Getting over the thought that I could always be doing something more productive is the hard part, and it sucks away the enjoyment of things even when I try to do them. Ironically I get so overwhelmed by this constant anxious thinking that I just end up doomscrolling to clear my head and end up being less productive than ever. Less productive increases that guilt and the cycle continues.
@@aidorukuzan1668 So what you're telling me is your doctors are providing you with your sense of happiness? 🤣🤣 This is so mentally complicated to understand
@@hwron6797 I literally had more breakthroughs watching this video than I've had in 10 years of therapy. For someone to so clearly articulate something I've been incapable of expressing for the vast majority of my life is both devastating and wonderful.
Can we just take a moment to give Dr.K some recognition. I think all of our lives would be worse without him. Thanks Dr.K so much, all the way from Britain.
I was hit with this diagnosis like 10 years ago. I'm 27 now. And lemme tell folks, it just kinda makes every task a massive chore. Getting up in the morning? Horrid. Making food? Eh I'd rather sit here and stare at a wall. Going to work? Holy fuck I crave nonexistence. Grocery shopping? An aneurysm sounds more fun.
@@logansinclair7488 Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean you Want to feel that way. If a video might provide a little insight, or even just something a little interesting for a few minutes...
As a Dysthymic, this analogy is actually pretty great for me because I hate having to eat. Not like 100% of the time but more often than not the pangs of hunger are more of an annoyance to me, that I have to tend to my bodily needs. So this analogy ties in perfectly haha
I was diagnosed with dysthymia when I was 17. I am now 22 and have overcome it. It took a lot of existential crisis, deconstruction, and pain but it’s not a life sentence and I LOVE my life now
I clicked on this video because I was curious about what dysthymia was. I started feeling sick and panicky after the first few minutes. The more you spoke, the more I fit the bill of somebody who is almost certainly dysthymic. I thought this was normal and that everybody experienced life like this, but apparently it isn't? This is a real system shock, man. I literally thought this was normal.
Just because something isn't normal, doesn't mean it's not common. And vice versa - just because something is normal doesn't mean it's good or okay. Regardless, you're not alone - enough of us are like this there's a whole robust clinical definition and research around it.
It is normal, in that, it is your normal. Understanding that you haven't been failing at following the advice of others, but instead we're wired for it not to work gives me almost a sense of relief. It's not that I'm failing, I simply need to better understand my "Wiring" better, so I can work on this based on my own personal needs. And that gives me hope I may eventually feel and live better (at least comparatively). It's almost like trying to troubleshoot a windows software based computer, using a Macintosh manual. It's just not gonna work. It may give me a vague idea of how my computer should be working, but the steps given won't get me there.
Yeah, I legit started crying and hyperventilating a bit because I just couldn't believe it. I thought it was normal to rely on the things outside to be happy and that I've just been *a little* depressed for the last 4-6 years
And I thought I was comfortably numb. I never heard of dysthymia before seeing this. I found this at random and so glad I did. I've been numb for at least 20 years from depression and disappointment. I used to be so physical and fun to be with. Now I'm catatonic. Tired, sore, and self esteem sunk to nothing. I want to invest in myself and try this. :)
@@RosieTime_ I feel ya. Pretty tough to live through the day knowing we are twisted. I take it with humor and look at it with a smile and see all the good stuff that comes along with it. Fighting for other people and Improving their lifes
My main problem is I don't enjoy doing anything in my free time because my free time typically ends up just being a small waiting period between my next life task. I play video games now literally just to pass the time, I do not enjoy them anymore. I tried working out instead, don't enjoy that either. Tried hiking, the nature of beauty becomes dull when life is bleak. I can't stay focused for long enough to read books anymore. Everything feels like a dead end.
i enjoy nothing anymore. The weekends do not feel good and I do not look foward to them. Yet I also am not fond of my job. So more than 45 hours a week i am constantly stressed and feeling shit.
I feel similar. Nothing I do helps me "relax" feel "relieved, happy" or anything too positive really. Besides work and studies, there is really nothing. Even though I do so many things, I do them without really knowing why anymore.
Man you described it perfectly. During the week I wish it was the weekend. On the weekend, I wish it was Monday. Even when sitting in the park, which makes me feel at peace, it still feels like I'm just sitting in standby mode, waiting to be needed, to be given purpose
I was diagnosed in my teens. Nothing really works, and nothing brings me joy, so after many, many years I stopped looking for happiness and instead started looking for comfort and contentment. I don't feel as miserable and can definitely cope much better, but there's still always an underlying depression. I can just live with it now. I don't get anything from achieving things, from going to concerts, from doing something new and "exciting". You put this all in words much better than I've ever been able to. Thank you for this.
I've found myself in a similar situation. For so often I wondered "What is happiness?" to the point that I've actually forgotten it, or at least, can't really describe it anymore. And so I've sort of moved on from that to trying to just not be miserable. Instead of trying to be "happy", I'm trying to be "okay". Essentially, it's a 'new normal' and... within that normal, I've been starting to figure out what I can do to make my life better.
I know I felt happiness as a kid, sometimes I wish I never had experienced those moments, perhaps the next 20 years would had been easier. My situation is highly abnormal. Also it sucks to not be able to be able to angry-blame someone. For example, my parents were golden hearted, just ... really REALLY stupid (at least with many things)
@@SebHaarfagre much the same for me. I know it was unintentional from my parents, but the damage happened. I'm 25 now and have only in the recent year felt at peace with myself and life. I avoid alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gambling etc because I know I'm easily addicted. (To the point where when I was a teen I was addicted to buying from vending machines, just because it gave me a semblance of joy for a few seconds.) I find my "happiness" in collecting things and learning facts now. I dedicate myself to things that I find satisfying to do, rather than expect a result from it. I like making things out of clay. I make things and don't care about the outcome bringing me joy, but rather just enjoy the process.
@@MatthewDurden seek a diagnosis! Dysthymia is a specific condition that needs to be diagnosed, and shouldn't be self diagnosed, as it has a different origin and chemical/hormonal appearance than your average depression. The treatment methods are VERY different, so it's important that a doctor diagnose it to make sure you're working towards improvement in the right manner!
This explains why I lived life assuming I have an anxious attachment style (needing someone from the outside to tell me that I'm living my life the right way), but later realized I'm avoidant. I'm already independent, but just waiting for God or smth to tell me I'm living life right so I can relax and enjoy life.
As a therapist myself I've found that life long dysthymia seems to be highly correlated with childhood emotional neglect. One of the only ways to treat it, as cheezy as it sounds is to find the depression/alone/neglected child inside and work to give this ego-state a new attachment experience. He's right, most normal good therapy and self help and life connection doesn't touch much of chronic dysthymia.
@@d.k.1545 Research Internal Family System therapy. Neglect and abuse in childhood can be categorized as trauma and can lead to complex PTSD. So you can treat it the same way you treat other types of PTSD, by going back to the experience and taking the power away from it, there are many ways to do it but normal talk therapy like CBT while helpful usually fails to really dig deep enough into it to really do that. On the other hand, childhood neglects disconnects you from yourself and others around you, so I think the attachment in question is forming a bond with yourself or in other words learning to love yourself through understanding and grieving what happened to you. One method for doing this that I've done extensive research on for a friend of mine is IFS, but I'm not a therapist, just a friend who cares and has a hyperfixation on research so do your own research and take what I say with a grain of salt.
I graduated with an Associates degree years ago, but wasnt happy with it. It was an accomplishment, but it meant nothing. Cuz I heard a lot from my dad, that it was "only" an associates degree. And then i started carrying that mindset with me. This didnt matter because it was expected of me. This didnt matter because its not something to brag about. When I started pulling away from my dad, my head finally started to clear. Still working on things. I notice other people get more excited about my achievements than I do, but when I tell them "im working on feeling happy and proud for myself" theyre more than happy to hype me up and tell me how and why I should feel proud in a helpful, non-condescending way.
I watching this video and going "I _think_ I have Dysthymia" for a while. Watching/listening to this video over the course of a few days, the specific example of someone's parents revoking their kid's access to LEGO didn't just hit close to home, it launched a nuclear warhead with such pinpoint position the tip managed to perfectly align with the corner of my desk down to the atom. Now that I know what I'm gonna need to work on, I'm just gonna have to do it. Work on myself until the glorious day I can say that I did something for me and feel proud _of _*_myself_* for it. Thank you so much!
Yes! Me too! I've got a lot to work on, but ti's great to have a direction to head in. This is gonna sound cheesy as hell, but just know that somewhere out there we're working towards the same thing! 💪
I think this is actually one of the worst things you can struggle with. Because it's so well hidden. It's very cathartic to hear my pain and experiences put into words from another person and hearing there's a path out.
Same. I felt like "how did this guy know what i've feeling for more than a decade" what the hell. For me, i knew there's something wrong with me being solely a people pleaser but i just dont know what to do other than just pleasing other people.
@@Emesis13 as for me, i never connected the two. I stopped people pleasing only to become obsessed with the concept of being good at stuff, being capable and i saw everything in relation to that
I hope everyone here gets better. I was reminded of a time I came home from school (school was my safe place 😔), and my mom demanded out of me why I was smiling. I literally was not smiling, I simply had a relaxed expression. She was so insistent that I explain, which I had no explanation, except that I could not be happy at home, but could be happy at school. From that day forward, I would stretch my face into a frown before I came home so I wouldn't get interrogated again. There's much more, but that's one moment 😭
Ive never discussed this dominant person concept at all as possibly part of my problems w a therapist or psychiatrist, but I quite literally tell my parents about fun stuff on the horizon LITERALLY to get the green light externally to tell me its okay to go do fun stuff now
When he said the bit of the "Independent activity" fixing me, I just got it. the activities become the other. Focusing on how I feel on the inside whilst doing things is the ticket. And it's so hard because I've disconnected so much from how I feel, it feels like a huge open void. So trying to connect not with how I feel about something, but if I'm enjoying what I'm doing. Its so subtle. I've always appreciated HealthyGamer but omg this video just blew my mind. Thank you.
I would highly appreciate a sequel video about dysthymia as I have never heard of the concept before, but now that I hear it being explained to me, it''s pretty obvious that this is what I've been dealing with for most of my life. I'm not going to write about my life story here but I will write about a personal experience that's been on my mind. I've noticed that whenever I'm terribly sick, there's some sense of comfort, serenity, and contentedness that is notably absent when I am healthy. I think it comes from the fact that you cannot be reasonably expected to work, study, or socialize while you are sick. Instead, the best thing to do is simply to rest and deal with your illness. So, not needing to worry about lofty expectations and accomplishments, I quickly learn to appreciate the simple act of living. Once the illness is gone, those expectations come back, and so the feeling disappears. In a way, it's unintentionally cruel to ourselves to deny our own happiness when we are capable, only allowing ourselves the privilege of internal self-esteem when we are powerless.
Yes, I had this same feeling when I suffered a back injury recently. At first, I still had this sense of guilt that I wasn’t able to work but then I started to feel relaxed because I knew that there was nobody I had to please for the next few days
Same here! I feel like I got to a point though were I would act so perfect all the time that no one would believe me when I was sick. Only with bad colds would I feel this way.
This is so relatable. When I was a kid, I used to pray that I'd get cancer so that I could just do nothing and not feel guilty about it. I didn't want to die. I just couldn't think of any other way to have an excuse to not be perfect all the time.
I think this is partially why I like winter. There's fewer expectations on social life. Everyone's mostly just cuddled up on the couch watching movies or whatever instead of being expected to be out doing "fun" activities. Also, since my baseline is depressed but not super depressed, I start to feel like maybe I'm a happy person in the winter because everyone else gets so down.
@@tiptapkey yesssss, I've been like this since my early teens, which coincides with the time I struggled to make close friends when I started secondary school
I'm 38 and was diagnosed with Dysthymia when I was in high school around age 16. I got married fairly young at 23 and over the years I felt like the Dysthymia was mitigated or eliminated. Earlier this year, my wife passed away and ever since then I've just had this feeling of being "off" and couldn't really put a finger on it beyond just general grief and depression. After watching this video it occurs to me that my Dysthymia may have never truly gone away but that my wife became the dominant other in my life. I've got so much reflection and learning to do. I want to learn more and try and improve my mental health. Videos like this give me hope that there's a way forward for me.
I feel like if anybody is self diagnosing I feel like dysthymia is a generally a harmless one. Besides, most psychs will only provide the unspecified MDD diagnosis and never actually look further into it
Yeah I didn't know shit about alexythimia and then dr alok started takling about it, and now I'm convinced I have at least a 90% chance of being alexythmic.
You just read the entirety of the last 2.5 years of my life like a book, and the realization that _this_ is what I'm going through has left me shook. I feel like a million new paths have been opened up for me just by knowing this. The doors have opened!
ive watched thousands of psychology videos (narcissism, autism, ptsd,...) and always found comments from ppl saying "omg this 100% on point. this is exactly how im feeling" but could never say that for myself. i was so sad never finding sth discribing how i feel. always thinking wtf is wrong with me? at this point i can say: THIS is 100% on point. THIS is how i actually feel. everything you are saying. i am externally capable of sooo many things and ppl admire me for it but i dont feel anything about anything im doing. doing this and that will make me happy. the therapist will fix me. the new job will make me happy ... exactly this THANK YOU SO MUCH for giving this shit a name! ❤
i disassociate and then seek inspiration, it sometimes takes me months but eventually i'll do something cool, and ride that out for a few months, i'm really glad i have low standards or i would still be in the pit of my depression and existential crisis.
I've never cried before to a simple video. but this... I never got the exact words or concepts to explain how I feel during almost all my life, but this video is the exact description. I've tried a lot of things and "therapy", but every time the result was the same "nah bro, you are just depressed, take this and be happy until next visit". Now all clicks together.
I've struggled with dysthymia for years - but I never knew the link with dependence on others. This just explained a whole lot for me. I'm a very avoidant person but I also depend on others, and I can't enjoy my life alone. I grew up with my parents always in control (too much control), but it gave me comfort. When I became an adult, I didn't have anyone to dictate my life, so my depression reached the worst it's ever been. And the "It's not always a person" part - I went from a laid-back job, where I had no purpose left in life. To a new job with tons of pressure - and it's actually improved my wellbeing a lot. I just need direction from something outside. This makes so much sense now.
Same, same. Got the diagnosis back when I was 18, and I've semi-recently gotten the avoidant personality disorder diagnosis as well. Yet I currently do work that genuinely makes me feel good and better, and it's improved both sides.
I’m a survivor of intense narcissistic abuse that up until seeing this video left me thinking I’m a “low functioning husk”; as a means of describing how I’ve felt for years. I was able to escape this abuse at 18 which is awesome but years of depression and isolation have followed. There’s something about the how I was raised that has left me feeling as if I’m ‘waiting for orders’ or as you put it, ‘pleasing my dominant other’. This has left that old software running, but with nobody to please anymore, I haven’t been able to function no matter what I do or how much help I try to get. On a lighter note, this video has pinpointed exactly how I’ve been feeling, with the exact words I haven’t been able to find to describe my mental state. It’s liberating. I turn 24 next week, and I’ve been depressed about the time I have wasted just trying to make sense of everything, the guilt around my mental paralysis. Now, despite dreading the blurry passage of time, I have clarity. That counts for something
That would explain why after one and a half years of therapy, my highest priority in the review session was to reassure my therapist that they did a good job. And why, whenever I ry to do something for myself, a voice in my head says I'm only allowed to do it if it fixes me to a point where I can be of service for other people once again. Thanks for this video. I may finally have found a word that moves things in the right direction.
@@minolaki5956 mother of god. if this wasn't me to an absolute tee. it feels so reassuring to know i'm not the only one who feels like this, thank you so much
I stumbled on this video. I always thought I can’t be depressed because I function in life. Depressed people I’ve known can’t get out of bed or shower for days on end. But you described me 100%. I’m processing this. Funny though, I’ve actually come to the conclusion about how to treat this as you said at the end, and have been trying to do things that I want to do, not because it will please someone else while I don’t enjoy it at all. Thank you for explaining this. This helps a lot.
I can't imagine the guilt and self-hatred I'd feel if I stayed in bed or didn't shower. It would be worse than the depression. That's definitely one spot where we differ from people with normal depression. It just seems incomprehensible to me.
@@tiptapkey major depression that severe doesn't really leave any emotional bandwidth for anything else. From what I understand from friends who've been that bad and the rare instances I've gotten close myself, the frustration, guilt, disgust, and self-directed hate are pretty much all in there already but the despair is so damn loud that they're usually not enough to unstick the person and frequently the progressively more obvious their dysfunction is the stronger that gets, just one more painful thing adding to their emotional burden rather than an assisting push to act. Major depression almost works more like a migraine or something IMO; it's a debilitating source of pain that doesn't have an easily treatable source and is invisible outside the effect it has on the person going through it, it's just intense emotional pain rather than damage report feedback. Dysthymia is closer to having someone that follows you everywhere, reflexively shits on anything you enjoy while you're trying to enjoy it and provides the most cynical possible summary of past events.
@@mechalith2791 That's an amazingly accurate description of dysthymia for me, in what you wrote in that second paragraph. It's just been a part of me so I've just tried to cope with it being there while it attacks everything I do.
I finally have a name for what I've been feeling most of my life 😭 no psychiatrist or therapist I've ever seen has even mentioned dysthymia and here I learn about it from a random video that shows up in my feed. Thank you so much ❤
After watching this i again appreciate how great my therapist truly was. He put me through these steps without me realising it was what he was doing. Some things i still struggle with, others is no longer an issue. Is my mood still on the «lesser» or more monotone side of things yes, but so very very far from what it used to be! I also was diagnosed last year with ADHD at 30yo and figuring out all that with meds and stuff, but years of all that internal work previously has been a huge change on its own.
It feels like you're describing my life exactly. I always did well in school, but my dad never acknowledged it. Instead, our relationship deteriorated because I wasn’t good at handling daily tasks at home. Now, at 28, I’m really struggling with where I am in life and feel lost about what to do next. Thank you, Dr. K, for sharing this wisdom.
This is my exact experience here. Exactly what you wrote. It has had a profound effect of just feeling like I'm living an unfulfilling life. This video was very relatable to me and I've just been told by professionals that I have mild depression and anxiety. Maybe this is a way for me to attack it with a completely different approach. Hope things get better for you. Life shouldn't feel like this.
I was diagnosed with dysthmia and Dr. K is definitely spot on when it comes to my internal struggle. My past didn't fit his description, though (it is way more complicated, as humans tend to be), but the characterists are spot on. Especially people punishing you for living, the repressed thoughts, and how fixing your shit is like building a house. The part of therapy was also super accurate to my experience, which is why therapy was so ineffective until I threw my hands up and absolutely resolved talk about everything with zero filter. Before that I kinda was acting in a way that I thought I should rather than how I truly felt. This wasn't on purpose, though. It is just that my true self was buried through so much people pleasing repressed BS that it was hard to bring it out.
I never knew how hard it would be to actually say the words out loud to my primary care doctor. When she saw my written "depression screener" she said, "this looks a lot different than all the other times you've filled this out." Yeah cuz I've been lying about it my whole life. I'm fine. I'm good. Of course I'm excited. All lies with the intention of making other people feel neutral and stop asking me questions.
I only have my mother, and she was never demanding, she understood grades werent the most important, she worked endlessly to provide. But she calls herself a failure because we're poor, and we aren't living the best lives, and I feel like I contribute to that feeling of failure for her because I haven't achieved anything or made any progress towards bettering the lives of my family. She hates our 70s trailer out in the middle of the woods, we all do, and I feel like its my responsibility to fix it all, and the fact I haven't makes me feel like a failure to her, and that I'm making her feelings of failure worse. Been that way since I was 5. Started helping around the house, scrounging money in public to contribute, anything to take weight off of her and feel like I'm helping and making things better.
i’ve never heard of this before but it sounds exactly like me. i don’t think i’m majorly depressed but im just not happy. im unsatisfied, unmotivated, and apathetic. nothing moves me
@kat-cg6dy The take from Dr.K’s lecture here is to not depend on the word ‘nothing’ or trust it too quickly. You might never feel pleasure the same as others , but you’re not deprived of experiencing it. So it’s up to you to find what causes you to experience it and actively make it a part of your life so you don’t loop and be dependent on an outside source but keep your life moving straight into something fueled internally. That’s assuming you first take the steps to get professionally diagnosed above everything.
i hope to find a doctor IRL as articulate and smart as you. all my psychiatrists & therapists have been wonderful people, but man, you’re just able to get points across that others can’t. thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. you really do help ❤️
I’ve never heard of the term dysthymia before but this video did make me realize I genuinely can’t comprehend the concept of happiness not being circumstantially or externally dependant. Will have to look more into this!
I feel like that was my problem when I did HG coaching; I’m great at staying true to what I said I would or trying to “impress” others when they’re there, but when it’s just me I completely let off. I’m not sure how much this plays into dysthymia or more just people pleasing and having no sense of direction.
@@illumistrationThat's very interesting. I feel like I have a similar experience of life. Whenever I'm with other people, everything inside me seems to function like clockwork; I just go with the flow and, just like you, I do my best to do what is expected of me (unless I feel like it's too much). Now, if I'm alone, I pretty much turn into someone else and every step I take needs to be calculated, lest I fall into the proverbial chasm.
@@kveller555 YES, I feel the same way, the way I describe it to my friends is that when I'm in a social situation, I'm a functioning human, but if I'm left to my own devices, I basically get forcibly shoved into power save mode. I've become desperate to be put into social situations because that's the only time I feel alive, which forseeably just ended up making people feel crowded and alienating me, which has really been sending me into a downwards spiral that it's been incredibly difficult to pull out from.
i feel so very understood by this video. it makes me so glad. i always feel like im not allowed to be happy unless someone gives me the permission. if they are disappointed or dont like me then its my fault and i have to stay in guilt until they like me again or i made them happy again. i have everything in life that should make someone happy but it feels as plain and worthless as having absolutely nothing. i tried everything therapists told me to do but all those things are happening in a whole different sphere than my dysthymia. the dysthymia doesnt care what i do, everything is meaningless. even laughing is meaningless. thank you dr . k,
@@killik0r your first paragraph describes my bf to a T, like, holy shit. And when he's not with me he's just... nothing. It doesn't matter what we did that weekend or how his day was. He just can't get himself to do anything for himself. It worries me and I have to encourage him to game or read. I've gotten depressed, too, but this isnt a few month thing. And if we have a disagreement (really minor stuff, normal human stuff), I'll forget about it because I don't go to bed angry. And wake up to him having worried all night and he's apologizing for something we already resolved, full of guilt. I'm just distraught because I don't know what to do besides reassure him, and even when I fully reassure him we are okay he still says sorry and it breaks my heart. He didn't have a good childhood... I don't really know what to do beyond just be there. But I can't fix his internals. I don't want him to be sad just because I'm not around for the night :(
Dysthymia is indeed a tough nut to crack, and as someone who has cracked it quite a bit in her own life, I have to say to anyone reading who experiences it, the work is well worth it. It can takes years or a lifetime, but when you do, your ability to enjoy life is all that much richer for having overcome it because not only will it be colored with satisfaction, but also immense gratitude that *you* feel toward *yourself* for what *you* did to save *your* life.
Thank you so much for making this video and thank you God for guiding me to this video. I am 32 and have felt this way since middle or high school and apparently been building up since I was a kid. I literally started crying because I finally found the reason why I have always felt different in a way regarding depression and have felt numb and barely ever able to achieve true happiness. Even though I am making good money and just bought a house this year, I just still dont feel like I am as happy as I should be. This video will have started the new chapter of my life to where I can get my happiness back. Thank you so much Dr. K... seriously.
Thank you for this. Thank you for existing. Thank you for working hard to acquire so much knowledge and thank you for sharing it on the internet. My life is forever changed.
I was *just* diagnosed with dysthymia (Persistent Depressive Disorder) TODAY. Dr. K, I humbly request that you tone down your mystical source code powers. They're becoming a bit overwhelming at this point. :P
You took your phone into the doctors office with you. It listened to everything you and your doctor talked about and then yt took that info and tried to promote content related to it, to you.
I used to believe that my disdain of life was basically part of my personnality and that there was nothing I could do about it. Learning about dysthymia was therefore quite the epiphany. Now the hardship is to understand what is the "true me" and what is the dysthymia. I'm unsure whether the root causes evoked in this video really correspond to what I've experienced, but on the other hand, the symptoms you described are right on target. Especially, it has helped me understand why my attemps at fixing myself through my activities were doomed to fail. In a way, it feels like I've been trying to just bruteforce my way through it, like if at some point my brain would simply say "ok mate, now you've actually achieved enough things so that I can stop telling you that you suck and that your life is without purpose." I hope I can someday recover, at least enough to be grateful of being alive.
There is no true you, that's not how mental disorder works. It's not this broken filter over a pure uncorrputed "real personality". That's just how your neurons are connected, it's as much a part of your personality as any of your other thoughts or emotions. Because of that, you're not going to be "discovering" a better you, you're going to be "creating" a better you. And you get to choose who that future you is.
The dysthymia is as much you as the cowlick in your hair or the mole on your cheek. It's literally the way you are. You can either fight it and constantly suffer for it, or you can accept it and cope. I choose to cope.
My psychologist diagnosed me with dysthymia and after her convincing me to get medicated my life turned around. The dominant other in my case was my dad due to the fact I felt I needed to please him in order to do the things I wanted (like when I was little I couldn't play video games unless he allowed me to). Now my parents divorced and I moved back to my childhood home with my mom and sister and the medication vastly improved my cognition of the world and the people around me and my social life. Awesome video made me glad medication worked for me and to learn more about my condition and to better manage when I do get down
As an early diagnosed dyslexic, I may have used special education to get out of work. In truth, I was spending more time accomplishing the same tasks as others, which caused resentment. Forced to do homework at home, I refused to turn it in. I was alienated and isolated, not allowed to participate in activities like recess or class work. This led to self-loathing, as nothing was ever good enough. Today, I rely on others to help me find self-value. I don't know what depression is, but I do know what it means to depend on others for happiness. Your explanation resonated with me, and I thought I would share my personal reality.
This is me to my core. My mom was chronically ill, had BPD (I'm almost certain, but it was untreated), and never thought anything I did was good enough, with a twist of being mean and dragging me down when I did well or was happy. I could get straight A's for the first time and she'd say, "If you can do it now, why haven't you been doing it the whole time? You've clearly just been lazy." I could be excited about a new hobby, and she'd call it a waste of time. Hell, I had to read in secret a lot because sometimes she'd get pissed if I simply showed more interest in something above her. The guilt trips were constant because she could always "be dead soon," then she'd cry for a week. It was an impossible situation.
@@BOSSDONMAN unstable moods, fear of abandonment, manipulation to keep me close and focused on her, inappropriate anger--usually biting critical sarcasm, mild narcissistic traits, going from seeing me as her perfect angel one minute to a useless disappointment the next
Thank you. I've known for decades I have dysthymia, but at the time my therapists thought of it as low-level, constant depression that I had to learn to live with. This explanation has completely changed my views. For me the "dominant other" has been school then my jobs and, for a time, the Church. I now better understand why it's more pleasurable to do my job than do things that aren't related to my work.
I got diagnosed with dystimia when I was a teen but never got the full explanation of what it is. I thought it was only a chronic mild depression that would stick with me for the rest of my life. Thank you very much for this video!
It's such a relief when someone explains what you feel and what is it you have, as if there is finally who understands you. It's like I finally understand myself more too, and being able to relate to people in the comments. it really just feels nice
The text Dr. K references here is filled with absolute bangers. When the pages come up you should absolutely pause and read the whole thing. "I found the individuals of this type that I have treated to have been profoundly angry at their parents and, later, to have transferred this anger to all authority figures. Much of their behavior can be understood as an oppositional yet self-defeating vendetta against alleged (and often real) injustices inflicted on them in childhood." Which, now that I think about it, is a good explanation for what he says in the preceding paragraph: "Such individuals appear closer to schizophrenia or psychopathy than to depression." A somewhat logical conclusion to internalizing the belief that authority figures can't be trusted and are out to get you.
Bemporad J. Psychotherapy of the depressive character. J Am Acad Psychoanal. 1976 Jul;4(3):347-72. doi: 10.1521/jaap.1.1976.4.3.347. PMID: 1025075. I found a copy on sci-hub
im 20yo and the past year I went through a therapy process where I finally realized that happiness was never about external things, nothing in my life changed actually, I only changed my perspective, worked on myself, worked on self-knowledge and that eventually made me find happiness discovering my identity and what actually is important to me, finally that led to fundamental changes in my daily life, relationships, habits, hobbies, dreams, emotional management, acceptance, and what is most important to me, I learned how to enjoy my own company, and found joy on the little and simple things in life.
For the longest time I did not know what was wrong with me. Years passed and one day I was confirmed to have Dysthymia. I could never `cure` it and I just learned to live my life around it and accept it. I do not remember the last time I was happy and every time something happens that is supposed to make me happy I think about that last time I actually felt this way and cannot remember exactly, only thinking to myself that it must have felt good. But it is alright, you can still live with this even if nothing works and you do not seem to get over it. Even these powerful neutral emotions you still feel can get you through life, just focus on what`s important still and you will be fine. Not feeling happiness fully is not that bad.
Wow. That was the first long UA-cam video I've watched in its entireity without skipping a second in a couple of years. Thank you so much for that video, Dr. K. It really helped understand so much more about me and my issues. Time to get to work now, then. God bless you for what you do, sir. ❤
OMFG! I've seen about 50 psychiatrists and psychologists since age 11, and not ONE ever mentioned anything like Dysthymia. Every single psychiatrist went RIGHT to antidepressants, none of which ever worked, half of which caused bad reactions. Every single psychologist listened without ANY sense of comprehension. But since kindergarten, I have only derived pleasure from the friendship of my peers, especially female peers (I promise, nothing to do with my mom). To this day, I am only happy when I'm loved by a woman I love, which of course makes it all the more difficult to find that woman.
Have they mentioned Persistant Depressive Disorder? If so, they've mentioned dysthimia. Also, that last bit sounds so gay, no offense intended. I'm the same way.
I'm a small business owner, managing a nonstop stream of government, employee, and customer demands -- on every dimension, failure jeopardizes my livelihood and my ability to support myself. Nothing explained what was breaking in me until I found this channel. Thank you.
Almost 5 decades since first being diagnosed with this condition. This is the best explanation I have heard so about causes and possible solutions. Thank you.
After over a decade of searching, I finally was given an answer to what this feeling was. I cried 8 times just hearing my problems be given solutions. I'm crying even typing this. To finally be shown how to fix myself, given the many many many many different things I've tried, it makes me cry. Happily. Now that I can FINALLY start taking proper steps to break away.
Dr. K... How do I tell whether the relatability I feel towards symptoms of a mental illness is either of: A) Just a reflection of the human condition B) A sign that I'm actually mentally ill I've suffered all my life but it's so easy to fit my struggle into almost any mold, diagnosis/symptoms wise. I know many others feel the same. A response would make my day, take care
i used to be like this. up until i was 28. if you're wondering how to overcome it, my solution is the same as how to overcome fomo. you fear of missing out? just miss out on purpose. you fear of disappointing other people? you guessed it. im not saying just be evil, im saying just relax. we are all human. we make mistakes, we grow, and we live, and we die. there is not a single destiny that will not come to fruition. just do good, as much as you can because you doing good has a higher chance of good destiny, but nothing is guaranteed. hope God have mercy on you.. truly
That's actually a great viewpoint! I was really anxious at school because I didn't want to fail and was one of the top students. That life is very stressful though and thinking about every little point is exhausting. Welp guess what, bc I was so good I could strategically get 0 points on tests and still pass with the previous one, so then was like idgaf and for most of the year I simply relaxed to just barely pass and built other speaking skills. Guess what? The speaking skills helped me more out than the .1 better grade I would've had, but with depression and anxiety 😂
Its that "as much as you can" part that screws me over endlessly. I rarely feel like Ive hit my limit, as much as I can is still so far away that I shouldve been better
Timely. My MDD diagnosis has been reinterpreted as Dysthymia by my new therapist(or most likely, both, actually), which makes a whole lot more sense because I've been like this for about as long as I can remember.
Not to tell you your own brain, but as someone who has both diagnoses: it might be worthwhile to consider whether it is more along the lines of 'dysthymia complicated by recurring major depression', if you feel like dysthymia doesn't quite match up with your lived experience. (If you feel like it does match up then that's awesome you've got a solid diagnosis, feel free to ignore me.) I'm dysthymic but every once in a while, usually if I'm more stressed and tired over a long period than usual, something particularly upsetting will send me into a fast and ugly downward spiral that can last for days and is a real bastard to fend off once it gets going. Treatment is mostly the same, but it does mean that I have to keep an eye on myself and try to catch it if things start circling the metaphorical drain.
This video and the comments under it have made me feel more understood than I’ve felt in so long. I think of myself as someone who’s fairly well-versed when it comes to mental health and emotional stuff, but I just had NO language or context for what I’ve been feeling for so long. It’s so nice just having a starting point to learn and begin the work.
Trying to find that internal satisfaction is so hard sometimes. I've only really managed it a few times since I really started dealing with depression at 10 years old. The only really significant one was when I was studying abroad in Japan and spent an entire day speaking in Japanese, and I realized that I had been having a whole conversation without conscious thought, just letting the words come out. It actually hit me like a truck. Thinking at it from the context of this video, I think a big part of why it impacted me so powerfully was just because of how novel that feeling of internally derived satisfaction was. It's actually been really hard on me since coming back to the US because I haven't had the chance to actually practice my speaking, and I've been really missing the joy that comes from it
Bro, I was just looking up and learning about dysthymia yesterday while doomscrolling in the midst of a mental health crisis. I don’t fully know yet how well dysthymia applies to me, but this will definitely help me understand what it is. Thanks for this, Dr. K.
This is really interesting. The underlying description and mechanics are me to a T, but the overbearing or needy parents doesn't quite match. It's a little more like I experienced a series of life events that told me what brought me joy wasn't actually good, that my judgement was wrong, and that joy would always get snatched away. Just a series of painful events. I was just talking with my therapist about how I feel like all my memories end up sad, even if I had fun for a while, they get colored by negative feelings eventually.
@@piquantement Oh wow, that last sentence truly describes my experience as well. Even if I do said “fun activities” objectively, I always “feel sad” or negative. It’s like everything is black and white and there’s just no colour to anything in my life. I could be on vacation on a beach and it’s “supposed” to be a happy time but it never is, I just can’t feel joy from anything, or it’s like when I look back on it it was sad or meh.
this really reminds me of when I was going for the IELTS Test (they grade how well your english is as a foreigner) and the last task was to answer a question, where you had to talk freely for a bit. The lady asked me, "tell me about the last time you felt happy".. i made sth up about going to a christmas market that evoked some happy childhood memories.. yeah.. a lot of stuttering.. i was contemplating to just tell the truth and say i don't remember the last time i felt happy, but there is this voice that i also recognize from this video, telling me that i absolutely can't mess up the task. fun times.
Can i say it? Finally. Dysthymia is a particularly hard to find subject to be talked about, despite being one of the possible side-disorders associated with the autistic spectrum, so it's nice to finally see a video about it.
@@Profinoob1337 it doesn't fall under the autistic spectrum itself but i've been told autistic spectrum when diagnosed is often accompanied by a/some extra mental disorders et similia, with dhystimia being what i got. as for "anything that helps"... i got given meds which *did* work, but the sideeffects were too strong and not worth the candle, overall i didn't really find a solution to the issues that it creates, but i am working on personal projects of self-improvement by helping out a friend with similar-but far lighter- issues, it's... not ideal as we end up being co-dependant, but at least we get things done. until i figure out how to do things for just my own sake, keeping in mind short term goals that i really value(i.e. getting money to make a trip to meet a friend) that i can easily renew once i reached them is probably the best course i can take, but it's also a risky one as if i don't manage to find one such goal again, i'm just gonna fall back into habits of not doing anything due to not finding true enjoyment in anything. i hope unlike me you'll be able to find a better solution.
Wow, it's so bizarre, but this is exactly how I feel 95% of the time.... I feel so guilty doing things that I enjoy. The things I don't enjoy doing are things that will make others happy. So by seeing others happy... I am or I believe I am happy. It gives me so much stress and depression for some reason. It is sooo weird but it makes sooo much sense now! I will continue to research more about dysthymia...and to work on myself. THANK YOU for making this video. ❤
I have been diagnosed with dysthymia all my life. I am now 23, and I have literally NEVER come close to knowing how much of my life was my disorder until I saw this video. Thank you.
Im 38 y/o, and diagonosed with dysthymia (in my country called as 'dysthymic mooddisorder'"). This was even harder confirmed when I asked about how my father and grandfather were: loners, often times not happy. When mentioned to the professionals that my life seemingly lost color just after I was 16 years old, also was a tell for them. I honestly felt I never lived. I hate that I never was able to and I hate that is just didn't end it myself sooner, when I knew I wanted to. I've been taking antidepressants for over 5 years now, and I don't feel like it makes a difference. Making friends seem impossible. It seems like people don't talk to me, and I always have to break the ice... My career is also just over, as no one wants to work with a silent, somber guy. Thank you for the video. I will def give it a watch, but I honestly feel like it is over for me.
Maybe a change of meds would probably help. I have taken lexapro for a year and it didnt do much, now i changed to zoloft. We'll see what it does. Hope we'll get better eventually ❤️
My parents never told me they were proud of me, not with good grades, not when I became champion in the sport I was doing, never. But whenever I did something I wasn't as good in, they would be disappointed. I got diagnosed with dysthymia at 16, and at 23 now I still struggle with it. The 'dominant other' is the only thing that changes. Parent, social worker, therapist, s/o. I didn't realise I was still doing this pattern, and I feel guilty over making the other so important for my happiness. I will try to follow the steps at the end of the video, but I already know it will be difficult
I was diagnosed at 18, I am 32 now. I've seen strides but a lot of these points still ring true. I have moved more towards intense anhedonia and purposelessness from an intense drive on a specific thing bringing me external fulfillment.
OH. MY. GOD. You don't know how much I needed this information. I was doing the work but didn't know what Im dealing with. You layed out the entire thing clearly like I never had realized. And you touched on issues that were really bothering me in my life. Thank you. I've come into realization now, and will pursue the change with an open mind. ❤ Please keep up the good work.
You really caught me with the "the independent activities will fix me" comment. Been dealing with dysthimia since i was a kid, its been better now and i noticed that i started indulging more and i had some life failures that forced me to detach myself from expectations
SO very accurate, pretty much all of it. Was diagnosed in college, but had it my entire life. Also am AUDHD. A lot overlap and nuances make this all very challenging to detangle and deal with.
More videos on this topic please!! Nobody has ever explained this to me and it all suddenly starts to make sense. Maybe you can give us some more examples, I now understand that nothing can “make” me happy but how am I gonna be happy then?😂 the things that I do don’t make me happy and everything I used to like just feels like a waste of time bc I can’t share it with anybody. It’s exactly like you described… it’s almost as if my life didn’t matter on its own, it only matters in relation to other people. I constantly suffer bc I live alone, the people I like live far away and I don’t feel like spending time with people that I don’t “vibe” with… if I could just become more independent (emotionally), a weight would be lifted off my chest. I understand that nothing can make me happy, I just don’t understand how to feel that joy inside me lol most things just aren’t fun to me anymore.
@@liloliu5713 same, but i try to think that having a good time on earth is the real purpose to life, not bEinG pRoDUctIVE as society wants you to. So im terribly failing at the purpose of life
I was systemic for the first thirty years of my life, but I was able to fight my way out of it. I still struggle, but I started to enjoy small nuggets in my daily life and slowly found more of those nuggets.
wtf, I've seen doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists and no one has ever explained my struggle so well, and no one has ever explained the internal change I need to make, thank you. Even if I struggle to change, it's nice knowing that people have been through the same thing and understand what I'm going trhough.
Thank you for talking about dysthymia! When I first started getting mental healthcare years ago, THIS was the diagnosis that made everything I was experiencing make sense.
I was diagnosed with dysthymia at 14 and I'm 32 now. I absolutely relate to a lot of what you've mentioned... guilt and shame associated with anything I should be able to enjoy. I am also a high achiever doing well in my career but don't experience much happiness at work, and don't do anything outside of work because nothing feels good. I am not sure I will ever get over it. Thanks for this video, it's given me a lot to think about.
Over a 4-10 year up and down process following a traumatic cptsd childhood. (and a lot of Dr. K's videos regarding this subject / adhd/ trauma 2021-2023) I think ive pretty much kicked a lot of these issues. I found the same issues with therapy where I externalized based on the perceived therapists opinion of me. I started Wellbutrin in 2023, and it's helped a lot so far, with weaning off of it now. Look inward Prince Zuko. Thank you good sir.
I'm ready to tear up listening to this, as I'm unable to feel anything positive unless I'm around others, but I no longer have anyone around that spends time with me. I keep trying to be my own support, but as you're explaining it doesn't feel like anything's happening. What I've learned through all this is that I'd rather be depressed and live a life of meaning than feel nothing at all with medication. The tiny moments I can naturally smile are when my own behavior provides value to someone else.
This is the video and knowledge I've spent years searching for. I can't believe it just found me and fell on my lap. I've heard you have to "name it to tame it" but never had a name/term for what's going on. Now it's time to put your knowledge to good use- and put in the rest of the work myself. Thank you again
Thank you so much Dr. K! I’ve been going through a slow, 5 year-long journey, and this is one of the many puzzle pieces (let's just say I filled out most of the boxes on the *mental illness bingo cards*™️) that I (and sadly for them, my parents as well🤣) had to discover alongside both my Psychiatrist and Therapist. So it really warms my heart to see you share this life-changing information (which I have been searching for quite some time) with us. So, as one of your indirect patients, I thank you for all the time and energy you spend on us! May the blessing that you are to us be returned to you a thousandfold.❤️✨
@sebben13 People get it wrong, of course someone can bring happiness and joy into your life. The issue arises when you neglect your own life and stop growing / improving.
You dont love when you need someone, you just become dependant, which falls into the exact problems described in this video. I used to expect my partner to fix me and every time I found that savior, the relationship was doomed and turned to shit. Once I hit rock bottom after a break up, I realized that the only constant and the only person who can actually fix me is ME. That was such a rough and long process. Breakup and Relationship have always forced me down to my knees, but now I can build a life, that doesnt have to be about a significant other. Best thing about it is: Once I realized this and kept going for myself, I apparently became more attractive to women since determination is something that most women respect in a man. What can I say, I am going to be married soon. Something I was always chasing. In the end tho, once I gave up the chase, it came all by itself. Much love to you, I hope you will be okay.
It's not about being happy TO BE alone, just that you are generally content and happy with your life and yourself regardless of no one else being around. Think about it like this, if you aren't happy with yourself or your life without another person, that means that youre looking for someone who's going to be attracted to someone who isn't happy. Whoever this person is, is going to have to be attracted to an unhappy person which in this case would be you. And how would you feel knowing that they know they are the source of YOUR happiness? No one wants that kind of pressure and it eventually makes them grow to resent you for putting that responsibility on them.
@@MossMan4288 True, but it's not like I appear unhappy. I guess it would be more precise to say that I struggle with being motivated to do things for my own sake, but I have motivation to do things for others. I've always felt like this, and doing things for other people seem to be my only way of feeling motivated. I guess it's just like he says in the video, but I had no idea it was linked to my depression.
I'm a university student taking a brutal class, and I'm going through it. This video rung multiple bells in me, i understood what you're getting at. I'm still depressed, but i think i know the heart of the problem now. Thanks.
This is more of a self-diagnosis but I think I have dysthymia (with episodic) Major Depressive Disorder) because it honestly explains my symptoms most of the time. I was raised in an abusive and toxic household where I was taught that its not okay for me to have my own happiness so my whole being and happiness and survival depended on making my caregivers and other people in my life happy. My dad wasn't much of a father as he was around but he didn't really act like a parent. My mom was narcissistic and highly anxious so when she passed away, I basically lost my purpose for living. Even 5 years later today, I don't know what to do with my life. I clearly notice that I do way too much for my family, even to this day. So, they treat me as if I have all the free time in the world and have no autonomy, basically making decisions for me. And at work, its a super toxic environment where I'm expected follow marching orders and am not allowed to practice autonomy in my decision-making. A part of me wants to break off from my current life and go live somewhere else independently but there's a lot of fear with that.
Sounds rough man. Like Dr. K said, those who benefit from it will try to punish you, try and imagine what your life could look like if you pull through though. I imagine it will bring quite a bit more peace (and confusion because now that other people aren't a forced priority anymore, what do you do? Build your life I suppose). Hang in there and try to move forward *if you can* without being too rash about it, that's what I hope for you anyway. :)
It's almost as if Dr. K and I met with how scarily spot on he is about feeling guilty after doing something fun... Even when I've managed to find a rare find at a bookstore or enjoy/share some good food, the fulfillment fades as soon as I am alone heading my way back home
I think I was diagnosed as dysthymic at 19. I've realized that ADHD is upstream of most of those problems. I think it's worth refining, that its not always a "you could do better", but what gets noticed .My mom has worse ADHD than I do, and just didn't seem to notice anything I did. I just had to take care of my brothers and would hear about what I did wrong, and everything happening to everyone else. Ugh. Dr.K strikes again 😂
I've had all these feelings for so long but never had the words for any of it. Never knew what I felt, and I thank you wholeheartedly for bringing this to my attention.
Thank you Dr. K this is something I needed to hear (*instantly shifts into thinking about getting approval from Dr K and then tries to remember that is not how it should be, so worries about getting approval about who reads this and still posts because I CAN - with some discomfort about standing up for myself of course. Who knows if I still worry about approval?)
Eventually, you'll end up using an idealized yourself as your dominant other and become a negative feedback loop machine of trying to improve yourself just for the sake of it and not feeling any satisfaction from it.
Holy shit. I clicked on this not expecting anything relatable and well... Holy shit. There was always something a bit off with my attitude towards life, but it was so subtle I could not put my finger on it. Terrifyingly accurate.
Getting over the thought that I could always be doing something more productive is the hard part, and it sucks away the enjoyment of things even when I try to do them. Ironically I get so overwhelmed by this constant anxious thinking that I just end up doomscrolling to clear my head and end up being less productive than ever. Less productive increases that guilt and the cycle continues.
literally me
@@PepsiMaxVanillame too..
YEP. It sucks so much, doesn't it?
Amen
Wow you... literally described my entire adult life.
feels good that a 35 minute long video has done more for me than 4 years of therapy
FR. makes me want to show this video to all my doctors as an “aha” moment
This is why I never bothered doing it
@@aidorukuzan1668 So what you're telling me is your doctors are providing you with your sense of happiness? 🤣🤣 This is so mentally complicated to understand
I know this feeling sadly but also you likely would not have absorbed this video the way you have without the therapy
@@hwron6797 I literally had more breakthroughs watching this video than I've had in 10 years of therapy. For someone to so clearly articulate something I've been incapable of expressing for the vast majority of my life is both devastating and wonderful.
Can we just take a moment to give Dr.K some recognition. I think all of our lives would be worse without him. Thanks Dr.K so much, all the way from Britain.
... and Australia
... And Philippines 🇵🇭
India ❤
Poland ❤🎉
„All the way from Britain“ is such a funny statement
I was hit with this diagnosis like 10 years ago. I'm 27 now. And lemme tell folks, it just kinda makes every task a massive chore. Getting up in the morning? Horrid. Making food? Eh I'd rather sit here and stare at a wall. Going to work? Holy fuck I crave nonexistence. Grocery shopping? An aneurysm sounds more fun.
@@donston5624 it even better when u don’t even want to sleep even tho ur tired
Or sleep for two hour and wake up
Not to be rude or invalidate you, I'm genuinely curious, given your apathy why did you decide to watch this video?
@@logansinclair7488 Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean you Want to feel that way. If a video might provide a little insight, or even just something a little interesting for a few minutes...
This is also part of my experience
I literally don't know how to feel happiness without someone else. This was very enlightening.
"They're eating food all the time, but it has no taste".. Thank you for this analogy.
@@MartyXXXCZ this has actually been happening for me for a while now. I hunger with no apatite,
As a Dysthymic, this analogy is actually pretty great for me because I hate having to eat. Not like 100% of the time but more often than not the pangs of hunger are more of an annoyance to me, that I have to tend to my bodily needs. So this analogy ties in perfectly haha
Im the exact oppisite, ive gone up to 9 days without eating, not hungry at all, i think God's preparing me for something 🤷♂️
,@@damonsimms5843
I was diagnosed with dysthymia when I was 17. I am now 22 and have overcome it. It took a lot of existential crisis, deconstruction, and pain but it’s not a life sentence and I LOVE my life now
🎉
Congrats
I'd love to hear your story! You should make a post on the Healthygamer subreddit! I reckon you'll be able to help a lot of people!
@@claudiaj2138 damn just 5 years, what a champ. Good job
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I clicked on this video because I was curious about what dysthymia was. I started feeling sick and panicky after the first few minutes. The more you spoke, the more I fit the bill of somebody who is almost certainly dysthymic. I thought this was normal and that everybody experienced life like this, but apparently it isn't? This is a real system shock, man. I literally thought this was normal.
Just because something isn't normal, doesn't mean it's not common. And vice versa - just because something is normal doesn't mean it's good or okay. Regardless, you're not alone - enough of us are like this there's a whole robust clinical definition and research around it.
@@AttackGoose Holy moly I know you from work. I saw you on your phone once
@@deepism be careful with your confirmation bias. I was kind of feeling the same way, until I actually thought about it in opposition
It is normal, in that, it is your normal.
Understanding that you haven't been failing at following the advice of others, but instead we're wired for it not to work gives me almost a sense of relief.
It's not that I'm failing, I simply need to better understand my "Wiring" better, so I can work on this based on my own personal needs. And that gives me hope I may eventually feel and live better (at least comparatively).
It's almost like trying to troubleshoot a windows software based computer, using a Macintosh manual. It's just not gonna work. It may give me a vague idea of how my computer should be working, but the steps given won't get me there.
Yeah, I legit started crying and hyperventilating a bit because I just couldn't believe it. I thought it was normal to rely on the things outside to be happy and that I've just been *a little* depressed for the last 4-6 years
And I thought I was comfortably numb. I never heard of dysthymia before seeing this. I found this at random and so glad I did. I've been numb for at least 20 years from depression and disappointment. I used to be so physical and fun to be with. Now I'm catatonic. Tired, sore, and self esteem sunk to nothing. I want to invest in myself and try this. :)
@@RosieTime_ 🎶when I was a child, I had a fever…🎵
@@RosieTime_ I feel ya. Pretty tough to live through the day knowing we are twisted. I take it with humor and look at it with a smile and see all the good stuff that comes along with it. Fighting for other people and Improving their lifes
Maybe stop consuming thc. From one dysthymic to another. Quit the pot. Its a delusion.
My main problem is I don't enjoy doing anything in my free time because my free time typically ends up just being a small waiting period between my next life task. I play video games now literally just to pass the time, I do not enjoy them anymore. I tried working out instead, don't enjoy that either. Tried hiking, the nature of beauty becomes dull when life is bleak. I can't stay focused for long enough to read books anymore. Everything feels like a dead end.
i enjoy nothing anymore. The weekends do not feel good and I do not look foward to them.
Yet I also am not fond of my job. So more than 45 hours a week i am constantly stressed and feeling shit.
I feel similar. Nothing I do helps me "relax" feel "relieved, happy" or anything too positive really. Besides work and studies, there is really nothing. Even though I do so many things, I do them without really knowing why anymore.
Man you described it perfectly. During the week I wish it was the weekend. On the weekend, I wish it was Monday.
Even when sitting in the park, which makes me feel at peace, it still feels like I'm just sitting in standby mode, waiting to be needed, to be given purpose
Same.
I was diagnosed in my teens. Nothing really works, and nothing brings me joy, so after many, many years I stopped looking for happiness and instead started looking for comfort and contentment. I don't feel as miserable and can definitely cope much better, but there's still always an underlying depression. I can just live with it now. I don't get anything from achieving things, from going to concerts, from doing something new and "exciting".
You put this all in words much better than I've ever been able to. Thank you for this.
I've found myself in a similar situation. For so often I wondered "What is happiness?" to the point that I've actually forgotten it, or at least, can't really describe it anymore. And so I've sort of moved on from that to trying to just not be miserable. Instead of trying to be "happy", I'm trying to be "okay". Essentially, it's a 'new normal' and... within that normal, I've been starting to figure out what I can do to make my life better.
I know I felt happiness as a kid, sometimes I wish I never had experienced those moments, perhaps the next 20 years would had been easier.
My situation is highly abnormal.
Also it sucks to not be able to be able to angry-blame someone. For example, my parents were golden hearted, just ... really REALLY stupid (at least with many things)
@@SebHaarfagre much the same for me. I know it was unintentional from my parents, but the damage happened. I'm 25 now and have only in the recent year felt at peace with myself and life. I avoid alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gambling etc because I know I'm easily addicted. (To the point where when I was a teen I was addicted to buying from vending machines, just because it gave me a semblance of joy for a few seconds.)
I find my "happiness" in collecting things and learning facts now. I dedicate myself to things that I find satisfying to do, rather than expect a result from it. I like making things out of clay. I make things and don't care about the outcome bringing me joy, but rather just enjoy the process.
I didnt even know there was a word for this, but this is me to a fucking T. I am in one mood and it is generally content or depressed.
@@MatthewDurden seek a diagnosis! Dysthymia is a specific condition that needs to be diagnosed, and shouldn't be self diagnosed, as it has a different origin and chemical/hormonal appearance than your average depression. The treatment methods are VERY different, so it's important that a doctor diagnose it to make sure you're working towards improvement in the right manner!
This explains why I lived life assuming I have an anxious attachment style (needing someone from the outside to tell me that I'm living my life the right way), but later realized I'm avoidant. I'm already independent, but just waiting for God or smth to tell me I'm living life right so I can relax and enjoy life.
there is no wrong way to live life, you're here to invent the right way for you.
-God
@@rongike ahahahahhaha
I don't even know how to begin to thank him/HG. He's really helped me change my life and how I feel. Edit: whoops wrong comment.... oh well
@@rongike So this is one those "mysterious ways" I keep hearing about, huh?
@@Pillar_of_Salt yes. you'll hear what you need to hear when you need to hear it, but are you willing to listen?
As a therapist myself I've found that life long dysthymia seems to be highly correlated with childhood emotional neglect. One of the only ways to treat it, as cheezy as it sounds is to find the depression/alone/neglected child inside and work to give this ego-state a new attachment experience. He's right, most normal good therapy and self help and life connection doesn't touch much of chronic dysthymia.
@@Shibby27ify and how would one do such a thing?
@@d.k.1545 I'm wondering too
what do you mean with attachment experience?
@@ChillnLearn-pm4yn I guess, to attach but have the pleasure come from yourself? To "train" to separate some things, I guess
@@d.k.1545 Research Internal Family System therapy. Neglect and abuse in childhood can be categorized as trauma and can lead to complex PTSD. So you can treat it the same way you treat other types of PTSD, by going back to the experience and taking the power away from it, there are many ways to do it but normal talk therapy like CBT while helpful usually fails to really dig deep enough into it to really do that. On the other hand, childhood neglects disconnects you from yourself and others around you, so I think the attachment in question is forming a bond with yourself or in other words learning to love yourself through understanding and grieving what happened to you. One method for doing this that I've done extensive research on for a friend of mine is IFS, but I'm not a therapist, just a friend who cares and has a hyperfixation on research so do your own research and take what I say with a grain of salt.
I graduated with an Associates degree years ago, but wasnt happy with it. It was an accomplishment, but it meant nothing. Cuz I heard a lot from my dad, that it was "only" an associates degree. And then i started carrying that mindset with me.
This didnt matter because it was expected of me. This didnt matter because its not something to brag about.
When I started pulling away from my dad, my head finally started to clear. Still working on things. I notice other people get more excited about my achievements than I do, but when I tell them "im working on feeling happy and proud for myself" theyre more than happy to hype me up and tell me how and why I should feel proud in a helpful, non-condescending way.
I watching this video and going "I _think_ I have Dysthymia" for a while. Watching/listening to this video over the course of a few days, the specific example of someone's parents revoking their kid's access to LEGO didn't just hit close to home, it launched a nuclear warhead with such pinpoint position the tip managed to perfectly align with the corner of my desk down to the atom. Now that I know what I'm gonna need to work on, I'm just gonna have to do it. Work on myself until the glorious day I can say that I did something for me and feel proud _of _*_myself_* for it. Thank you so much!
Yes! Me too! I've got a lot to work on, but ti's great to have a direction to head in. This is gonna sound cheesy as hell, but just know that somewhere out there we're working towards the same thing! 💪
I think this is actually one of the worst things you can struggle with. Because it's so well hidden.
It's very cathartic to hear my pain and experiences put into words from another person and hearing there's a path out.
Same. I felt like "how did this guy know what i've feeling for more than a decade" what the hell. For me, i knew there's something wrong with me being solely a people pleaser but i just dont know what to do other than just pleasing other people.
@@Emesis13 as for me, i never connected the two. I stopped people pleasing only to become obsessed with the concept of being good at stuff, being capable and i saw everything in relation to that
The subconscious is so intelligent it's incredible. You, as a child, are DEEPLY interpreting these actions without even realizing it. Just amazing.
As a survivor of narcissistic abuse, I literally wasn’t allowed to be happy with myself
Yeah damn
I’m fifteen and my father was emotionally abusive and yup he hated whenever I was happy even if I wasn’t doing anything wrong
Same here. I hope you're doing a lot better now. I'm still trying to break out of the pattern of thinking he instilled in me. It's been years.
I hope everyone here gets better. I was reminded of a time I came home from school (school was my safe place 😔), and my mom demanded out of me why I was smiling. I literally was not smiling, I simply had a relaxed expression. She was so insistent that I explain, which I had no explanation, except that I could not be happy at home, but could be happy at school. From that day forward, I would stretch my face into a frown before I came home so I wouldn't get interrogated again. There's much more, but that's one moment 😭
@@LainL-ks1pd that sounds like envy, he was jealous that you knew how to be happy
Ive never discussed this dominant person concept at all as possibly part of my problems w a therapist or psychiatrist, but I quite literally tell my parents about fun stuff on the horizon LITERALLY to get the green light externally to tell me its okay to go do fun stuff now
The way dr K describes going to the psychologist too, just spot on
When he said the bit of the "Independent activity" fixing me, I just got it. the activities become the other. Focusing on how I feel on the inside whilst doing things is the ticket. And it's so hard because I've disconnected so much from how I feel, it feels like a huge open void. So trying to connect not with how I feel about something, but if I'm enjoying what I'm doing. Its so subtle. I've always appreciated HealthyGamer but omg this video just blew my mind. Thank you.
I would highly appreciate a sequel video about dysthymia as I have never heard of the concept before, but now that I hear it being explained to me, it''s pretty obvious that this is what I've been dealing with for most of my life. I'm not going to write about my life story here but I will write about a personal experience that's been on my mind.
I've noticed that whenever I'm terribly sick, there's some sense of comfort, serenity, and contentedness that is notably absent when I am healthy. I think it comes from the fact that you cannot be reasonably expected to work, study, or socialize while you are sick. Instead, the best thing to do is simply to rest and deal with your illness. So, not needing to worry about lofty expectations and accomplishments, I quickly learn to appreciate the simple act of living. Once the illness is gone, those expectations come back, and so the feeling disappears. In a way, it's unintentionally cruel to ourselves to deny our own happiness when we are capable, only allowing ourselves the privilege of internal self-esteem when we are powerless.
Yes, I had this same feeling when I suffered a back injury recently. At first, I still had this sense of guilt that I wasn’t able to work but then I started to feel relaxed because I knew that there was nobody I had to please for the next few days
Same here! I feel like I got to a point though were I would act so perfect all the time that no one would believe me when I was sick. Only with bad colds would I feel this way.
This is so relatable. When I was a kid, I used to pray that I'd get cancer so that I could just do nothing and not feel guilty about it. I didn't want to die. I just couldn't think of any other way to have an excuse to not be perfect all the time.
I think this is partially why I like winter. There's fewer expectations on social life. Everyone's mostly just cuddled up on the couch watching movies or whatever instead of being expected to be out doing "fun" activities. Also, since my baseline is depressed but not super depressed, I start to feel like maybe I'm a happy person in the winter because everyone else gets so down.
@@tiptapkey yesssss, I've been like this since my early teens, which coincides with the time I struggled to make close friends when I started secondary school
I'm 38 and was diagnosed with Dysthymia when I was in high school around age 16. I got married fairly young at 23 and over the years I felt like the Dysthymia was mitigated or eliminated. Earlier this year, my wife passed away and ever since then I've just had this feeling of being "off" and couldn't really put a finger on it beyond just general grief and depression. After watching this video it occurs to me that my Dysthymia may have never truly gone away but that my wife became the dominant other in my life. I've got so much reflection and learning to do. I want to learn more and try and improve my mental health. Videos like this give me hope that there's a way forward for me.
She's watchin. Make her proud brother.
@@Yamaazaka dont make him make his wifes ghost the dominant other bruh 😭
@@Raian85 your tears are like poison.
@@heuvelke1065 thanks
@@Yamaazaka No, wait, that’s the trap!
babe wake up new self-diagnosis term just dropped
@@eebbaa5560 right lol
I feel like if anybody is self diagnosing I feel like dysthymia is a generally a harmless one. Besides, most psychs will only provide the unspecified MDD diagnosis and never actually look further into it
🤣🤣
Yeah I didn't know shit about alexythimia and then dr alok started takling about it, and now I'm convinced I have at least a 90% chance of being alexythmic.
This isn't new, at all. Knew about this when I was like 14
You just read the entirety of the last 2.5 years of my life like a book, and the realization that _this_ is what I'm going through has left me shook.
I feel like a million new paths have been opened up for me just by knowing this. The doors have opened!
ive watched thousands of psychology videos (narcissism, autism, ptsd,...) and always found comments from ppl saying "omg this 100% on point. this is exactly how im feeling" but could never say that for myself.
i was so sad never finding sth discribing how i feel. always thinking wtf is wrong with me?
at this point i can say: THIS is 100% on point. THIS is how i actually feel. everything you are saying. i am externally capable of sooo many things and ppl admire me for it but i dont feel anything about anything im doing. doing this and that will make me happy. the therapist will fix me. the new job will make me happy ...
exactly this
THANK YOU SO MUCH for giving this shit a name! ❤
i disassociate and then seek inspiration, it sometimes takes me months but eventually i'll do something cool, and ride that out for a few months, i'm really glad i have low standards or i would still be in the pit of my depression and existential crisis.
I've never cried before to a simple video. but this...
I never got the exact words or concepts to explain how I feel during almost all my life, but this video is the exact description. I've tried a lot of things and "therapy", but every time the result was the same "nah bro, you are just depressed, take this and be happy until next visit". Now all clicks together.
I know exactly how you feel bro. I too let off some tears after listening to the examples and made some connections.
Same but unfortunately I don't cry
at least that means you feel something.. which doesn't sound the same. vs just feeling nothing..
@@NoodleIDK13never?
@@SomeCallMeTato 4 years now.
I've struggled with dysthymia for years - but I never knew the link with dependence on others. This just explained a whole lot for me. I'm a very avoidant person but I also depend on others, and I can't enjoy my life alone.
I grew up with my parents always in control (too much control), but it gave me comfort. When I became an adult, I didn't have anyone to dictate my life, so my depression reached the worst it's ever been.
And the "It's not always a person" part - I went from a laid-back job, where I had no purpose left in life. To a new job with tons of pressure - and it's actually improved my wellbeing a lot. I just need direction from something outside. This makes so much sense now.
This sounds a lot like my ex. I wish I’d seen this while I was with him
Same, same. Got the diagnosis back when I was 18, and I've semi-recently gotten the avoidant personality disorder diagnosis as well. Yet I currently do work that genuinely makes me feel good and better, and it's improved both sides.
@@adamgreenhill110 it it avoidance or is it misanthropy? I honestly can't tell.
@@TestUser-cf4wj For me it's just avoidance; I do like/need people but I always feel something pushing me away
Where do you work? 😅
I’m a survivor of intense narcissistic abuse that up until seeing this video left me thinking I’m a “low functioning husk”; as a means of describing how I’ve felt for years. I was able to escape this abuse at 18 which is awesome but years of depression and isolation have followed.
There’s something about the how I was raised that has left me feeling as if I’m ‘waiting for orders’ or as you put it, ‘pleasing my dominant other’. This has left that old software running, but with nobody to please anymore, I haven’t been able to function no matter what I do or how much help I try to get.
On a lighter note, this video has pinpointed exactly how I’ve been feeling, with the exact words I haven’t been able to find to describe my mental state. It’s liberating.
I turn 24 next week, and I’ve been depressed about the time I have wasted just trying to make sense of everything, the guilt around my mental paralysis. Now, despite dreading the blurry passage of time, I have clarity. That counts for something
"no one is willing to make that sacrifice on your behalf"
I was already lowkey crying but this line is what made me burst into tears 💔
Yeah...
That would explain why after one and a half years of therapy, my highest priority in the review session was to reassure my therapist that they did a good job. And why, whenever I ry to do something for myself, a voice in my head says I'm only allowed to do it if it fixes me to a point where I can be of service for other people once again.
Thanks for this video. I may finally have found a word that moves things in the right direction.
@@minolaki5956 mother of god. if this wasn't me to an absolute tee. it feels so reassuring to know i'm not the only one who feels like this, thank you so much
I stumbled on this video. I always thought I can’t be depressed because I function in life. Depressed people I’ve known can’t get out of bed or shower for days on end. But you described me 100%. I’m processing this. Funny though, I’ve actually come to the conclusion about how to treat this as you said at the end, and have been trying to do things that I want to do, not because it will please someone else while I don’t enjoy it at all. Thank you for explaining this. This helps a lot.
I can't imagine the guilt and self-hatred I'd feel if I stayed in bed or didn't shower. It would be worse than the depression. That's definitely one spot where we differ from people with normal depression. It just seems incomprehensible to me.
@@tiptapkey major depression that severe doesn't really leave any emotional bandwidth for anything else. From what I understand from friends who've been that bad and the rare instances I've gotten close myself, the frustration, guilt, disgust, and self-directed hate are pretty much all in there already but the despair is so damn loud that they're usually not enough to unstick the person and frequently the progressively more obvious their dysfunction is the stronger that gets, just one more painful thing adding to their emotional burden rather than an assisting push to act.
Major depression almost works more like a migraine or something IMO; it's a debilitating source of pain that doesn't have an easily treatable source and is invisible outside the effect it has on the person going through it, it's just intense emotional pain rather than damage report feedback. Dysthymia is closer to having someone that follows you everywhere, reflexively shits on anything you enjoy while you're trying to enjoy it and provides the most cynical possible summary of past events.
@@mechalith2791 That's an amazingly accurate description of dysthymia for me, in what you wrote in that second paragraph. It's just been a part of me so I've just tried to cope with it being there while it attacks everything I do.
I finally have a name for what I've been feeling most of my life 😭 no psychiatrist or therapist I've ever seen has even mentioned dysthymia and here I learn about it from a random video that shows up in my feed. Thank you so much ❤
After watching this i again appreciate how great my therapist truly was. He put me through these steps without me realising it was what he was doing. Some things i still struggle with, others is no longer an issue. Is my mood still on the «lesser» or more monotone side of things yes, but so very very far from what it used to be! I also was diagnosed last year with ADHD at 30yo and figuring out all that with meds and stuff, but years of all that internal work previously has been a huge change on its own.
It feels like you're describing my life exactly. I always did well in school, but my dad never acknowledged it. Instead, our relationship deteriorated because I wasn’t good at handling daily tasks at home. Now, at 28, I’m really struggling with where I am in life and feel lost about what to do next. Thank you, Dr. K, for sharing this wisdom.
This is my exact experience here. Exactly what you wrote. It has had a profound effect of just feeling like I'm living an unfulfilling life. This video was very relatable to me and I've just been told by professionals that I have mild depression and anxiety. Maybe this is a way for me to attack it with a completely different approach. Hope things get better for you. Life shouldn't feel like this.
I was diagnosed with dysthmia and Dr. K is definitely spot on when it comes to my internal struggle. My past didn't fit his description, though (it is way more complicated, as humans tend to be), but the characterists are spot on. Especially people punishing you for living, the repressed thoughts, and how fixing your shit is like building a house. The part of therapy was also super accurate to my experience, which is why therapy was so ineffective until I threw my hands up and absolutely resolved talk about everything with zero filter. Before that I kinda was acting in a way that I thought I should rather than how I truly felt. This wasn't on purpose, though. It is just that my true self was buried through so much people pleasing repressed BS that it was hard to bring it out.
I never knew how hard it would be to actually say the words out loud to my primary care doctor. When she saw my written "depression screener" she said, "this looks a lot different than all the other times you've filled this out."
Yeah cuz I've been lying about it my whole life.
I'm fine.
I'm good.
Of course I'm excited.
All lies with the intention of making other people feel neutral and stop asking me questions.
I only have my mother, and she was never demanding, she understood grades werent the most important, she worked endlessly to provide. But she calls herself a failure because we're poor, and we aren't living the best lives, and I feel like I contribute to that feeling of failure for her because I haven't achieved anything or made any progress towards bettering the lives of my family. She hates our 70s trailer out in the middle of the woods, we all do, and I feel like its my responsibility to fix it all, and the fact I haven't makes me feel like a failure to her, and that I'm making her feelings of failure worse. Been that way since I was 5. Started helping around the house, scrounging money in public to contribute, anything to take weight off of her and feel like I'm helping and making things better.
i’ve never heard of this before but it sounds exactly like me. i don’t think i’m majorly depressed but im just not happy. im unsatisfied, unmotivated, and apathetic. nothing moves me
Dudes will say this but they consume thc almost daily 😂. Imagine.
@kat-cg6dy
The take from Dr.K’s lecture here is to not depend on the word ‘nothing’ or trust it too quickly. You might never feel pleasure the same as others , but you’re not deprived of experiencing it. So it’s up to you to find what causes you to experience it and actively make it a part of your life so you don’t loop and be dependent on an outside source but keep your life moving straight into something fueled internally.
That’s assuming you first take the steps to get professionally diagnosed above everything.
i hope to find a doctor IRL as articulate and smart as you. all my psychiatrists & therapists have been wonderful people, but man, you’re just able to get points across that others can’t. thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. you really do help ❤️
I’ve never heard of the term dysthymia before but this video did make me realize I genuinely can’t comprehend the concept of happiness not being circumstantially or externally dependant. Will have to look more into this!
I feel like that was my problem when I did HG coaching; I’m great at staying true to what I said I would or trying to “impress” others when they’re there, but when it’s just me I completely let off. I’m not sure how much this plays into dysthymia or more just people pleasing and having no sense of direction.
@@illumistrationThat's very interesting. I feel like I have a similar experience of life.
Whenever I'm with other people, everything inside me seems to function like clockwork; I just go with the flow and, just like you, I do my best to do what is expected of me (unless I feel like it's too much). Now, if I'm alone, I pretty much turn into someone else and every step I take needs to be calculated, lest I fall into the proverbial chasm.
@@kveller555 well put. It's such a weird feeling seeing all these comments of people describing my experience of life. Wow.
@@kveller555 YES, I feel the same way, the way I describe it to my friends is that when I'm in a social situation, I'm a functioning human, but if I'm left to my own devices, I basically get forcibly shoved into power save mode. I've become desperate to be put into social situations because that's the only time I feel alive, which forseeably just ended up making people feel crowded and alienating me, which has really been sending me into a downwards spiral that it's been incredibly difficult to pull out from.
I relate to what yall have said here a lot. Now what to do about it?
i feel so very understood by this video. it makes me so glad.
i always feel like im not allowed to be happy unless someone gives me the permission. if they are disappointed or dont like me then its my fault and i have to stay in guilt until they like me again or i made them happy again.
i have everything in life that should make someone happy but it feels as plain and worthless as having absolutely nothing.
i tried everything therapists told me to do but all those things are happening in a whole different sphere than my dysthymia.
the dysthymia doesnt care what i do, everything is meaningless. even laughing is meaningless.
thank you dr . k,
@@killik0r your first paragraph describes my bf to a T, like, holy shit. And when he's not with me he's just... nothing. It doesn't matter what we did that weekend or how his day was. He just can't get himself to do anything for himself. It worries me and I have to encourage him to game or read. I've gotten depressed, too, but this isnt a few month thing.
And if we have a disagreement (really minor stuff, normal human stuff), I'll forget about it because I don't go to bed angry. And wake up to him having worried all night and he's apologizing for something we already resolved, full of guilt. I'm just distraught because I don't know what to do besides reassure him, and even when I fully reassure him we are okay he still says sorry and it breaks my heart.
He didn't have a good childhood... I don't really know what to do beyond just be there. But I can't fix his internals. I don't want him to be sad just because I'm not around for the night :(
Dysthymia is indeed a tough nut to crack, and as someone who has cracked it quite a bit in her own life, I have to say to anyone reading who experiences it, the work is well worth it. It can takes years or a lifetime, but when you do, your ability to enjoy life is all that much richer for having overcome it because not only will it be colored with satisfaction, but also immense gratitude that *you* feel toward *yourself* for what *you* did to save *your* life.
Thank you so much for making this video and thank you God for guiding me to this video. I am 32 and have felt this way since middle or high school and apparently been building up since I was a kid. I literally started crying because I finally found the reason why I have always felt different in a way regarding depression and have felt numb and barely ever able to achieve true happiness. Even though I am making good money and just bought a house this year, I just still dont feel like I am as happy as I should be. This video will have started the new chapter of my life to where I can get my happiness back. Thank you so much Dr. K... seriously.
Thank you for this. Thank you for existing. Thank you for working hard to acquire so much knowledge and thank you for sharing it on the internet. My life is forever changed.
I was *just* diagnosed with dysthymia (Persistent Depressive Disorder) TODAY. Dr. K, I humbly request that you tone down your mystical source code powers. They're becoming a bit overwhelming at this point. :P
he's winning, let him cook!
I was diagnosed on Monday lol
I also started treatment on Monday
You took your phone into the doctors office with you. It listened to everything you and your doctor talked about and then yt took that info and tried to promote content related to it, to you.
@@prodr0xxthefirst267 this reflects our current reality now, very plausible. let them enjoy the spiritual journey idk but thanks for contributing (:
I used to believe that my disdain of life was basically part of my personnality and that there was nothing I could do about it. Learning about dysthymia was therefore quite the epiphany. Now the hardship is to understand what is the "true me" and what is the dysthymia.
I'm unsure whether the root causes evoked in this video really correspond to what I've experienced, but on the other hand, the symptoms you described are right on target. Especially, it has helped me understand why my attemps at fixing myself through my activities were doomed to fail. In a way, it feels like I've been trying to just bruteforce my way through it, like if at some point my brain would simply say "ok mate, now you've actually achieved enough things so that I can stop telling you that you suck and that your life is without purpose."
I hope I can someday recover, at least enough to be grateful of being alive.
There is no true you, that's not how mental disorder works. It's not this broken filter over a pure uncorrputed "real personality". That's just how your neurons are connected, it's as much a part of your personality as any of your other thoughts or emotions. Because of that, you're not going to be "discovering" a better you, you're going to be "creating" a better you. And you get to choose who that future you is.
The dysthymia is as much you as the cowlick in your hair or the mole on your cheek. It's literally the way you are. You can either fight it and constantly suffer for it, or you can accept it and cope. I choose to cope.
My psychologist diagnosed me with dysthymia and after her convincing me to get medicated my life turned around. The dominant other in my case was my dad due to the fact I felt I needed to please him in order to do the things I wanted (like when I was little I couldn't play video games unless he allowed me to). Now my parents divorced and I moved back to my childhood home with my mom and sister and the medication vastly improved my cognition of the world and the people around me and my social life. Awesome video made me glad medication worked for me and to learn more about my condition and to better manage when I do get down
Legit fighting back tears, it makes so much sense after all of these years struggling with being constantly sad and depressed.
As an early diagnosed dyslexic, I may have used special education to get out of work. In truth, I was spending more time accomplishing the same tasks as others, which caused resentment. Forced to do homework at home, I refused to turn it in. I was alienated and isolated, not allowed to participate in activities like recess or class work. This led to self-loathing, as nothing was ever good enough. Today, I rely on others to help me find self-value. I don't know what depression is, but I do know what it means to depend on others for happiness. Your explanation resonated with me, and I thought I would share my personal reality.
Sounds like you DO know what it feels like.
This is me to my core. My mom was chronically ill, had BPD (I'm almost certain, but it was untreated), and never thought anything I did was good enough, with a twist of being mean and dragging me down when I did well or was happy. I could get straight A's for the first time and she'd say, "If you can do it now, why haven't you been doing it the whole time? You've clearly just been lazy." I could be excited about a new hobby, and she'd call it a waste of time. Hell, I had to read in secret a lot because sometimes she'd get pissed if I simply showed more interest in something above her. The guilt trips were constant because she could always "be dead soon," then she'd cry for a week. It was an impossible situation.
What were the primary signs of BPD?
@@BOSSDONMAN unstable moods, fear of abandonment, manipulation to keep me close and focused on her, inappropriate anger--usually biting critical sarcasm, mild narcissistic traits, going from seeing me as her perfect angel one minute to a useless disappointment the next
Thank you. I've known for decades I have dysthymia, but at the time my therapists thought of it as low-level, constant depression that I had to learn to live with. This explanation has completely changed my views. For me the "dominant other" has been school then my jobs and, for a time, the Church. I now better understand why it's more pleasurable to do my job than do things that aren't related to my work.
School was behind this brain washing
I got diagnosed with dystimia when I was a teen but never got the full explanation of what it is. I thought it was only a chronic mild depression that would stick with me for the rest of my life. Thank you very much for this video!
It's such a relief when someone explains what you feel and what is it you have, as if there is finally who understands you. It's like I finally understand myself more too, and being able to relate to people in the comments. it really just feels nice
Impeccable timing from Dr K again, is he watching me somehow 👀
No he's watching both of us😂
All of us..
No one would watch me😢
To be fair, if we're depressed all the time then any minute of the day would be perfect to drop a video
I literally just came to the conclusion that I may be suffering from dysthymia today and he uploads this now! 😅
The text Dr. K references here is filled with absolute bangers. When the pages come up you should absolutely pause and read the whole thing.
"I found the individuals of this type that I have treated to have been profoundly angry at their parents and, later, to have transferred this anger to all authority figures. Much of their behavior can be understood as an oppositional yet self-defeating vendetta against alleged (and often real) injustices inflicted on them in childhood." Which, now that I think about it, is a good explanation for what he says in the preceding paragraph: "Such individuals appear closer to schizophrenia or psychopathy than to depression." A somewhat logical conclusion to internalizing the belief that authority figures can't be trusted and are out to get you.
where can i find the source
@@weiyun3505 DOI: 10.1521/jaap.1.1976.4.3.347
@@weiyun3505 It's from an article written by Jules Bemporad, "Psychotherapy of the Depressive Character". You can find it on libgen.
bump
Bemporad J. Psychotherapy of the depressive character. J Am Acad Psychoanal. 1976 Jul;4(3):347-72.
doi: 10.1521/jaap.1.1976.4.3.347.
PMID: 1025075.
I found a copy on sci-hub
im 20yo and the past year I went through a therapy process where I finally realized that happiness was never about external things, nothing in my life changed actually, I only changed my perspective, worked on myself, worked on self-knowledge and that eventually made me find happiness discovering my identity and what actually is important to me, finally that led to fundamental changes in my daily life, relationships, habits, hobbies, dreams, emotional management, acceptance, and what is most important to me, I learned how to enjoy my own company, and found joy on the little and simple things in life.
For the longest time I did not know what was wrong with me. Years passed and one day I was confirmed to have Dysthymia. I could never `cure` it and I just learned to live my life around it and accept it. I do not remember the last time I was happy and every time something happens that is supposed to make me happy I think about that last time I actually felt this way and cannot remember exactly, only thinking to myself that it must have felt good. But it is alright, you can still live with this even if nothing works and you do not seem to get over it. Even these powerful neutral emotions you still feel can get you through life, just focus on what`s important still and you will be fine. Not feeling happiness fully is not that bad.
Wow. That was the first long UA-cam video I've watched in its entireity without skipping a second in a couple of years.
Thank you so much for that video, Dr. K. It really helped understand so much more about me and my issues. Time to get to work now, then.
God bless you for what you do, sir. ❤
OMFG! I've seen about 50 psychiatrists and psychologists since age 11, and not ONE ever mentioned anything like Dysthymia. Every single psychiatrist went RIGHT to antidepressants, none of which ever worked, half of which caused bad reactions. Every single psychologist listened without ANY sense of comprehension. But since kindergarten, I have only derived pleasure from the friendship of my peers, especially female peers (I promise, nothing to do with my mom). To this day, I am only happy when I'm loved by a woman I love, which of course makes it all the more difficult to find that woman.
Have they mentioned Persistant Depressive Disorder? If so, they've mentioned dysthimia.
Also, that last bit sounds so gay, no offense intended. I'm the same way.
@@Nakia11798 Wanting to be feel loved by women whom you love sounds gay? Lolwut?
@@Nakia11798 it’s gay to be straight?
I'm a small business owner, managing a nonstop stream of government, employee, and customer demands -- on every dimension, failure jeopardizes my livelihood and my ability to support myself.
Nothing explained what was breaking in me until I found this channel. Thank you.
Almost 5 decades since first being diagnosed with this condition. This is the best explanation I have heard so about causes and possible solutions. Thank you.
16 minutes in and I'm tearing up. I didn't know this was a thing. I want to get better. Thank you for making this.
After over a decade of searching, I finally was given an answer to what this feeling was.
I cried 8 times just hearing my problems be given solutions. I'm crying even typing this.
To finally be shown how to fix myself, given the many many many many different things I've tried, it makes me cry. Happily. Now that I can FINALLY start taking proper steps to break away.
Dr. K...
How do I tell whether the relatability I feel towards symptoms of a mental illness is either of:
A) Just a reflection of the human condition
B) A sign that I'm actually mentally ill
I've suffered all my life but it's so easy to fit my struggle into almost any mold, diagnosis/symptoms wise. I know many others feel the same.
A response would make my day, take care
i used to be like this. up until i was 28. if you're wondering how to overcome it, my solution is the same as how to overcome fomo. you fear of missing out? just miss out on purpose. you fear of disappointing other people? you guessed it. im not saying just be evil, im saying just relax. we are all human. we make mistakes, we grow, and we live, and we die. there is not a single destiny that will not come to fruition. just do good, as much as you can because you doing good has a higher chance of good destiny, but nothing is guaranteed. hope God have mercy on you.. truly
Psilocybin really helps.
✨🍄🍄🍄✨
That's actually a great viewpoint!
I was really anxious at school because I didn't want to fail and was one of the top students. That life is very stressful though and thinking about every little point is exhausting.
Welp guess what, bc I was so good I could strategically get 0 points on tests and still pass with the previous one, so then was like idgaf and for most of the year I simply relaxed to just barely pass and built other speaking skills.
Guess what? The speaking skills helped me more out than the .1 better grade I would've had, but with depression and anxiety 😂
Its that "as much as you can" part that screws me over endlessly. I rarely feel like Ive hit my limit, as much as I can is still so far away that I shouldve been better
@@BDuckie100 Trueeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
@@Kim-yp9yl Really? Can you say more?
Timely. My MDD diagnosis has been reinterpreted as Dysthymia by my new therapist(or most likely, both, actually), which makes a whole lot more sense because I've been like this for about as long as I can remember.
Not to tell you your own brain, but as someone who has both diagnoses: it might be worthwhile to consider whether it is more along the lines of 'dysthymia complicated by recurring major depression', if you feel like dysthymia doesn't quite match up with your lived experience. (If you feel like it does match up then that's awesome you've got a solid diagnosis, feel free to ignore me.) I'm dysthymic but every once in a while, usually if I'm more stressed and tired over a long period than usual, something particularly upsetting will send me into a fast and ugly downward spiral that can last for days and is a real bastard to fend off once it gets going. Treatment is mostly the same, but it does mean that I have to keep an eye on myself and try to catch it if things start circling the metaphorical drain.
@@mechalith2791 the banger that is called "when youre dysthymic you can still have normal MDD episodes, regardless of dysthymia being "mild""
This video and the comments under it have made me feel more understood than I’ve felt in so long. I think of myself as someone who’s fairly well-versed when it comes to mental health and emotional stuff, but I just had NO language or context for what I’ve been feeling for so long. It’s so nice just having a starting point to learn and begin the work.
Trying to find that internal satisfaction is so hard sometimes. I've only really managed it a few times since I really started dealing with depression at 10 years old. The only really significant one was when I was studying abroad in Japan and spent an entire day speaking in Japanese, and I realized that I had been having a whole conversation without conscious thought, just letting the words come out. It actually hit me like a truck. Thinking at it from the context of this video, I think a big part of why it impacted me so powerfully was just because of how novel that feeling of internally derived satisfaction was. It's actually been really hard on me since coming back to the US because I haven't had the chance to actually practice my speaking, and I've been really missing the joy that comes from it
Bro, I was just looking up and learning about dysthymia yesterday while doomscrolling in the midst of a mental health crisis. I don’t fully know yet how well dysthymia applies to me, but this will definitely help me understand what it is. Thanks for this, Dr. K.
This is really interesting. The underlying description and mechanics are me to a T, but the overbearing or needy parents doesn't quite match.
It's a little more like I experienced a series of life events that told me what brought me joy wasn't actually good, that my judgement was wrong, and that joy would always get snatched away. Just a series of painful events.
I was just talking with my therapist about how I feel like all my memories end up sad, even if I had fun for a while, they get colored by negative feelings eventually.
@@piquantement Oh wow, that last sentence truly describes my experience as well. Even if I do said “fun activities” objectively, I always “feel sad” or negative. It’s like everything is black and white and there’s just no colour to anything in my life. I could be on vacation on a beach and it’s “supposed” to be a happy time but it never is, I just can’t feel joy from anything, or it’s like when I look back on it it was sad or meh.
this really reminds me of when I was going for the IELTS Test (they grade how well your english is as a foreigner) and the last task was to answer a question, where you had to talk freely for a bit. The lady asked me, "tell me about the last time you felt happy".. i made sth up about going to a christmas market that evoked some happy childhood memories.. yeah.. a lot of stuttering.. i was contemplating to just tell the truth and say i don't remember the last time i felt happy, but there is this voice that i also recognize from this video, telling me that i absolutely can't mess up the task. fun times.
Can i say it?
Finally.
Dysthymia is a particularly hard to find subject to be talked about, despite being one of the possible side-disorders associated with the autistic spectrum, so it's nice to finally see a video about it.
Interesting that it falls under the autistic spectrum as a diagnosted autist myself. Did you find anything that helps?
@@Profinoob1337 it doesn't fall under the autistic spectrum itself but i've been told autistic spectrum when diagnosed is often accompanied by a/some extra mental disorders et similia, with dhystimia being what i got.
as for "anything that helps"... i got given meds which *did* work, but the sideeffects were too strong and not worth the candle, overall i didn't really find a solution to the issues that it creates, but i am working on personal projects of self-improvement by helping out a friend with similar-but far lighter- issues, it's... not ideal as we end up being co-dependant, but at least we get things done.
until i figure out how to do things for just my own sake, keeping in mind short term goals that i really value(i.e. getting money to make a trip to meet a friend) that i can easily renew once i reached them is probably the best course i can take, but it's also a risky one as if i don't manage to find one such goal again, i'm just gonna fall back into habits of not doing anything due to not finding true enjoyment in anything.
i hope unlike me you'll be able to find a better solution.
I'm on the spectrum and I also have Dysthymia. :/
@@Profinoob1337 question: could you see my previous comment? i have a feeling some of my comments under this video are getting deleted...
@@iota-09 i think the order gets mixed, but i dont know. if you answered under your own comment, then no
Wow, it's so bizarre, but this is exactly how I feel 95% of the time.... I feel so guilty doing things that I enjoy. The things I don't enjoy doing are things that will make others happy. So by seeing others happy... I am or I believe I am happy. It gives me so much stress and depression for some reason. It is sooo weird but it makes sooo much sense now! I will continue to research more about dysthymia...and to work on myself. THANK YOU for making this video. ❤
I have been diagnosed with dysthymia all my life. I am now 23, and I have literally NEVER come close to knowing how much of my life was my disorder until I saw this video. Thank you.
Im 38 y/o, and diagonosed with dysthymia (in my country called as 'dysthymic mooddisorder'"). This was even harder confirmed when I asked about how my father and grandfather were: loners, often times not happy. When mentioned to the professionals that my life seemingly lost color just after I was 16 years old, also was a tell for them.
I honestly felt I never lived. I hate that I never was able to and I hate that is just didn't end it myself sooner, when I knew I wanted to. I've been taking antidepressants for over 5 years now, and I don't feel like it makes a difference. Making friends seem impossible. It seems like people don't talk to me, and I always have to break the ice... My career is also just over, as no one wants to work with a silent, somber guy.
Thank you for the video. I will def give it a watch, but I honestly feel like it is over for me.
Keep watching dr k.. get support if u can. Keep rewiring..
Maybe a change of meds would probably help. I have taken lexapro for a year and it didnt do much, now i changed to zoloft. We'll see what it does.
Hope we'll get better eventually ❤️
My parents never told me they were proud of me, not with good grades, not when I became champion in the sport I was doing, never. But whenever I did something I wasn't as good in, they would be disappointed. I got diagnosed with dysthymia at 16, and at 23 now I still struggle with it. The 'dominant other' is the only thing that changes. Parent, social worker, therapist, s/o. I didn't realise I was still doing this pattern, and I feel guilty over making the other so important for my happiness.
I will try to follow the steps at the end of the video, but I already know it will be difficult
I was diagnosed at 18, I am 32 now. I've seen strides but a lot of these points still ring true. I have moved more towards intense anhedonia and purposelessness from an intense drive on a specific thing bringing me external fulfillment.
OH. MY. GOD. You don't know how much I needed this information. I was doing the work but didn't know what Im dealing with. You layed out the entire thing clearly like I never had realized. And you touched on issues that were really bothering me in my life. Thank you. I've come into realization now, and will pursue the change with an open mind. ❤ Please keep up the good work.
You really caught me with the "the independent activities will fix me" comment. Been dealing with dysthimia since i was a kid, its been better now and i noticed that i started indulging more and i had some life failures that forced me to detach myself from expectations
SO very accurate, pretty much all of it. Was diagnosed in college, but had it my entire life. Also am AUDHD. A lot overlap and nuances make this all very challenging to detangle and deal with.
More videos on this topic please!! Nobody has ever explained this to me and it all suddenly starts to make sense. Maybe you can give us some more examples, I now understand that nothing can “make” me happy but how am I gonna be happy then?😂 the things that I do don’t make me happy and everything I used to like just feels like a waste of time bc I can’t share it with anybody. It’s exactly like you described… it’s almost as if my life didn’t matter on its own, it only matters in relation to other people. I constantly suffer bc I live alone, the people I like live far away and I don’t feel like spending time with people that I don’t “vibe” with… if I could just become more independent (emotionally), a weight would be lifted off my chest. I understand that nothing can make me happy, I just don’t understand how to feel that joy inside me lol most things just aren’t fun to me anymore.
You explain also how I feel, nothing can make me happy and everything I use to like is wasted of time
Internalize your emotions
@@liloliu5713 same, but i try to think that having a good time on earth is the real purpose to life, not bEinG pRoDUctIVE as society wants you to. So im terribly failing at the purpose of life
@@Profinoob1337 what have you been terribly failing at? At least you try to find a real purpose on earth. Keep up the work I guess
@@Profinoob1337 I understand that there some stuff people just can't control the way they want to be
I was systemic for the first thirty years of my life, but I was able to fight my way out of it. I still struggle, but I started to enjoy small nuggets in my daily life and slowly found more of those nuggets.
wtf, I've seen doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists and no one has ever explained my struggle so well, and no one has ever explained the internal change I need to make, thank you. Even if I struggle to change, it's nice knowing that people have been through the same thing and understand what I'm going trhough.
Thank you for talking about dysthymia! When I first started getting mental healthcare years ago, THIS was the diagnosis that made everything I was experiencing make sense.
I was diagnosed with dysthymia at 14 and I'm 32 now. I absolutely relate to a lot of what you've mentioned... guilt and shame associated with anything I should be able to enjoy. I am also a high achiever doing well in my career but don't experience much happiness at work, and don't do anything outside of work because nothing feels good. I am not sure I will ever get over it. Thanks for this video, it's given me a lot to think about.
I cannot BELIEVE that Dr K just explained to me what my deal is… hallelujah!! Thank you💕
Over a 4-10 year up and down process following a traumatic cptsd childhood. (and a lot of Dr. K's videos regarding this subject / adhd/ trauma 2021-2023) I think ive pretty much kicked a lot of these issues. I found the same issues with therapy where I externalized based on the perceived therapists opinion of me. I started Wellbutrin in 2023, and it's helped a lot so far, with weaning off of it now.
Look inward Prince Zuko.
Thank you good sir.
I'm ready to tear up listening to this, as I'm unable to feel anything positive unless I'm around others, but I no longer have anyone around that spends time with me. I keep trying to be my own support, but as you're explaining it doesn't feel like anything's happening.
What I've learned through all this is that I'd rather be depressed and live a life of meaning than feel nothing at all with medication. The tiny moments I can naturally smile are when my own behavior provides value to someone else.
This is the video and knowledge I've spent years searching for. I can't believe it just found me and fell on my lap. I've heard you have to "name it to tame it" but never had a name/term for what's going on. Now it's time to put your knowledge to good use- and put in the rest of the work myself. Thank you again
Thank you so much Dr. K! I’ve been going through a slow, 5 year-long journey, and this is one of the many puzzle pieces (let's just say I filled out most of the boxes on the *mental illness bingo cards*™️) that I (and sadly for them, my parents as well🤣) had to discover alongside both my Psychiatrist and Therapist. So it really warms my heart to see you share this life-changing information (which I have been searching for quite some time) with us.
So, as one of your indirect patients, I thank you for all the time and energy you spend on us! May the blessing that you are to us be returned to you a thousandfold.❤️✨
I am pretty sure I need someone else to be happy, but people say that you shouldn't do that. We should be happy alone first...
@sebben13 People get it wrong, of course someone can bring happiness and joy into your life. The issue arises when you neglect your own life and stop growing / improving.
You dont love when you need someone, you just become dependant, which falls into the exact problems described in this video.
I used to expect my partner to fix me and every time I found that savior, the relationship was doomed and turned to shit.
Once I hit rock bottom after a break up, I realized that the only constant and the only person who can actually fix me is ME.
That was such a rough and long process. Breakup and Relationship have always forced me down to my knees, but now I can build a life, that doesnt have to be about a significant other.
Best thing about it is:
Once I realized this and kept going for myself, I apparently became more attractive to women since determination is something that most women respect in a man.
What can I say, I am going to be married soon.
Something I was always chasing.
In the end tho, once I gave up the chase, it came all by itself.
Much love to you, I hope you will be okay.
It's not about being happy TO BE alone, just that you are generally content and happy with your life and yourself regardless of no one else being around. Think about it like this, if you aren't happy with yourself or your life without another person, that means that youre looking for someone who's going to be attracted to someone who isn't happy. Whoever this person is, is going to have to be attracted to an unhappy person which in this case would be you. And how would you feel knowing that they know they are the source of YOUR happiness? No one wants that kind of pressure and it eventually makes them grow to resent you for putting that responsibility on them.
@@MossMan4288 True, but it's not like I appear unhappy. I guess it would be more precise to say that I struggle with being motivated to do things for my own sake, but I have motivation to do things for others. I've always felt like this, and doing things for other people seem to be my only way of feeling motivated. I guess it's just like he says in the video, but I had no idea it was linked to my depression.
@@sebben13 I pretty much relate to what you're saying, the hardest part is finding someone who gets it, even if it's not a romantic partner.
I am diagnosed with Dysthimia (+depression and adhd). I really appriciate this video. It was discribing everything so well!
I'm a university student taking a brutal class, and I'm going through it. This video rung multiple bells in me, i understood what you're getting at. I'm still depressed, but i think i know the heart of the problem now. Thanks.
This is more of a self-diagnosis but I think I have dysthymia (with episodic) Major Depressive Disorder) because it honestly explains my symptoms most of the time. I was raised in an abusive and toxic household where I was taught that its not okay for me to have my own happiness so my whole being and happiness and survival depended on making my caregivers and other people in my life happy. My dad wasn't much of a father as he was around but he didn't really act like a parent. My mom was narcissistic and highly anxious so when she passed away, I basically lost my purpose for living. Even 5 years later today, I don't know what to do with my life. I clearly notice that I do way too much for my family, even to this day. So, they treat me as if I have all the free time in the world and have no autonomy, basically making decisions for me. And at work, its a super toxic environment where I'm expected follow marching orders and am not allowed to practice autonomy in my decision-making. A part of me wants to break off from my current life and go live somewhere else independently but there's a lot of fear with that.
Sounds rough man. Like Dr. K said, those who benefit from it will try to punish you, try and imagine what your life could look like if you pull through though. I imagine it will bring quite a bit more peace (and confusion because now that other people aren't a forced priority anymore, what do you do? Build your life I suppose). Hang in there and try to move forward *if you can* without being too rash about it, that's what I hope for you anyway. :)
If you're still in contact with your family, go no-contact. It's one of the best things you can do for yourself.
It's almost as if Dr. K and I met with how scarily spot on he is about feeling guilty after doing something fun... Even when I've managed to find a rare find at a bookstore or enjoy/share some good food, the fulfillment fades as soon as I am alone heading my way back home
I think I was diagnosed as dysthymic at 19. I've realized that ADHD is upstream of most of those problems.
I think it's worth refining, that its not always a "you could do better", but what gets noticed .My mom has worse ADHD than I do, and just didn't seem to notice anything I did. I just had to take care of my brothers and would hear about what I did wrong, and everything happening to everyone else.
Ugh. Dr.K strikes again 😂
REALLY THO 😢
I noticed it as well. My dysthimia started pretty young, and it was after being treated differently with my ADHD.
It's an incredible feeling to hear someone explain your situation so accurately and then offer advice
I've had all these feelings for so long but never had the words for any of it. Never knew what I felt, and I thank you wholeheartedly for bringing this to my attention.
Thank you Dr. K this is something I needed to hear (*instantly shifts into thinking about getting approval from Dr K and then tries to remember that is not how it should be, so worries about getting approval about who reads this and still posts because I CAN - with some discomfort about standing up for myself of course. Who knows if I still worry about approval?)
Eventually, you'll end up using an idealized yourself as your dominant other and become a negative feedback loop machine of trying to improve yourself just for the sake of it and not feeling any satisfaction from it.
Holy shit. I clicked on this not expecting anything relatable and well... Holy shit. There was always something a bit off with my attitude towards life, but it was so subtle I could not put my finger on it. Terrifyingly accurate.
Dr. K just changed so many lives for the better, for free. Inspiring
This guy is a fuckin hero.