Seasonal Affective Disorder

Less energy. Can't concentrate. Loss of interest in regular activities. Social withdrawal. Unhappiness or irritability. Crying more often. Oversleeping. 

If you are feeling most, or all, of these symptoms and find that you only seem to suffer from them at a certain time of year, you may be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.). The acronym is witty, but the actual experience is anything but funny. 

The impact of this disorder can range from having the blues more often than usual, to bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts. 

The women in my family have a history of experiencing this disorder. My grandmother, who passed away last spring, had a very hard time with it. She tended to sleep away the winter and would become almost manic in her behavior. When my mother first heard about S.A.D. in the late nineties, she recognized what the problem was. My grandmother, Mimi, got very sick at the beginning of 2011, and we remember her saying that if the sun would just shine more and warm everything up, she would get to feeling better. I took her for a walk once the first warm weekend arrived, but she was already very weak and couldn't make it very far. She passed away a couple of weeks later. 

My mother, who, along with my dad, me and my brother, spent most of the eighties and early nineties in The Netherlands as a missionary, struggled with seasonal depression. The Netherlands, also known as Holland, has very, very long winters. The sun rarely shows itself and the rain is constant. On average, it would rain 15 days out of the month. And with that rain came cold, cold wind. I remember riding my bike home from school and running to the bathroom just to blow-dry myself for 30 minutes. My ears always hurt from the dang wind. When we learned our colors in grade school, we were taught that the sky was gray, not blue. 

Doctors prescribed Light Therapy to many Dutch people who struggled through the winter. It was just a box of light that you put your face in front of for a few hours a day, but my mom said it helped. I think moving to Florida in 1994 helped more. 

As a teenager, cold, blustery days felt like home. That lasted until my early twenties, when I started to have a hard time in the winter, but wasn't sure why. And every year, it seems to get a little worse. My mom says that it got worse as she got older, too. A few years ago, I spent way too much time in a tanning bed, just to absorb some light during the dark months. 

There are plenty of ways to win this battle without medication. (In my opinion, medication is prescribed too easily and too often. No one is happy all the time. Life is difficult, and it's natural to feel unhappy at unhappy times.) 

• Get off the couch. Don't sit around for too long and dwell on why you're sad. Sometimes things get worse when you over-analyze. Sometimes nothing is wrong, it's just a nasty time of year.

Take a deep breath. This will pass. If things don't get better soon, talk to your doctor. S.A.D. can lead to deeper depression, and that's very hard to get out of. What you're feeling is real, so make sure to take of yourself.