A depressed guy and a rutabaga walk into a bar. . .

I wanted to say something about this post that is making the rounds, about happiness and vegetables. Yeah, those two things sound like they should be pointing toward a punchline. But the lifestyle issues are something that deserve some attention, even if, as is noted in that post, we can't really say which way the correlation works. Do people who are generally content eat more fruits and vegetables? Another way of asking: do people who are content eat less crappy food?  I think most of us are aware that unhappiness can lead us to eat things that are essentially toxic: too many carbs, too many fats, too much sugar. And these in turn can make us more unhappy. It is all part of my depression as parasite metaphor, about which more soon. (In brief: depression acts like a parasite that feeds on sorrow, a parasite that quite cleverly directs our behavior to produce more sorrow...)

But for now it is late, and it seems a good time to let Neko Case bring in the morning.

Is commuting the answer?

When I say that living with dysthymia is liking living in a bog, I mean this: the near-constant low levels of depression can make simple  tasks seem impossible, can make all of life slow... as if I am waking through thick muck. And I suppose in a way I am: in life I walk painfully and slowly through the thick muck of my affect. But there is also the constant sense that at any moment I might get sucked down by the muck, that I will not be able to keep my head above the bog in the clear light. I feel like depression is always waiting. So my metaphor is about to be mangled: is depression the bog? Or is depression some creature in the bog, lurking below my line of sight, constantly shadowing me, waiting to grab me and pull me under?

toe in the water

OK.

So here's the deal: I'm dysthymic. If you are here after finding this blog, you probably know what that means. I hope to use this medium to talk about dysthymia, maybe to connect with others who suffer from it. To create a community.

Is that even possible now that we are far into the internet era, with millions of blogs out there, each trying to get noticed?? I really don't know. Seems worth a shot.

I wish I could say that things were off to a great start. But I already have one big typo under the belt: I wanted to write "Dysthymia Blog" for the title, but I left out the "l".  But you know what?? It works. Having dysthymia IS like living one's life constantly in a bog. So I'm sticking with it. Dysthymia Bog it is.