrong, and that joy would always get snatched away. Just a series of painful events.
I was just talking with my therapist about how I feel like all my memories end up sad, even if I had fun for a while, they get colored by negative feelings eventually.
@@piquantement Oh wow, that last sentence truly describes my experience as well. Even if I do said “fun activities” objectively, I always “feel sad” or negative. It’s like everything is black and white and there’s just no colour to anything in my life. I could be on vacation on a beach and it’s “supposed” to be a happy time but it never is, I just can’t feel joy from anything, or it’s like when I look back on it it was sad or meh.
this really reminds me of when I was going for the IELTS Test (they grade how well your english is as a foreigner) and the last task was to answer a question, where you had to talk freely for a bit. The lady asked me, "tell me about the last time you felt happy".. i made sth up about going to a christmas market that evoked some happy childhood memories.. yeah.. a lot of stuttering.. i was contemplating to just tell the truth and say i don't remember the last time i felt happy, but there is this voice that i also recognize from this video, telling me that i absolutely can't mess up the task. fun times.
I’ve never heard of the term dysthymia before but this video did make me realize I genuinely can’t comprehend the concept of happiness not being circumstantially or externally dependant. Will have to look more into this!
I feel like that was my problem when I did HG coaching; I’m great at staying true to what I said I would or trying to “impress” others when they’re there, but when it’s just me I completely let off. I’m not sure how much this plays into dysthymia or more just people pleasing and having no sense of direction.
@@illumistrationThat's very interesting. I feel like I have a similar experience of life.
Whenever I'm with other people, everything inside me seems to function like clockwork; I just go with the flow and, just like you, I do my best to do what is expected of me (unless I feel like it's too much). Now, if I'm alone, I pretty much turn into someone else and every step I take needs to be calculated, lest I fall into the proverbial chasm.
@@kveller555 well put. It's such a weird feeling seeing all these comments of people describing my experience of life. Wow.
@@kveller555 YES, I feel the same way, the way I describe it to my friends is that when I'm in a social situation, I'm a functioning human, but if I'm left to my own devices, I basically get forcibly shoved into power save mode. I've become desperate to be put into social situations because that's the only time I feel alive, which forseeably just ended up making people feel crowded and alienating me, which has really been sending me into a downwards spiral that it's been incredibly difficult to pull out from.
I relate to what yall have said here a lot. Now what to do about it?
"They're eating food all the time, but it has no taste".. Thank you for this analogy.
More videos on this topic please!! Nobody has ever explained this to me and it all suddenly starts to make sense. Maybe you can give us some more examples, I now understand that nothing can “make” me happy but how am I gonna be happy then?😂 the things that I do don’t make me happy and everything I used to like just feels like a waste of time bc I can’t share it with anybody. It’s exactly like you described… it’s almost as if my life didn’t matter on its own, it only matters in relation to other people. I constantly suffer bc I live alone, the people I like live far away and I don’t feel like spending time with people that I don’t “vibe” with… if I could just become more independent (emotionally), a weight would be lifted off my chest. I understand that nothing can make me happy, I just don’t understand how to feel that joy inside me lol most things just aren’t fun to me anymore.
You explain also how I feel, nothing can make me happy and everything I use to like is wasted of time
Internalize your emotions
@@liloliu5713 same, but i try to think that having a good time on earth is the real purpose to life, not bEinG pRoDUctIVE as society wants you to. So im terribly failing at the purpose of life
@@Profinoob1337 what have you been terribly failing at? At least you try to find a real purpose on earth. Keep up the work I guess
@@Profinoob1337 I understand that there some stuff people just can't control the way they want to be
i disassociate and then seek inspiration, it sometimes takes me months but eventually i'll do something cool, and ride that out for a few months, i'm really glad i have low standards or i would still be in the pit of my depression and existential crisis.
Timely. My MDD diagnosis has been reinterpreted as Dysthymia by my new therapist(or most likely, both, actually), which makes a whole lot more sense because I've been like this for about as long as I can remember.
Not to tell you your own brain, but as someone who has both diagnoses: it might be worthwhile to consider whether it is more along the lines of 'dysthymia complicated by recurring major depression', if you feel like dysthymia doesn't quite match up with your lived experience. (If you feel like it does match up then that's awesome you've got a solid diagnosis, feel free to ignore me.) I'm dysthymic but every once in a while, usually if I'm more stressed and tired over a long period than usual, something particularly upsetting will send me into a fast and ugly downward spiral that can last for days and is a real bastard to fend off once it gets going. Treatment is mostly the same, but it does mean that I have to keep an eye on myself and try to catch it if things start circling the metaphorical drain.
@@mechalith2791 the banger that is called "when youre dysthymic you can still have normal MDD episodes, regardless of dysthymia being "mild""
The text Dr. K references here is filled with absolute bangers. When the pages come up you should absolutely pause and read the whole thing.
"I found the individuals of this type that I have treated to have been profoundly angry at their parents and, later, to have transferred this anger to all authority figures. Much of their behavior can be understood as an oppositional yet self-defeating vendetta against alleged (and often real) injustices inflicted on them in childhood." Which, now that I think about it, is a good explanation for what he says in the preceding paragraph: "Such individuals appear closer to schizophrenia or psychopathy than to depression." A somewhat logical conclusion to internalizing the belief that authority figures can't be trusted and are out to get you.
where can i find the source
@@weiyun3505 DOI: 10.1521/jaap.1.1976.4.3.347
@@weiyun3505 It's from an article written by Jules Bemporad, "Psychotherapy of the Depressive Character". You can find it on libgen.
bump
Bemporad J. Psychotherapy of the depressive character. J Am Acad Psychoanal. 1976 Jul;4(3):347-72.
doi: 10.1521/jaap.1.1976.4.3.347.
PMID: 1025075.
I found a copy on sci-hub
Most of this doesn't track for me personally.
Like, my parents have never been abusive or demanding and there has never been any guilt. It's just that even as a child, I didn't get anything out of activities other people found fun, and didn't get satisfaction from my achievements, even when my parents were proud of them.
There's no dominant other, to me it doesn't matter to me that I have good reputation among my colleagues, or that my parents are proud that I have a well paid job. I just do the job because I need the money, any accomplishments or acknowledgement I get in the process are worthless to me.
It sounds like I have dysthymia, but without the success. RIP
That's exactly what someone with dysthymia might say
Definitely do some self-help.
Thank you so much for making this video and thank you God for guiding me to this video. I am 32 and have felt this way since middle or high school and apparently been building up since I was a kid. I literally started crying because I finally found the reason why I have always felt different in a way regarding depression and have felt numb and barely ever able to achieve true happiness. Even though I am making good money and just bought a house this year, I just still dont feel like I am as happy as I should be. This video will have started the new chapter of my life to where I can get my happiness back. Thank you so much Dr. K... seriously.
This is more of a self-diagnosis but I think I have dysthymia (with episodic) Major Depressive Disorder) because it honestly explains my symptoms most of the time. I was raised in an abusive and toxic household where I was taught that its not okay for me to have my own happiness so my whole being and happiness and survival depended on making my caregivers and other people in my life happy. My dad wasn't much of a father as he was around but he didn't really act like a parent. My mom was narcissistic and highly anxious so when she passed away, I basically lost my purpose for living. Even 5 years later today, I don't know what to do with my life. I clearly notice that I do way too much for my family, even to this day. So, they treat me as if I have all the free time in the world and have no autonomy, basically making decisions for me. And at work, its a super toxic environment where I'm expected follow marching orders and am not allowed to practice autonomy in my decision-making. A part of me wants to break off from my current life and go live somewhere else independently but there's a lot of fear with that.
Sounds rough man. Like Dr. K said, those who benefit from it will try to punish you, try and imagine what your life could look like if you pull through though. I imagine it will bring quite a bit more peace (and confusion because now that other people aren't a forced priority anymore, what do you do? Build your life I suppose). Hang in there and try to move forward *if you can* without being too rash about it, that's what I hope for you anyway. :)
If you're still in contact with your family, go no-contact. It's one of the best things you can do for yourself.
Generational trauma will feed this. If your parent is sick and they cry when you go out to have fun, they probably feel guilty themselves. Sure some parents will intentionally manipulate your feelings. But if they also have dysthymia, they also probably only ever got happiness from external sources. If they can't make you happy and you have to go somewhere else they might feel guilty and like a burden. Even if they think they are hiding it, your dysthymia will notice and you will also be unhappy and stay to try and make them happy. That's why it hurts so much on both sides when you chase independence
Thank you. I've known for decades I have dysthymia, but at the time my therapists thought of it as low-level, constant depression that I had to learn to live with. This explanation has completely changed my views. For me the "dominant other" has been school then my jobs and, for a time, the Church. I now better understand why it's more pleasurable to do my job than do things that aren't related to my work.
School was behind this brain washing
I've struggled with dysthymia for years - but I never knew the link with dependence on others. This just explained a whole lot for me. I'm a very avoidant person but I also depend on others, and I can't enjoy my life alone.
I grew up with my parents always in control (too much control), but it gave me comfort. When I became an adult, I didn't have anyone to dictate my life, so my depression reached the worst it's ever been.
And the "It's not always a person" part - I went from a laid-back job, where I had no purpose left in life. To a new job with tons of pressure - and it's actually improved my wellbeing a lot. I just need direction from something outside. This makes so much sense now.
This sounds a lot like my ex. I wish I’d seen this while I was with him
Same, same. Got the diagnosis back when I was 18, and I've semi-recently gotten the avoidant personality disorder diagnosis as well. Yet I currently do work that genuinely makes me feel good and better, and it's improved both sides.
@@adamgreenhill110 it it avoidance or is it misanthropy? I honestly can't tell.
@@TestUser-cf4wj For me it's just avoidance; I do like/need people but I always feel something pushing me away
I am pretty sure I need someone else to be happy, but people say that you shouldn't do that. We should be happy alone first...
@sebben13 People get it wrong, of course someone can bring happiness and joy into your life. The issue arises when you neglect your own life and stop growing / improving.
You dont love when you need someone, you just become dependant, which falls into the exact problems described in this video.
I used to expect my partner to fix me and every time I found that savior, the relationship was doomed and turned to shit.
Once I hit rock bottom after a break up, I realized that the only constant and the only person who can actually fix me is ME.
That was such a rough and long process. Breakup and Relationship have always forced me down to my knees, but now I can build a life, that doesnt have to be about a significant other.
Best thing about it is:
Once I realized this and kept going for myself, I apparently became more attractive to women since determination is something that most women respect in a man.
What can I say, I am going to be married soon.
Something I was always chasing.
In the end tho, once I gave up the chase, it came all by itself.
Much love to you, I hope you will be okay.
It's not about being happy TO BE alone, just that you are generally content and happy with your life and yourself regardless of no one else being around. Think about it like this, if you aren't happy with yourself or your life without another person, that means that youre looking for someone who's going to be attracted to someone who isn't happy. Whoever this person is, is going to have to be attracted to an unhappy person which in this case would be you. And how would you feel knowing that they know they are the source of YOUR happiness? No one wants that kind of pressure and it eventually makes them grow to resent you for putting that responsibility on them.
@@MossMan4288 True, but it's not like I appear unhappy. I guess it would be more precise to say that I struggle with being motivated to do things for my own sake, but I have motivation to do things for others. I've always felt like this, and doing things for other people seem to be my only way of feeling motivated. I guess it's just like he says in the video, but I had no idea it was linked to my depression.
@@sebben13 I pretty much relate to what you're saying, the hardest part is finding someone who gets it, even if it's not a romantic partner.
10:06 praise the Omnissiah.
Almost 5 decades since first being diagnosed with this condition. This is the best explanation I have heard so about causes and possible solutions. Thank you.
Holy shit. I clicked on this not expecting anything relatable and well... Holy shit. There was always something a bit off with my attitude towards life, but it was so subtle I could not put my finger on it. Terrifyingly accurate.
im 20yo and the past year I went through a therapy process where I finally realized that happiness was never about external things, nothing in my life changed actually, I only changed my perspective, worked on myself, worked on self-knowledge and that eventually made me find happiness discovering my identity and what actually is important to me, finally that led to fundamental changes in my daily life, relationships, habits, hobbies, dreams, emotional management, acceptance, and what is most important to me, I learned how to enjoy my own company, and found joy on the little and simple things in life.
I'm a small business owner, managing a nonstop stream of government, employee, and customer demands -- on every dimension, failure jeopardizes my livelihood and my ability to support myself.
Nothing explained what was breaking in me until I found this channel. Thank you.
Dysthymia is indeed a tough nut to crack, and as someone who has cracked it quite a bit in her own life, I have to say to anyone reading who experiences it, the work is well worth it. It can takes years or a lifetime, but when you do, your ability to enjoy life is all that much richer for having overcome it because not only will it be colored with satisfaction, but also immense gratitude that *you* feel toward *yourself* for what *you* did to save *your* life.
I've been dysthymic for over a decade. What I got for this video is that I need to live for myself (whatever that means) and if people punish me for it, that means I'm on the right track. More punish = more good.
Sounds like you're still attributing your happiness to an outside source, in this case the reception of punishment for others becomes your 'dominant other'
@@390vaibhav i said nothing about being happy or attributing my happiness to anything. I just said, I'm doing what I should be doing if others are pissed off
You have become the punished 😂☠
@@Profinoob1337 real 💀
@@DaanSnqn I honestly think while this might be an indicator, this doesn't have to be true for everyone. It really depends on your social circle. You could for example try to exlplain the why to your changed behaviour and if they're decent people they will probably not be pissed. The point is to be able to be real with oneself about wether or not one is actually ok with what he is doing. Is it something I really want to do/experience or is the only reason I do this the pursuit of making someone else happy, in order for me to feel accepted,good enough or worthy. Hope this make some Sense to you.
Yeah, I got diagnosed with dysthymia years ago. Meds and exercise helps but not as much as I would like.
Meds cause emotional numbness and anhedonia
I am putting less hope on Americans therapist now
Meds make a lateral change or more likely make things worse.
@@jsqueeks Probably get worse few times, I know there some people on internet say they don't recommend to take medicines. They say they take Fluoxetine meds and their mind get imbalance. But I am not sure why they choose to get addicted to smoking to help them.
@@jsqueeks meds cause this numbness
Can i say it?
Finally.
Dysthymia is a particularly hard to find subject to be talked about, despite being one of the possible side-disorders associated with the autistic spectrum, so it's nice to finally see a video about it.
Interesting that it falls under the autistic spectrum as a diagnosted autist myself. Did you find anything that helps?
@@Profinoob1337 it doesn't fall under the autistic spectrum itself but i've been told autistic spectrum when diagnosed is often accompanied by a/some extra mental disorders et similia, with dhystimia being what i got.
as for "anything that helps"... i got given meds which *did* work, but the sideeffects were too strong and not worth the candle, overall i didn't really find a solution to the issues that it creates, but i am working on personal projects of self-improvement by helping out a friend with similar-but far lighter- issues, it's... not ideal as we end up being co-dependant, but at least we get things done.
until i figure out how to do things for just my own sake, keeping in mind short term goals that i really value(i.e. getting money to make a trip to meet a friend) that i can easily renew once i reached them is probably the best course i can take, but it's also a risky one as if i don't manage to find one such goal again, i'm just gonna fall back into habits of not doing anything due to not finding true enjoyment in anything.
i hope unlike me you'll be able to find a better solution.
I'm on the spectrum and I also have Dysthymia. :/
@@Profinoob1337 question: could you see my previous comment? i have a feeling some of my comments under this video are getting deleted...
@@iota-09 i think the order gets mixed, but i dont know. if you answered under your own comment, then no
Bro, I was just looking up and learning about dysthymia yesterday while doomscrolling in the midst of a mental health crisis. I don’t fully know yet how well dysthymia applies to me, but this will definitely help me understand what it is. Thanks for this, Dr. K.
SO very accurate, pretty much all of it. Was diagnosed in college, but had it my entire life. Also am AUDHD. A lot overlap and nuances make this all very challenging to detangle and deal with.
I have something like this. The entirety of my existence revolved around my mom for 20 years. I still live with her, and every movement I make to try to get away from her and become healthy and content with myself is punished. I need to get away from her, therapists, friends, and family have told me this over and over again, but I see no way out. I need help.
@@theharbinger3063 you need to do it yourself :) you mention your friends, therapists etc, and then you mention you need help. Everyone tells you to leave, go live your life, well do so:) only help you need is from yourself, letting yourself do this and be free!
Been there myself with my mom at your age, you can do it!
First: get a job
Second: save $$$.
Third: Move out.
same. now i am getting married and will stay with parents still. don't know why i couldn't muster the courage to find myself outside the comfort of my home. maybe because it's common for indians to live with their parents.
A lot of people clicking don’t know what dysthymia is, we’re just wondering who stole our happiness 😴 kinda sad given how many views this has
But it is also a good sign people are interested in the topic. Same problem is endometriosis, it is kicking me out of normal life every month. So many people don't know about and thought I was lazy or played my woman card for more freetime, but when they find out what it does to me I got a lot more understanding.
this is like gifted kid
The subconscious is so intelligent it's incredible. You, as a child, are DEEPLY interpreting these actions without even realizing it. Just amazing.
i used to be like this. up until i was 28. if you're wondering how to overcome it, my solution is the same as how to overcome fomo. you fear of missing out? just miss out on purpose. you fear of disappointing other people? you guessed it. im not saying just be evil, im saying just relax. we are all human. we make mistakes, we grow, and we live, and we die. there is not a single destiny that will not come to fruition. just do good, as much as you can because you doing good has a higher chance of good destiny, but nothing is guaranteed. hope God have mercy on you.. truly
Psilocybin really helps.
✨🍄🍄🍄✨
That's actually a great viewpoint!
I was really anxious at school because I didn't want to fail and was one of the top students. That life is very stressful though and thinking about every little point is exhausting.
Welp guess what, bc I was so good I could strategically get 0 points on tests and still pass with the previous one, so then was like idgaf and for most of the year I simply relaxed to just barely pass and built other speaking skills.
Guess what? The speaking skills helped me more out than the .1 better grade I would've had, but with depression and anxiety 😂
Its that "as much as you can" part that screws me over endlessly. I rarely feel like Ive hit my limit, as much as I can is still so far away that I shouldve been better
@@BDuckie100 Trueeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Cyclothymia next please :)
It's unknown, even by professional psychiologists. They usually ask for signs of mania or hypomania, but the lighter version of bipolar, cyclothymia, is forgotten. It does however, do a lot of damage due to the fast mood swings and depressed feelings.
Ive never discussed this dominant person concept at all as possibly part of my problems w a therapist or psychiatrist, but I quite literally tell my parents about fun stuff on the horizon LITERALLY to get the green light externally to tell me its okay to go do fun stuff now
The way dr K describes going to the psychologist too, just spot on
Omigosh I think this is my ex. He said he couldn’t even remember a time when he didn’t feel like did, he first remembered this unhappiness around 5 years old. He used recreational drugs a lot to try and create happiness, and needed to socialise a lot to stop himself sinking into depressive episodes, even if his friends were doing things he wasn’t really into. He did hours of counselling, which only seemed to help while he was doing the counselling, and it seemed like he got addicted to it to me.
When I meet new people and let them know about my constant depression, some of them love to make suggestions on how to get out of that 'rut'. I get looks like I'm an alien when I tell them I've tried all of their suggestions and let them know the depth to which I've gone to treat myself which usually go deeper than what they suggest. I feel like I've become an expert on this subject but it always feels like I'm constantly crawling up a sand pit that doesn't have a top. Ketamine is the single best treatment I've found that helps with it but it has a half-life and treatment is expensive. Maybe someday I'll be free of it fully. One can only hope.
Jeez Dr K, how long ago did you start spying on my life?
Such a drag
I cannot BELIEVE that Dr K just explained to me what my deal is… hallelujah!! Thank you💕
My parents never told me they were proud of me, not with good grades, not when I became champion in the sport I was doing, never. But whenever I did something I wasn't as good in, they would be disappointed. I got diagnosed with dysthymia at 16, and at 23 now I still struggle with it. The 'dominant other' is the only thing that changes. Parent, social worker, therapist, s/o. I didn't realise I was still doing this pattern, and I feel guilty over making the other so important for my happiness.
I will try to follow the steps at the end of the video, but I already know it will be difficult
Damn. Not since the ADHD video have I felt a strong explanation for why I am the way I am.
Thank you so much Dr. K! I’ve been going through a slow, 5 year-long journey, and this is one of the many puzzle pieces (let's just say I filled out most of the boxes on the *mental illness bingo cards*™️) that I (and sadly for them, my parents as well🤣) had to discover alongside both my Psychiatrist and Therapist. So it really warms my heart to see you share this life-changing information (which I have been searching for quite some time) with us.
So, as one of your indirect patients, I thank you for all the time and energy you spend on us! May the blessing that you are to us be returned to you a thousandfold.❤️✨
I watching this video and going "I _think_ I have Dysthymia" for a while. Watching/listening to this video over the course of a few days, the specific example of someone's parents revoking their kid's access to LEGO didn't just hit close to home, it launched a nuclear warhead with such pinpoint position the tip managed to perfectly align with the corner of my desk down to the atom. Now that I know what I'm gonna need to work on, I'm just gonna have to do it. Work on myself until the glorious day I can say that I did something for me and feel proud _of _*_myself_* for it. Thank you so much!
I think this is the first Dr. K video that really felt like he was talking about me. I have struggled with Depression, schizoaffective, and PTSD for a long time. mostly the depression in early life, the others with the last decade. The description of the never satisfied parent where nothing you ever do is good enough is 100% how my father was. And I've always felt like no one takes me seriously with my issues because I made good money, I was very capable, but I do everything for other people. I still remember climbing up the top of my local volcano because my father wanted me to, beat him to the top, getting up there and looking down at the clouds, with the blistering wind standing on a glacier. And my only thought was, why the hell does anyone do this? I just want to go home.
This is describing how I feel in relationships. I derive waaaay too much of my well-being from my parter. I am in therapy for over a year now, for multiple reasons but I cant get over this... I don't know how to fix this :(
I was diagnosed at 18, I am 32 now. I've seen strides but a lot of these points still ring true. I have moved more towards intense anhedonia and purposelessness from an intense drive on a specific thing bringing me external fulfillment.
This hits so close I'm literally dizzy... Damn... Just... Damn
Dude. I got so much hate at work when I went from being the person that my peers would send all the upset customers to because I wouldn’t say no to the person who was like: “I’m not a manager, that’s not my job, call a manager”
This process really builds up a persons ability to set boundaries. Set them and enforce them too. By the time that I left that job no one f-ed with me.
I was hit with this diagnosis like 10 years ago. I'm 27 now. And lemme tell folks, it just kinda makes every task a massive chore. Getting up in the morning? Horrid. Making food? Eh I'd rather sit here and stare at a wall. Going to work? Holy fuck I crave nonexistence. Grocery shopping? An aneurysm sounds more fun.
If I'm crying 2:30 minutes into the video, i should keep watching, right?
at least u can cry, I can't even cry
@@jukedem ong. I wish I could feel strong emotions like a used too as a little kid. I'm just numb.
It's almost as if Dr. K and I met with how scarily spot on he is about feeling guilty after doing something fun... Even when I've managed to find a rare find at a bookstore or enjoy/share some good food, the fulfillment fades as soon as I am alone heading my way back home
Just a reminder, your parents did this to you.
Ok but who did it to them to motivate them to behave and parent that way? You can play that game forever. It's called causality
I remember listening it somewhere that if cause of anything bad happened to you in ur life is ur parents then same applies for anything good... therefore seems like accept it is what it is ...life ! Fuck it lets just do our best 😅
@@phillystevesteak6982They made a conscious decision to continue that chain. That makes it their doing, no scapegoat available.
The cause may be out of your hands, but the responsibility of yourself is completely and fully yours. The path toward accountability, authenticity, and emotional independence is worth seeking to have a fuller life.
Believing that makes it harder to get out of it though.
Is this why even as a 30 year old grown man, I constantly ask my wife 20x if she likes whatever home improvement I've done? If she doesn't literally jump for joy, I tear apart my work in 30 seconds and nitpick myself to death. I only feel happiness when I smoke myself stupid and forget that I'm a real person. Then the anxiety and guilt kicks in 20 minutes later. 😂
Im 38 y/o, and diagonosed with dysthymia (in my country called as 'dysthymic mooddisorder'"). This was even harder confirmed when I asked about how my father and grandfather were: loners, often times not happy. When mentioned to the professionals that my life seemingly lost color just after I was 16 years old, also was a tell for them.
I honestly felt I never lived. I hate that I never was able to and I hate that is just didn't end it myself sooner, when I knew I wanted to. I've been taking antidepressants for over 5 years now, and I don't feel like it makes a difference. Making friends seem impossible. It seems like people don't talk to me, and I always have to break the ice... My career is also just over, as no one wants to work with a silent, somber guy.
Thank you for the video. I will def give it a watch, but I honestly feel like it is over for me.
Keep watching dr k.. get support if u can. Keep rewiring..
Depression has always been weird for me. I grew up quite isolated due to homeschooling, and while I assume that at some point as a kid I wasn't depressed, I actually don't know when I did become depressed. I think for me a lot of it ties back to puberty (I'm trans, so that was definitely a big part of it) but I don't remember anything that clearly. It may have also been because of being undiagnosed and just coping with ADHD and autism, and when I did finally get diagnosed with them, I accidentally also picked up anxiety and depression diagnoses. That was so weird because I had just figured that was what everyone experienced, and then I go to a psychologist and get told that not everyone has these experiences. At first that made it way worse tbh because I couldn't just ignore it and bottle my feelings away but I'm doing better now because I actually can work on things...
But because I didn't even realize it was a problem, I don't know when it started. All I know is that it was years and years before, long enough to feel like my normal.
blech
My dad is very sick but i wanna have fun & an awesome life to make all his efforts worth it. He's happy when i'm happy.
Ugh damn it. I see myself in a Dr. K. video again. UGHHHH ok stay positive, it's good to be aware of the problem so I can continue to fix it 😅
But man. It was almost painful listening to this. It pretty much described every single day of my life since I was a kid.
Thank you Dr. K this is something I needed to hear (*instantly shifts into thinking about getting approval from Dr K and then tries to remember that is not how it should be, so worries about getting approval about who reads this and still posts because I CAN - with some discomfort about standing up for myself of course. Who knows if I still worry about approval?)
Eventually, you'll end up using an idealized yourself as your dominant other and become a negative feedback loop machine of trying to improve yourself just for the sake of it and not feeling any satisfaction from it.
Okaaaay now I need to think about it a lot.
I still don’t know if what I feel is dysthymia, but it’s this feeling of loss and despondency as I notice my once-interests fading away. I feel like I am missing that internal motivator, like… the “meaning” of the action is fading or missing
All I know is that when I'm numb, I can deal with that constant dull ache, if I don't repeat my mantra of "I don't feel" it's just unbearable. Frankly every hour I can manage to only say "I want to die" in my head less than three times is a win.
@@involuntaryanalysis beautifully put
@@involuntaryanalysis I didn't say it was a beautiful thing. I said beautifully put. Which I thought was self evident in it's meaning. I just meant you summed up an abstract thing quite well, you worded the feeling in a comprehensible way
i had emotionally neglective parents and no matter what i did no one was proud of me. so i was never proud either, and thought that anything good in my life had to be a mistake since i didn't deserve good things... i relate to all the personality traits you bring up, but not how they formed.
Well at age 45 after a lifetime of ineffective or downright deleterious treatments for chronic depression, I come across a descriptor that details my experience perfectly. So much so, that I had explicitly figured out a version of the dominant other for myself, just no clue what to do about it. Would have been nice if one of the countless shrinks I've seen would have mentioned this word. I feel like half my life never even happened.
Thanks for the deep insight! The condition is definitly not hopeless!How should we reconcile this with the lemon-squeezing analogy, when there is (should there be) a feeling of guilt when doing sonething dopaminergic in the morning? Hope you can shed more light on this. Thank you.
This is me to my core. My mom was chronically ill, had BPD (I'm almost certain, but it was untreated), and never thought anything I did was good enough, with a twist of being mean and dragging me down when I did well or was happy. I could get straight A's for the first time and she'd say, "If you can do it now, why haven't you been doing it the whole time? You've clearly just been lazy." I could be excited about a new hobby, and she'd call it a waste of time. Hell, I had to read in secret a lot because sometimes she'd get pissed if I simply showed more interest in something above her. The guilt trips were constant because she could always "be dead soon," then she'd cry for a week. It was an impossible situation.
What were the primary signs of BPD?
@@BOSSDONMAN unstable moods, fear of abandonment, manipulation to keep me close and focused on her, inappropriate anger--usually biting critical sarcasm, mild narcissistic traits, going from seeing me as her perfect angel one minute to a useless disappointment the next
How does one pat themselves on the back?
Sounds strange and alien to me.
My main problem is I don't enjoy doing anything in my free time because my free time typically ends up just being a small waiting period between my next life task. I play video games now literally just to pass the time, I do not enjoy them anymore. I tried working out instead, don't enjoy that either. Tried hiking, the nature of beauty becomes dull when life is bleak. I can't stay focused for long enough to read books anymore. Everything feels like a dead end.
i enjoy nothing anymore. The weekends do not feel good and I do not look foward to them.
Yet I also am not fond of my job. So more than 45 hours a week i am constantly stressed and feeling shit.
But if a dysthymic person tends to do dopamine intense activities and now he sould do activities that are enjoyable, isn´t he just doing those dopamine intense activities again instead of really wanting something for himself that does something good to him? I guess there is a major difference in those activities
This is the video and knowledge I've spent years searching for. I can't believe it just found me and fell on my lap. I've heard you have to "name it to tame it" but never had a name/term for what's going on. Now it's time to put your knowledge to good use- and put in the rest of the work myself. Thank you again
11:43 and that sounds like parentification.
Anyone else mainly suffer dysthymia when in a relationship? When I'm single/independent, I can find the happiness within. I find joy in life and the little things. Being in a relationship though is a constant battle with depression and it's because I feel like I can't be in control of my own happiness. The second I feel happy/joy... someone else's emotions, needs, etc are killing it. I know this is because I was trained for misery and compliance as a kid. I've worked through a lot of those issues, but I just can't seem to create a boundary for joy.
I have similar experience, I thought it was because when I'm by myself I can be sad and dissatisfied by myself and I don't feel the pressure to be jolly and excited about life. But in a relationship seeing, how normal people feel day to day makes me feel miserable. But idk man
I've also noticed that in certain moments, my SO intentionally quashes my joy. So, I've learned to keep any happiness I might feel away from him. It has made for a painful life. Just be careful that the people you are in relationship with aren't undermining you when you're in a good mood. In other words, it might not be a you problem. It might be their behavior toward your "up" mood and your instinct is to quash your own joy before they say something shitty to you.
If you can change that behavior by calling it out right when it start then stay, if not, get out of that relationship. If it actually makes you sad you don’t need that.
I'm not sure that's dhystymia, because if it was, you'd be deriving happiness from complying to the other's needs.
What it is? I dunno, but it sounds if anything like the opposite of dhystymia, with the only correlation beibh the sense of guilt.
Something that might be worth asking yourself is whether part of the problem is the people you're in a relationship with. Having a history of abuse tends to skew what people think is healthy/normal even when they're trying to compensate for their own biases.
Maybe more to the point though, it sounds like you've got a decent handle on what it is that is posing a problem for you and what the source likely was; it'd probably be a good idea to talk to a therapist about it if you aren't already and see if they can find a good way for you to build a mental framework that is better for prioritizing your own needs and happiness.
Oh, I think that's what I've developed over the past 4 years ever since I lost my sense of smell from Covid-19. Now it all makes sense, because I'm conditioned to only receive partial pleasure/joy from food...😢
Never formally got diagnosed with dysthymia but it sums up most of my struggles. Been working on this for a while and I can say: you CAN become happy and content again, you can chill out in peace again, something that really helped me is to uncover your values and purpose, when you do things that you care about you can enjoy them and be proud that you did them
It was also huge to acknowledge your suffering with compassion as much as you actively acknowledge your good deeds
It also helps to get in tune with what is it that you actually want and need in life, make time to fulfill those wants and needs, for your own sake, not to get happiness, you'll be surprised of what you may feel
I still struggle to be in relationships without trying to get happiness from a partner but I'm hopeful for y'all, never give up on yourselves, there is a way to a better life.
It's like he read my mind. Been so out of it lately. I've been through so much and even though I'm in a place I've dreamed of being for years and years I'm still so empty and struggle being in a great mood all the time or finding the purpose in things. My brain constantly seems to want to know why about alot of things. And this sends me into a loop hole. And not having good real authentic people to talk to is the toughest part. Making friends is literally harder than getting into a relationship and that's sad.
As somebody suffering from dysthymia for the past +12(!) years, I am extremely grateful for Dr. K to finally talk about this topic. Antidepressants didn't help. Therapy seems to have little effect. Every day is a struggle to feel anything all. Hobbies don't bring joy. Relationships are strained and dating is hell, as you have a hard time feeling anything for anyone. To anybody else suffering from this, stay strong and I hope you manage to get out of it.
+12 years? Are you 13 years old?
@@TestUser-cf4wj I am past 30. I meant 12 or more years of suffering from the condition