What happens when chronic low-grade depression (called dysthymia) builds into major depression? What happens when moderate hopelessness and sadness become so severe that you feel like the whole world is completely against you and there’s just no hope at all? What happens when it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse until you feel like it’s just impossible to get out of bed in the morning and face the world?
And it didn’t always feel that way. Sure, life was always pretty gloomy and generally sad. You never really felt as happy and joyful as everyone around you, but you just figured that was “how you were” and you accepted that you were just a “downer” sort of person. But now, things are different. Things are worse. You just don’t feel like there’s any hope at all anymore. What’s wrong? You may have double depression.
What is Double Depression?
Double depression is the term doctors use to describe the condition that occurs when a person who already suffers from dysthymia also begins to suffer from major depression. This tends to occur in about 10% of people with dysthymia and it can make an already bad situation just that much worse. It can also be something that isn’t always recognized by doctors because it is a new condition being studied by the psychological community. When a patient is already suffering from dysthymia and begins to spiral into an episode of major depression, it can sometimes be difficult to discern the difference in intensity and realize that the patient is actually suffering from double depression. So it is very important for the patient and the doctor to discuss what the patient is feeling and how intense the symptoms of sadness and hopelessness really are. If you are finding that you are feeling even more sad and hopeless that you normally feel, it could mean that your dysthymia has become a case of double depression and you have added major depression to your situation. Your doctor needs to know that you are feeling worse so he can change your treatment accordingly.
Double Depression Treatment
Treating double depression is a bit different than treating dysthymia or major depression by themselves. Dysthymia is a chronic illness that requires a long-term treatment strategy and involves possible drug therapy that takes the long-term time factor into account. Major depression is usually experienced in short bursts and must be treated with that time factor in mind. Your doctor will look at treatment options that may involve drug therapies with different schedules of treatment and may alter how your psychotherapy regimen is structured.
Three Stages of Treatment
There are three stages to mental health treatment that you will go through with your doctor. All of these may or may not involve drug therapy. You will most certainly spend time in psychotherapy sessions with a mental health professional. These talk therapy sessions will be extremely rewarding and will help you deal with the emotional component of your double depression.
· Acute – this first phase of treatment involves getting you to a functional point to where you were before your symptoms began. This may take between six and ten weeks depending on the type of medication you are on and how your doctor defines what your baseline is.
· Continuation – this second phase of treatment involves getting help for your remaining symptoms. If your doctor defined things so that the first stage of treatment was dealing with the major depression portion of your double depression and the second stage of treatment was dealing with your dysthymia, then this part of your treatment might involve a different type of drug therapy and may last longer than the first stage.
· Maintenance – this last phase involves continuation of the psychotherapy sessions with your mental health professional to make sure everything is going well and you are feeling good. If you need to restart the drug therapy, that can be done, too.
Double depression can be extremely debilitating and can hit you when you least expect it. It’s hard enough to suffer from dysthymia and let it go untreated, but to have double depression weighing you down can be more than a person can bear. So don’t wait until you can’t handle it anymore and it turns drastic. Get to your doctor and get some help. You don’t have to live like this and suffer with this illness. It’s treatable and your doctor knows what to do. There’s hope and it’s within your grasp!
