I had to look up dysthymia, but it sounds awful, I’m so sorry 🫂

I don’t have PDD, but I do have a variety of mental health symptoms that overlap with the symptoms of PDD, and while I’m doing a lot better these days, I have previously suffered decades of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation that I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through. 😅

If not celebration, what are ways that you cope or find joy?

I remember through those times rewarding / tasty food became a bit like a lifeline. I do not know your depression, but my depression was very anhedonic, so as a baseline everything was less enjoyable.

So I had a lot of “craving” behavior, seeking easy and quick rewards because I couldn’t motivate myself to do much else and nothing was enjoyable anyway.

Cooking for others became a major coping strategy, as cooking for others triggered my sense of responsibility, which helped with the depressive / motivation issues.

Basically I could leverage stress to animate my unwilling flesh (even though it was, you know, stressful and awful), and getting good enough at cooking then setup a reliable pattern of rewards.

Eventually I noticed if I ate at restaurants too much or outsourced my cooking to something like prepared or frozen meals to save time, I became much more miserable and sank more into my depression - honestly cooking kept me alive in multiple senses.

Anyway, I wonder if you have something like that, not necessarily celebratory - but like a spring bubbling up from the ground that sustains you.