Feeling SAD

For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It’s not debilitating, but it casts a shadow over my life for about five months every year.

For me, spring and summer just lift my mood. The world feels a better place. And then it starts getting darker.

I just really don’t like cold and dark. It doesn’t matter how many times I try to talk positively to myself, I still feel slightly miserable all the time.

I don’t avoid going outside in it. I still go for a run and two or three walks every day. I go out in the dark because otherwise I’m missing out on fresh air. I love being outside. I need it. But being outside in the dark is so much harder. In autumn and winter, I can’t just go and sit outside in the garden like I would in spring or summer – no matter how many layers I wear.

The better bit of the year for me lasts from sometime in the middle of March through to Stroud half marathon day. So that is just before we change the clocks in spring until the day we change them in the autumn. Stroud half marathon always falls on clock change day, which means we get the pleasure of travelling there in the light. And for some reason it is always sunny that day! Then we get to the end of the day and it is nearly dark at 5:15pm.

To be honest, I’ll start thinking about it a couple of weeks beforehand. Getting dark moves quite quickly from 8pm to 7pm to 6:15pm. And then I think – this time next week/ tomorrow, it’s going to be dark at 5:15. And that fills me with horror. The gradual change is bad enough, but then suddenly losing an hour is always tough.

I try to be understanding of other people, but I genuinely don’t get it when people are enthusiastic about shutting the curtains early and sitting in front of the fire wrapped in a blanket. I can’t think of anything worse. I want to be outside in the sun, the warmth and the light.

And people whose favourite season is autumn? I can’t understand that either. Yes, autumn leaves are beautiful. But autumn is cold and dark and wet! Who looks out of the window on a November day when it is cold and pouring with rain and thinks ‘Autumn is the best season’? Definitely not me. Autumn’s only positive is that it’s not winter.

Because winter is even worse. I would gladly sacrifice Christmas and have spring and summer all year instead.

I’ve passed the SAD onto my younger son. He hadn’t realised, but then his fellow students pointed out that he was always talking about the dark. He’s told me he starts to ‘feel better’ in March. As a medical student, he spends nearly all of his time on hospital placements – some of them quite a long way from his university home. He’s not happy that his November placement is one of the longest journeys away, so that means leaving the house before it is light and returning after it gets dark. Like me, he needs the light. And, like me, he won’t avoid going outside. He’ll still be out walking in the dark, but it’s not the same.

So we will be feeling SAD for the next few months and there’s nothing we can do to change it. All we can do is wait it out and rejoice as the evenings start to get lighter and March comes around again.