On Persistant Depressive Disorder

The surprise DX I really should have seen coming

I feel like I just scratched the surface with this one. You can watch on YouTube or read below.

I was diagnosed with Persistent Depressive Disorder at 38. This was part of my neuropsychological assessment and was the one diagnosis that I was not familiar with and didn't expect. I think because depression has always been a baseline in my life; I have lived decades with it, and I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it that it is clinically identifiable.

In the DSM 4, it was known as Dysthymia. And what separates it from major depression is how it's chronic in nature and not particularly episodic. However, with your pervasive depression, you can have major episodes, (which I did) and I sort of feel like the age around ten is where these symptoms really manifested.

However, if I really go back into my childhood, a lot of the things that I was dealing with growing up were major factors contributing to an eventuality. I don't think, given the state of my life and the lack of help and accommodation that I desperately needed, that there was no other direction for things to go for me.

But I really want to focus on what happened after I left home at 18 years old, where I had to grow in to being an adult and taking care of myself. That means feeding myself properly, hygiene, the duties of school that I was attending, and despite the fact that I graduated high school with honors and everyone that I knew said my life was going to be amazing and I was going to be incredibly successful, I secretly knew consciously, I was in trouble.

It was like I walked out the door and I was suddenly dealing with things that had never been able to reveal themselves because I had been so accommodated in the home that I grew up and basically sheltered from my own true self and I can only go back now retroactively and see why I was having immediate trouble hitting the ground running.

Because in my assessment, clinically observable, my issues with executive functioning and adaptive functioning are very compromised. And while these two things are not cited within the PDD diagnosis, low self-esteem is intricately intertwined with adaptive and executive functioning.

So during this time that I was trying to slog my way through school and I kept dropping out, I kept dropping out. I kept dropping out. I think I dropped out of like four before getting my degree. It took me seven years to get a four year degree, but there were many years that were just incredibly painful because I actively felt that I was losing grip with finding things enjoyable or appreciating basic stuff, even being kind to friends at times.

I just felt like my personality was getting warped in ways that I didn't know why and I couldn't control. I was constantly comparing myself to other people and their abilities, and where they had gotten at this point in their lives, and I was running a continuous race, me against everybody else. Everyone seemed smarter, prettier, more accomplished than me, and I felt like I was playing catch up every single day of going to school.

Having this type of depression is like an air mattress that's like slowly leaking, and you don't notice until you notice. When you do notice, you justify that, oh, it's it's still has some bounce. It's okay. Like not not too much air is out. So we can still be here. And then it lowers and it keeps lowering. And then you start to get sore.

And then you start to have nights where you can't sleep well, but then you start to rationalize it. It's like, well, it's not so bad. I've gotten like I'm used to it now, so I just if I can angle my body this way and if I set my alarm every half hour, then I can readjust. And so like these types of rationalizations to myself and justifications about the sinking quality of life that I had year after year after year, that turned into decade after decade.

It was like by the time that you're sleeping on sharp rocks and having insomnia because you can't rest your eyes for a second, because now the problem is so obvious that it's hurting you. It almost feels like it's too late. It's like this has been going on for so long and so slowly, but you don't see it until the air mattress is completely missing.

What did help me a lot, in my 30s, was that I started to become more active, physically active. I picked up Jiu Jitsu because I wanted to start moving my body. I was smoking and drinking a lot, and I was already getting winded going up the stairs at like 30 years old.

And I was like, I can't no. I was like, I hate the idea of this, but I gotta find something that's going to move my body and make me physically better. And I began training at 31 and there were lots of phases where my depression was lifted because of Jiu Jitsu. I can confidently say that it helped me connect and have a social circle.

People who were equally intense as myself are obsessed with this one. Interesting hobby, this series of puzzles in real time with your body that kept my mind both active and blank at the same time. It was the closest thing I ever experienced to meditation, which I tried traditionally and failed every time.

But then there were times where Jiu Jitsu was not enough.

And so a point came in like 2021 to 2023, where my major depressive episode really kicked into gear. People who know me in my life may be able to describe the time where I, like, stopped going to the gym, probably stopped communicating a lot. A couple people I fell out with, and in terms of a personal life, there was none.

And I was working at a job I really hated, or I was struggling to find work, and I had a lot of financial problems, serious financial problems. So it was like the snake eating its tail on a downward spiral, like there was nothing that was throwing me a bone or like a life raft to help me out of this.

The symptoms of my deepest depression, would just be that I wouldn't clean anything. My house was, if you like, imagine a movie and a person who has depression and, like, they're totally over the top in their rooms, a mess. And there's, like, rotting food in the sink and in the fridge and on the floor, like, that was me.

You. You didn't clean your sink. That's disgusting. How could you let that happen? Like. If you hear those kinds of things and that's your reaction, I would take a step back and realize how blessed you are for never having had the experience of significant depression. It is still a very close experience, and it's something that I have to defend myself against.

And to be honest, I don't have my structure for help. Right now is like, it's really tough because for me to get proper, help and support continuously, it costs a lot of money dealing with your mental health is a lifelong issue, and it requires substantial funds. I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

I'm not going to lie and say, Oh, it's great because I had a therapy appointment once

It is something that you have to nurse back to health.

And that for me is going to take years. And I certainly even now that I'm doing much better, I still have waves of depressive days and since I'm in a better headspace, I can try to cut myself some slack or reframe something that I initially want to blame myself for. Even the shame of having depressive feelings come back over small matters, or seemingly small matters.

Maybe to other people. At least I know it's an everyday fight. Whereas before I didn't even know what I was combating. And I'm sure there's lots of people out there who are at a much stronger stage of their depression recovery than I am. And I swear to God, I am so happy for you. But I'm having more good days than not.

I'm much more social now. My love of Jiu Jitsu never went away. It was always there and it is so regenerative. Even in periods where I thought I may never train again. It came back around and now I'm in one of the greatest personal phases of my jujitsu, and I'm enjoying it all over again, almost like I am trying it for the first time.

And I'm so relieved that that change has taken place. And for me, building myself back up to train four times a week, hopefully five, is light years from where I was in the depths of 2022. It's in these small, painful accomplishments that I had to wait for and that I fought for is where I'm finding my joy these days, and where I can remind myself of how I can find pockets of happiness and laughter.

And I guess, just hope that things will continue to progress and that I'm going to maybe even one day heal from all this. That's part of my story.