Dysthymia

In Virginia, in my youth, summer storms would sweep into the day with out calling ahead. They’d dismiss the sun, thunder and crash, soak anyone caught outside or out of reach of an umbrella, then hasten away, satisfied they’d made their point, the sun now free to smile again. Sometimes they were quite horrible guests, sheets of rain and strikes of lighting that shook houses, downed power lines, and generally making a mess. Sometimes it was nothing but days of gray. A front that settled in. A sprinkle of moisture here, the occasional constant drive of the same there, but mostly just an indecisive pall across the sky, neither deluge nor diaphanous. All of that weather pass. They were just part of life in the After Spring and the Before Fall. They were just weather. They weren’t mood.  Until it was for me. Not the raging storm, but the pall. The grey. The sadness. It settled in and stayed for decades. And then, one day, it was gone.

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-- From the forthcoming "Dismissing Dysthymia: Persistent Depressive Disorder and The Promise of Neuromodulation."