Winter Depression

Since I had my first child I have suffered from winter depression every year. It is slowly getting milder and shorter and I hope one day it will go away entirely. It usually starts sometime in the second half of January or early February if I'm lucky. It slowly sneaks up on me and I'm never sure if it's just a bad day, or the annual thing starting. When the bad days start to outnumber the good ones, I know it's coming.

I've written about depression before and it's a difficult thing to describe to people who haven't had it. There are two elements for me. Firstly there's the background bringing down of everything: When I think about something that last month I considered OK, now it's grim or boring or depressing. Anything that was exciting is now OK and everything that was pretty crap is now totally awful. My optimism about things slinks away and I find I am living one day at a time in an effort to contain these negative feelings. If I only think about what is happening today, then there is a limit to how much I have to not look forward to. When that's been around for a while and sunk into my mental bones, usually the emotional breakdowns come. I had my first of 2010 on Friday. I was at my dance class and a different instructor was taking it. I wasn't in touch with her style and found the routines very challenging. Instead of laughing at myself and trying to concentrate more, I started to feel tearful. I didn't want to make a fool of myself so I left suddenly, halfway through the session. I just knew I couldn't handle it, and if anyone had asked me if I was OK, I would have caused a very embarassing scene by bursting into tears, so I fled. Later that day I had a very uncomfortable phone call to make and after that I cried on and off for an hour. Then I knew that I was having one of my breakdowns and the winter depression had begun in earnest.

But I handled it differently this year to previously. In my class, for example, last year I would have soldiered on and ended up in tears. But I exercised 'extreme self-care' and left with my dignity intact. And I resorted to food, which I always do at such time, but instead of eating and eating until I felt ill, and feeling no better emotionally I ate what I wanted, didn't beat myself up about it, and loved myself through it. I knew that I was doing what I could for myself. I couldn't take the depression away, I couldn't take the heart-ache over the phone call away, but I could eat something I enjoy, even though I didn't need it, and that would help me feel better. And it did, way before I got to feeling ill.

I think I under-appreciate my general optimism when I have it. That feeling when you look at what you have on today, this week, this month. That feeling of looking forward to something, but not just one big thing that you can build up to. Generally looking forward to the day, the week, the experience of being me at this time. Scheduling fun things to do is really lovely and I can anticipate them but one massage in a week of tedious activities is not enough to keep me from unhappiness. It's not the big events I need, it's the background optimism and that's what leaves me in the last 6 weeks of winter.