Not Buying It

Disorder	Your Score
Major Depression:	Slight
Dysthymia:	Moderate
Bipolar Disorder:	Slight-Moderate
Cyclothymia:	Extremely High
Seasonal Affective Disorder:	Very Slight
Postpartum Depression:	N/A
Take the Depression Test

Now lets take a look at this for a minute.

The only one of strong significance here is "Cyclothymia," and I had to check and see what that meant because I'd never heard the word before.

"It is characterized by mood fluctuations that shift between depressive and hypomanic phases. Cyclothymics do not experience the extremes of major depression or manic episodes [of Bipolar Disorder]. The depressive or hypomania symptoms of cyclothymia may last for a few days to several weeks at a time, with brief intervals of normal mood in between."

Now forgive me for sounding like the medical-iconoclastical old nanny goat that I am, but given the lack of extreme manic/depressive moods, and the short term swings of apparently not particularly intense moods, what specifically then is to distinguish "cyclothymia" from "perfectly normal?"

I read a little more. What I want to know is, who on the face of the earth doesn't have ebbs and flows of moods? The "symptoms" read like a page out of any normal, healthy person's life. Raise your hand if you've never had a day when you felt "confident and ambitious." Bring me the head of the person who has never "felt very sad for the world." Show me what is out of the ordinary about "sometimes having difficulty sleeping."

Moods happen. We are human. Stimuli and conditions influence our moods, and they swing because that's just life. It's not a disease to be cranky from PMS (or male cycle HeMS), or to feel like a million bucks some days, or to have a good cry because it's your party and you want to.

I can't believe they've eeked a disorder out of what I see as the completely normal highs and lows of life. What, you got cranky at your craptastic computer and threw a pen across your desk? You've got cyclothymia! Here's a sticker for your forehead and a medical bracelet!

What would life be without waking up bouncy some days, and sulking on some other days? What is "normal" if normal isn't "life, in all it's mood shades?"

Discuss.