An old enemy came for me on a dreary day two weeks ago.
Hauling hay to my horses, I dropped a square bale in the mud and all of a sudden, was on the verge of tears.
Just to put this in perspective: on a normal day, a round bale could crush me flat without squeezing a single tear from my eyes.
But there I stood, ankle-deep in mud, trying not to blubber in front of my livestock. The sky was a gray blanket. It was only 5:30 in the evening, but I just wanted to eat a pizza then curl up in bed for the rest of the night.
Or the rest of the week.
Or the rest of the winter.
And that’s when I recognized the return of my lifelong foe: Seasonal Affective Disorder.
For the ten million Americans living with SAD, the turning of the fall leaves does not herald the joy of the upcoming holiday season. It is more of a harbinger of doom. As the days grow shorter, those of us with the “winter blues” feel the onset of depressive symptoms that do not let up until spring.
The outward symptoms are not much different from other types of depression: lack of energy, oversleeping, overeating and social withdrawal. A person with SAD might be confused with a bear getting ready to hibernate; a really miserable bear, who tends to burst into tears for no discernible reason.
The disorder is more common in young people, with teenagers and even children being diagnosed. I know for a fact that kindergarteners can have the symptoms. I did.
I remember sitting in front of our Christmas tree, looking at the lights and piles of presents, safe at home with my two loving parents, waiting for Santa Claus and fighting back a misery so deep and dark that I could not put a name to it.
I was four or five years old. By the time I was twelve, my mother and I had recognized something in ourselves that was not healthy: the tendency to nearly shut down during winter.
Doctors have not identified the exact cause of SAD, but they recognize that it is four times more likely to affect women. Serotonin and melatonin levels are likely involved, and the National Institute of Mental Health suspects that the disorder “may be related to how much sunlight exposure a person receives.”
I can tell you right now that the last part is true. I am double-sure that sunlight is involved. My mom and I both felt the sun pulling away from us every fall, and we felt ourselves closing up like the petals of a plant. The only real cure is spring, but that is hardly consolation when symptoms set in before Halloween.
Once we knew that SAD existed, my mom and I found ways to cope. Every year, it got easier. Simply knowing that we had an identifiable condition helped enormously. We were not going crazy every fall. We were not scrooges. In a household where whining was considered an immoral act, it helped to have an enemy. We were fighting a real fight.
The last few years, I had almost forgotten that SAD was a part of me, but I have always lived near the Gulf of Mexico, where days are longer and the sun is brighter than here in the mountains, 400 miles north. The farther I am from the equator, the harder SAD hits me.
Although the National Institute of Mental Health considers it to be a recurring major depressive disorder, SAD usually manifests as only mild to moderate depression. I have many friends with severe depression of the soul-crushing, life-threatening variety. My getting mopey when winter comes seems negligible compared to that. It is like sniffling about a cold when your friends are bed-bound with the flu.
I do not want to complain.
I will not ask for help. It just is not in me.
But facing the first real winter of my life, I need to woman up.
Talk-therapy and anti-depressants are remedies, but for me, those would be a refuge of last resort.
So I started using a light box. The effects were immediate. Finding salvation in a $30 light ordered online seems too good to be true, but the lights are doctor-recommended and when I use mine, I feel like I am plugged directly into the sun. Just 30 minutes in front of the light leaves me feeling like I drank half a pot of coffee, but without the shakes.
I take vitamin D. I hike. I make sure to get as much sunlight as possible.
But I will never be as happy in January as I am in June.
Robbi Pounds is a columnist for The Graham Star. She can be reached by phone, 479-3383 or by email, rpounds@grahamstar.com.