Does it sound familiar? The mood has been gray for the past two years. There may have been better episodes in between, but they haven’t lasted more than a couple of weeks.
Sleep is less than before, energy levels are zero, it is difficult to concentrate and cope with everyday demands, you feel crying and hopeless. Self-confidence is in a weak position, things that used to be pleasurable in the past are not interesting and do not make people want to go to social situations. The future looks bleak, the past weighs down.
The list is not a crystallization of the feelings of many pandemic years but an excerpt from long-term depression, or dysthymia. definition.
The symptoms of dysthymia are milder than severe depression but last for a long time, at least two years. So the flame burns, but its heart is smaller than before.
Is there a danger that Corona time raises dysthymia?
Research Professor at the Department of Health and Welfare (THL) Timo Partonen is missing. Prolonged depression is not the same thing as a long-lasting misery. Defining the symptoms helps to perceive the difference: do they appear overlapping and constantly?
“This is a serious illness,” Partonen underlines. “Looking at the symptoms, it’s not the most severe of the depressions, but the seriousness is that the symptoms last a long time.”
The diagnosis of long-term depression is met if at least three of the 11 symptoms listed in the diagnostic criteria afflict people for two years. Symptoms don’t just show up as fleeting fads in everyday life, they plague much of the day every day for two years.
The clearest measure of diagnosis is functional capacity, Partonen says.
“Is there a clear change compared to what a person’s behavior has been in the past when he or she has felt well? What is left to do because of these symptoms? ”
If you notice a change in your ability to function, you should seek professional help.
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A common unifying factor in childhood is childhood abuse.
Dysthymia can get sick anyone.
It is twice as common in women as in men, and risk factors include loneliness, neuroticism, and substance abuse. According to Partonen, the only clear and common background factor uniting the sick is childhood abuse.
Studies show that 45 out of a thousand Finnish adults suffer from long-term depression every year, and it may affect up to six in a hundred people at some point in their lives.
Dysthymia can also be a condition of more severe depression, in which some of the symptoms seem to remain on.
In half of dysthymic patients, symptoms begin before the age of 25 – that is, at worst, it would affect those young people for whom the long-term effects of a pandemic have now been widely concerned.
Timo Partonen encourages young people in deep waters due to the pandemic to consider a new point of view.
“The most important thing is not to look at what was lost, but what will be in the future. It’s worth keeping in mind that it can bring a lot of good when it comes. ”
Actually, Partonen is most concerned about whether people will receive treatment for their mental health problems during a pandemic.
According to Partonen, the effects of the pandemic on the diagnosis of long-term depression are not yet known.
However, a long period of crisis can affect whether people have sought, received, or even received treatment to see if it has helped enough.
“It is possible that long-term depression may now become chronic,” says Partonen.
“As many as 70 percent of those with long-term depression will later develop more severe depression. That’s when we talk about double depression, where the pit becomes deep. ”
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