What Is Chronic Depression?

Has This Web Site Helped You?

Please consider purchasing something from the emporium pages or donating a dollar or two to help me continue running and working on this web site. I want to be able to continue helping people like you and me by providing helpful information about depression.

You can donate using the Amazon Honor System or PayPal.

Thank you.

--Mary R. Drews

Amazon Honor System

Do you have a question about donating? Please send an e-mail to me at:

mary AT modernferret DOT com

Another name for chronic depression is dysthymia (dis-thi-me-ah) or dysthymic disorder. It is a mild form of clinical depression that last for at least two years in adults or one year in children or teens. Dysthymia is not prolonged or untreated major depression; it is a separate depressive illness. Chronic depression is not part of your personality; it's a treatable illness.

Chronic depression can increase your chances of getting major depression, especially if the chronic depression goes untreated. Chronic depression doesn't go away on its own.

Chronic depression symptoms may come and go. However, they are present more days than not. People with chronic depression usually find themselves able to function (school, work, home). However, we do not function at top efficiency. In other words, we may be running at 75% or 80% instead of 100%. We may find that everything is a bit of a chore.

One of the serious issues a person with chronic depression needs to overcome in order to begin healing is accepting that we have an illness. For many, this is a problem. They'd rather see life as a generally negative experience than accept that they may have a depressive illness. Some people never overcome this issue and only seek help when they end up with an episode of major depression on top of the chronic depression (called double depression).

To find out more about chronic depression, see the section titled Dysthymia.

To find books about chronic depression, see the section titled Emporium