Feel It Coming

I can feel it coming. I know what is ahead. The tell-tale signs; a tightness in my chest, a throbbing heaviness expanding across my forehead, and an anxious breathlessness caught in my throat. All of this brews within me for some time before eventually oozing out in the form of emotional outbursts and inclinations toward hibernation. As I recognize the familiar disturbances of mental imbalance, I brace myself for the struggle ahead.

It isn’t uncommon for a Bostonian to comment on being able to “smell” and “feel” snow in the air long before the first snow flake appears from above. The heavy dark clouds hanging ominously overhead, the air so crisp – each inhale results in frost catching in your throat. Gentle reminders to prepare the hearty New Englanders to buckle down and get ready for the storm. Our senses prepare us for the worst; switching our gears from pumpkin lattes to survival mode sending us straight to the grocery store for essentials. As everyone else makes a dash for milk and bread, I freeze in anticipation of the impending arrival of my seasonal depression. With clockwork precision, as the thermometer creeps its way down to freezing temperatures, so does my mental health.   

Initially, I deny the feeling. Mentally, I push the possibility of the deep dark drop into the abyss away. If I ignore it, it won’t happen. Don’t make eye contact with the ugly beast and perhaps it will bypass this year. However, once I am immersed in the 2020/21 season, I realize what a mistake that is. While I am busy pretending everything is normal, the seed has been planted and the tentacles of roots have begun to take hold. In recognizing my attempts at ignorance have failed miserably, my knee jerk reaction is to fight it. Punch and kick my way out of the heaviness. All my desperate attempts bringing temporary relief before I find myself tumbling back down the rabbit hole – Alice in Wonderland style.

Every year I struggle with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). The cold, dark months take hold on my mental health from January through April, not releasing its grasp until Spring. The frigid temperatures heavy on my heart. As I recognize the weight of my grievances, I begin to panic. The anxiety inside me begins to rise, engulfing my limbs and condensing my lungs along the way. This is a feeling I am familiar with; however, this is very early in the season to experience the onset of symptoms. I have always attributed my ability to prolong the inevitable to the joy I feel during the holidays. All the bright colors, festive traditions and social gathering that drag me out of my house regardless of the temperature distract me and help to delay the inevitable.

But alas, 2020. All those anticipated distractions have been cancelled, put on hold and social distanced from our lives. The lingering question and pointed opinions of what and how we should and should not be doing things by health standards have prematurely formed the low-lying cloud hovering over my horizon. The stubborn ache in my heart for how we are living. The struggles others are going through and the loss of so much, makes it hard to find the rays of hope to pull me through. 

I thought the news of a vaccine approval would bring a hopeful exhale to my anxiety ridden body. However, all I can see ahead are months of events that will not happen. Another season (or 2) of solitude and sadness. Another span of time when we spend questioning everything we do and how we do it. 

At least we know it is coming. At least there is a light, a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel. At least, those who I have been worried about most will have the opportunity to guard themselves against this horrible virus and some of the fear they feel from being with those they love. At least, at least, at least we are moving in the right direction. Right now, though, that just doesn’t feel like enough. It all is too much to avoid and so hard to not be overcome with.

I am so damn scared of this dreaded feeling. Petrified of the winter ahead of me. I want to be better than this illness. I want to make myself feel better – I crave that sweet satisfying release of getting to the other side of the darkness. The harder I will myself to get there, the further away it seems. It’s exhausting. I am exhausted.

Deep down, I know I just have to be. Stop trying for it. Stop working to be happy. Just live in the state I am in. I have said it before, that is how my “happy” came to be last time. And the time before that. If I know this, why do I keep trying… no, forcing myself to “just be”.  Ridiculing myself for not being able to.

One of the hardest aspects of SAD is trying to explain to those around me how I feel. Let’s face it, most of us who live in climates of extreme weather do not love every season we are forced to endure. The majority of the responses I receive when I tell people about my condition are brushed off and the legitimacy of my claim questioned. A “suck it up” and “get over it” message is the underlying current to their commentary. I often hear “well that is why I ski in the winter” or “you just need to dress appropriately”. Like any mental illness, it isn’t that easy.

When I am in the throes of SAD, I have a hard time doing anything that I don’t have to do. I stay in the house until I need to drive someone somewhere or pick someone up. I don’t make evening plans and have no desire to throw a jacket and hat on; let alone gear up for the slopes. Heck, I just made my husband deliver cookies to our neighbors because I could not bring myself to pull boots on and walk next door. I am one of the most social people you will ever meet, but in the winter, I avoid face-to-face interaction with anyone outside my own inner circle. I am a totally different person in the winter months than I am in the summer months. The fact that I can’t change or get over it (believe me, I have tried). The whole idea that it has that level of control over me. Well, it just makes me feel like a failure. Having someone minimize my condition when I am owning it, feels like a confirmation to my inability to succeed when challenged. It makes me question my own resilience and resent my indiscretions.

It recently occurred to me how similar this infliction is to PMS (yes, I am going there). Obviously, I am talking to the ladies right now. We have all had those moments of uncontrollable unreasoning just before our special time of the month. That moment when you know you are making a big deal out of nothing, however you would never back down or God forbid admit to it. Some hormonal demon inside you has turned you into a person you do not recognize. She is mean, uptight and irrational but you can’t do anything about it. In fact, the more you try to reign that stranger in, the more intense these foreign thoughts and emotions get dramatized. This overwhelming feeling is so similar to my experience wrapped around my annual relationship with SAD. My demeanor is unrecognizable due to an evil, insecure, alter ego stomping her feet and reminding me we should be living in Florida. When I try to suffocate the internal hissy fit, she gets real mean. She starts telling me what a loser I am. Everyone else can handle this weather why can’t you. Why can’t you get your shit together when it is cold? The more I beat myself up and wallow in the fact that I suffer from a mental illness, the more I lose who I am and succumb to the disease; allowing it to define me.

So, no. I can’t get over it. And no, I won’t go skiing or sledding or snowshoeing or whatever else you snow people do. What I can do is admit to how I am feeling. It takes time every year for me to go through a couple cycles of feeling down and bringing myself back to life before I remember admittance is always the first step to climbing out. And no, it isn’t the kidding around, self-deprecating sarcasm I have with my siblings and friends about “the stupid snow”. This confession, if you will, has to come from the heart and in the form of “I am struggling”. And it has to be to someone who I know understands my infliction, recognizes what I am going through and listens. Once I get to that point of acknowledging my struggle, I don’t want to have anyone to tell me how I can get out of it. I just need someone to hear it.

Next, I have to up my exercise game. The endorphins do wonders for my mental health. Although yoga is something, I need in my life to keep balance, a hard-core spin class helps me push myself to the extreme and release the tension I have building up in my body. This is one of the main reasons we purchased a Peloton this fall. With the uncertainty of our world amid COVID, restrictions and altered school days for the kids, I knew I would need to continue my exercise at my house. Once something I vowed, I would never do; I now own an expensive piece of exercise equipment and it is taking up a portion of my dining room. It is everything I need right now and appears to be helping me get through the winter blues.

The hardest thing I am doing (or trying really hard to do) is cut back on sugar. Sugar is the evil culprit that brings me instant gratification and then drags me down to self-loathing abuse. I am a sugar addict and have never been able to stick to the “just a taste” rule of thumb. Sugar is all or nothing in my world. It messes with my psyche and then leaves me unfulfilled. I suck at eliminating sweets from my diet because, let’s face it, it tastes so damn good. But, if I am someone who really and truly wants to ward off SAD, then I should continue to avoid the sweet stuff (as she shoves another candy kiss in her mouth – never said I was perfect).

There are so many ways to combat SAD, from taking Vitamin D supplements to using sun lamps to meditation to counseling. All have their benefits and I have used them all. The important thing is to find what works for you and take the support offered by others. You know the people in your life who will provide that support and those who won’t. Don’t ask for it from the ones who won’t.

If you have someone you love who suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder, support them. Just a simple and kind “you are suffering right now, aren’t you?” will go a long way. Try to avoid giving solutions, unless that solution includes roundtrip (or one way) plane tickets to the tropics. All other alternatives will fall mute.

Writing this article feels like my own catalyst in the right direction. I expect there will be set backs and I will continue to look at the built-up snow on the side of the road with disgust. However, there has been a slight settling in my heart and mind for the season we are approaching. If you are having similar feelings, own it. Write it down, say it out loud, take your Vitamin D and force yourself to get outside once in a while. Just know, you are not alone.

In 10 years, I will meet you in Florida. When we can realistically be the snowbirds our hearts so desperately want to be 😊