dysthymia

Dysthymia — now clinically called Persistent Depressive Disorder — is one of the most underdiagnosed forms of mental suffering, precisely because it doesn't look like a crisis. It doesn't have the dramatic episodes of major depression, it doesn't suddenly stop someone's life — it sets in slowly, it becomes familiar, and over time, many people come to mistake it for their own personality. "That's just me" becomes the explanation for something that is, in fact, a treatable disorder.