My life is perfect: I adore my classes, I have friends who love me and I love them, I’m healthy, I’m involved with organizations I love, I call my mom at least once a day, I have a social life whenever I want and hibernate through the weekends whenever I don’t, I’m in the city of my college dreams, and I’m doing better than ever. But something is wrong.
I learned I could talk inside my head after my mom got tired of listening to me read out loud.
From what I can remember (and assume), this is how the conversation went down:
“Maddie! Please read to yourself!” Mom says while she folds laundry. I set down my “Geronimo Stilton” chapter book. I have always had a good reading voice and a subsequent need to show it off.
“What? How?” I ask with a sweet, raspy twang.
“Read in your head.”
And suddenly, I had unlocked something within myself, for better or worse. From that point on, my mind has never known silence.
When I was thirteen, I went to a psychiatric ward. There, the nurses and doctors only saw patients, not people, so when it was time for my diagnosis, the psychiatrist led a team of students in training. Yes, I know, the students must learn somehow, but workshopping the mental health of a thirteen-year-old girl — directly in front of me, might I add — was foolish. They sat across the table from me and analyzed my condition.
“Bipolar II?”
“She can’t be bipolar, she’s too high functioning.”
“What about major depression disorder?”
“No, the depression isn’t significant enough.”
“Well, what does she have?”
For years and years, I wondered that too. After leaving the ward, the doctors assigned me a counselor who introduced the idea that their diagnosis, Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), was incorrect. I remember that even then, I knew their diagnosis did not fit me.
I’ve always known this feeling. I could come home from elementary school having had the best day with a pizza party, bouncy castles, and Shipley’s doughnuts, but that unshakable feeling remains. I never saw this as a problem because I thought every person felt like this. I thought it was typical to have that low, foreboding sense greet you when your mind goes blank. For a while, when I was young, and it got bad, that feeling was my companion. A numbing buzz took over my body when I would give in and listen to the feeling. On those late nights when I felt alone, I knew I wasn’t; if I had no one, I had that feeling.
Last semester, with the tremendous aid of Counseling & Psychiatric Services (CAPS), I heard of dysthymia. Knowing I have trauma from past diagnoses, my therapist held off on officially diagnosing me, and instead, we just discussed the idea of the disorder. Previously known as persistent depressive disorder, dysthymia is a “continuous, long-term form of depression.” Similar to clinical depression, scientists have not determined the causes, but family history, stressful events, and brain chemistry are assumed to be the root of the issue. According to the Mayo Clinic, determining this disorder “can be very difficult to recognize and diagnose. Because it goes on for so long (by definition, depression symptoms must persist for at least 2 years), you and the people around you may just assume gloominess and negativity are part of your personality.”
I believe I have had dysthymia since I was born. After nineteen years of constant internal conflict, nineteen years of thinking something was inherently wrong with me, nineteen years of anger at myself, nineteen years of thinking I was the only person born like this– finally, I had a diagnosis.
In my research, I saw dysthymia described as a “refrigerator buzz type of depression.” Imagine you’re in your kitchen, snacking or whatnot, and the buzzing sound from the fridge suddenly stops. For the first time, you can hear silence. Up until March 2024, I had never known silence.
If you are struggling with dysthymia and working to identify it, take your time, do your research, and listen to yourself. Even if it’s the most accurate diagnosis you’ve received, confusion might take over. After labeling and treating my dysthymia, I sometimes feel lost. I think without that feeling, I might not know who I am. Over and over, I asked myself, without this feeling, what do I have? I have therapy, I have a clearer headspace, I have a support system, I have a newfound silence. Without my dysthymia, I have me.