Christmas Day. Isn’t it just no fun at all? All the shops are shut, nowhere else is open, it’s cold, wet and drizzly, nothing to do but waste time online.
I am on about 200mg of sertraline, and not surprisingly feeling quite ok with Christmas this year, pre meds I’d be planning ways to kill myself around the solstice. Not pleasant.
I don’t like winter generally but New Years is ok.
Although I have no light perception, I do nevertheless get “SAD” (Seasonally Affected Disorder) making me feel low, lethargic and depressed in winter. Since I work outdoors, however, I find that keeping active in this way can alleviate most of it.
It depends on what you expect, I guess. I’ve had great Christmases and terrible ones. At my house, with my family, this year’s has shaped up to be more disappointing for everyone… but it’ll be okay.
We’ve had turkey and ham and roast beef over the past 3 nights (at my cousin’s, at my sister’s boyfriend’s, at my house), but what’s disgusting is there has been as much dessert as real food
Now we’re playing this absurd card game, Phase 10, while watching some Monty Python skit on television. Spirits seem a little higher now than they were an hour ago.
As for places open today that pay workers minimum wages, like mcdonalds, i will not do business with you today.
As for seasonal disorder, I have the reverse … the spring/summer light irritates me. There is growing sympathy for winter depression, but little awareness that bright sunny days can sour moods, too.
Like the song, “I’m only happy when it rains.”
:-"
Yeah but all the activities I find pleasurable are outside, and when it rains for a week, you cannot do them. You’re right though physical exercise is excellent at diverting and absorbing the mind as well as naturally giving you a high.
Actually outside of mental health institutions you are right, but it is well known that SAD relates to a season not necessarily winter.
I have low tolerance for bright light, I think this might be a consequence of SAD. The depressive phase of bi polar disorder is more frequent in winter suggesting a light level correlate to this disorder too.
I’m aware the manuals cover this, but tell a depressed person you identify with them, but in the spring, and they will look at you like you have two heads.
I guess we will always associate warmth with life’s blood, and the cold with some bone dead state. But I tend to hide at high noon.
I love taking walks in the rain. I have even danced naked in the pouring rain. At night, of course, with someone else, far from street lights, and someone was playing the bongo drums in the woods somewhere, and I was most alive then. Beats a beach day for me, anyday.
I guess I run counter to the rest of humanity. Always in the minority. But I probably wouldn’t change that if I could. If I die from a lack of Vitamin D, the sun should consider that my lifelong protest. It could never match my inner light.
I’ve been to festivals where we did things like that, well, sort of anyway. Big bonfire, dancing round, that sort of thing. I prefer the rain to the sweltering heat, but when the temperature is below freezing, it’s better to be dry. Snow is better.
