I do not want to be a lobster

Those of you that live on the East Coast will need to confirm the truth of this, but I have heard that you can put a lobster into a pot cold water then turn up the heat and it will just sit there until it is cooked; however, if a lobster is dropped into a pot of boiling water it will try to climb out of the pot. I do not know if this is true or just a myth.

My experience with dysthymia is similar to that lobster’s experience when put in a pot of cold water. Slow and progressive, until eventually I was unable to participate in normal daily activities. Now that things have begun to progress for me, I see that I had many of the classic dysthymia symptoms (insomnia, low energy or fatigue, poor concentration or indecisiveness, and most recently overeating) but also some of the symptoms more frequently associated with major depression (anhedonia – inability to feel pleasure and thoughts of death or suicide).

As John Eldredge says in Wild at Heart men are posers… “Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a façade, an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise.” Over the years of the slow “heat” of dysthymia, since I did not realize what was going on inside me, I became very good at hiding my symptoms of depression. In addition to being able to hide depression from me and others, I believe through avoidance, I was able to put a little more power into my batteries as overall there was a slow drain that eventually caught up with me and ending up discharged.