I decided to tell this story in the hopes that by doing so, other teenagers and adults who suffer from depression would be treated sooner than I was. My story is very typical of a person who suffers dysthymia--chronic depression--and much of my own suffering could have been avoided.

But an even better lesson is that when I was a teenager, the treatment options for depression, anxiety and dysthymia were not available that are available now. And I would like to urge you to take depression seriously, and seek treatment.

Depression hurts is a catch phrase that we often see in television commercials. Depression really does hurt the person who is depressed and their friends and family. And in order to treat depression and anxiety, you must recognize it first. Here is my story:

Mood Swings Art Print by Patrick Coffaro above.

I grew up in a "normal" household with a mother and father, and two younger siblings. My father was the breadwinner, and my mother stayed at home with us kids as was normal when I was a child. We had enough money to live on, got regular health checks, and I did well in school.

As far as I know there was nothing wrong with me during my childhood. I had one broken arm, chicken pox, and did not need braces, had no unusual diseases.

I started high school in ninth grade, and during the first year did not have any problems. When I was sixteen, I joined a youth group through my synagogue, and was very active in the group. Between the summer of tenth grade, and eleventh grade, I went to Israel with a group for six weeks.

As I look back on my high school years for symptoms of the onset of depression, I believe that I started having symptoms my sophomore year of high school. But of course, teenagers are often moody, so they were missed.

One of the most frustrating things about my own dysthymia, is that my father is a physician, and my parents are both highly educated, yet no one realized that I was suffering more than the usual amount of teenage depression.

I met a boyfriend on my Israel trip, and he was very special. Leaving him behind was very difficult for me. And the following year, I started to have more symptoms of depression.

The type of depression that I suffer from is called dysthymia or dysthymic disorder. It is a chronic ongoing depression that never goes away. It is with me every day whether I feel it strongly or not. I will suffer from dysthymia the rest of my life, and I will struggle with the symptoms.

My depression symptoms have a repeating pattern. The depressed feelings creep up on me without my knowing until I feel sad, tired, want to be left alone, and sleep a lot. I want to shut the world out. Then if untreated, I will spend a period of time huddled, sleeping as much as possible for days, until I start to come out of it, and want to rejoin the world.

Dysthymia mimics regular tiredness and anxiety, so it is often not recognized at first. Teenagers often sleep a lot because they are growing and changing so rapidly, so extra sleeping on its own is not necessarily a problem.

In my case, if untreated, my cycles of depression get longer and longer, with less time in between. Earlier in my life, I have had times where I went weeks on end, in a depressed state.

My parents, who were both highly educated, did not recognize that I had a problem.  Or if they did, they never talked to me about it.

When I was a teenager, there were no drugs that could be administered to someone like me.  The only drugs available were for patients that were so mentally unstable that without drugs they couldn't function.

I did finish high school, and managed to do well.  Having the structure of school was helpful in keeping me going. Then I did what most of the kids in my school did. I went to college.

Depression is a physical disorder than can be passed on genetically to your children.  As a much more experienced adult, I think that my dysthymia comes from my mother.  She has many anxiety symptoms that showed up in me as I grew older in my late 30's and 40's.  I will be watching my daughters as they grow older to see if they show any of the symptoms that I did.

When I finally realized in my 30's that my dysthymia was a function of something missing or not right with my brain, I was relieved.  I finally figured out that there was something wrong with me, and now it was a matter of treating it.

The drugs that are available now to treat mental illness including depression and anxiety did not exist when I was a teenager.   Taking medicine to combat my own depression has worked miracles in my life.

Most people who suffer from depression live relatively normal lives. They go to school, they have families, they have regular jobs. However, due to their type of depression, they may have difficulty with school, family, and jobs.

My behavior, reactions, and anxiety attacks have all changed since I have been treated for dysthymia. It has changed my success, my perseverance, and my relationships with my family. But I was able to have two children, get a college degree, and hold down two jobs for a total of 17 years each all before I got any treatment for depression.

However, getting my dysthymia treated has changed the quality of my life. Much of my life was muted, and gray before treatment. Now it is so much more colorful. My treatment has not changed the way I feel about things. I still feel sad, happy, angry, and other emotiions. But I do not go into my depression cycles nearly as much as I did before. And I can recognize and stop them much more quickly.