Dysthymia

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I have dysthymia, also known as chronic depression or persistent depressive disorder. It is one of the chief forms of clinical depression. Dysthymia usually has fewer or less serious symptoms than major depression but lasts significantly longer.

Dysthymia is no "minor" depression and it is not a condition intermediate between severe clinical depression and depression in the casual colloquial sense. In some cases it is more disabling than major depression due to its chronic nature.

Dysthymia is about as common as major depression. More than half of the people with dysthymia eventually have an episode of major depression and about half of the patients treated for major depression are suffering from this "double depression".

Like major depression, dysthymia has roots in genetic susceptibility, neurochemical imbalances, childhood and adult stress, childhood and adult trauma and social circumstances, especially isolation and the unavailability of help.

Dysthymia runs in families and is therefore suspected to have a hereditary component.

Dysthymia affects women twice as often as men.

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