(no subject)

[sisyphus_rolling]

Anyone here have Seasonal Affective Disorder? I don't have it officially, but I want to learn more about it before I talk to my psychologist about it. Thanks!

Comments

[supermouse]

I do. It comes along with a raft of other things, but I have fairly clear, typical SAD. It starts kicking in late September, gets markedly worse in November, reaches a nadir in February and doesn't fully go away again until May.

Symptoms start with a sort of restless boredom and not being able to fully enjoy things I would have. By November, there are marked feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing, and it's hard to make decisions or to act on them once made - for example, it can take me a long time to stop what I am doing and go to bed, or to get up out of bed. Yule helps alleviate things, then in January there's a return to previous symptoms. I don't want to go out, I sleep more, I become more anxious. I feel unwanted and unloved, and unlovable. I dwell on my own mistakes and wrong-doings. I don't enjoy things and I become pessimistic about the future. My appetite changes, so I eat sweet, starchy foods rather than fruits and vegetables. The depression feels like a solid presence at times, as though the bad thoughts are being imposed from outside. In bad years, I start thinking about how nice it would be to be dead, and to think about suicide.

Then, just as senselessly as it arrives, it lessens, symptoms more or less leaving as they arrived, until in May I feel strong, optimistic and ready to cope with anything life throws at me.

I can take steps to stop it being so bad, but I have to start taking those steps in late August/early September, before the SAD has affected me, otherwise I won't have the willpower to put the good habits in place.

[sisyphus_rolling]

Thanks for sharing! It seems like I'm going to have to start paying a lot more attention to not only how I feel but also when I feel it. Maybe I'll go back through my journal and see if there's a pattern to when I start to feel bad.