On paper, I am diagnosed with Recurrent Depressive Disorder. This was also in retrospect for some of my episodes. Although what I experience is more like the 'longstanding treatment resistant depression' the psychiatrist referred to my illness as verbally. I wasn't psychiatrically assessed and diagnosed until I was 35, and had started psychotherapeutic work several years before then. However my depression started showing itself in my mid teens, having shown up as attachment problems and anxiety before then.
However what I experience, as mentioned above, is more a chronic form of depression, where I suffer from low mood much of the time, and the severity of my symptoms escalate and peak from time to time, according to stressors in my life.
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