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I first heard about SAD years ago. Seasonal Affective Disorder was ‘discovered’ and named in 1984 by Norman E. Rosenthal and his colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health. It affects quite a large number of people in the United States alone.
It is also known as the winter blues, winter depression, summer depression, summer blues and seasonal depression. Call it any name you like, it all boils down to the same definition. Lack of sunshine just pure dee depresses the crap out of some folks.
I know how they feel.
When the sun is shining, even if said sun is raising the temperature through the rafters, I feel great. I have more: energy, positive thoughts, creative thinking, and optimism than should be allowed to any one individual. I can sense, even before my eyes see it, that the sun is shining.
In the morning, before I’ve cracked open one heavy eyelid, I know that the sun is shining. I leap out of bed. Galvanized by the thought of all that bright shiny light. I’ll fling my shorts on, all the better to get some colour on those albino legs, and wrestle a short sleeved shirt on. Racing down stairs, I scoop flip-flops on my bare feet and rush out to open the shed.
Before I’ve even unlocked the back door, I’m making plans for all the things that need dry, sun shiny weather in order to be accomplished. Cutting the grass, doing the laundry, washing the car and, most importantly, getting out the lawn chairs and wiping off the garden table.
If my daughter is up, we’ll both gulp down some toast and Marmite and set up the power leads from the garden shed for our laptops. I will then find that book I want to finish reading or I will have to help my daughter find the sun screen. Quite possibly, if we have run out, I will go down to the Metro and pick up some fruit and Pimms for a lovely alcoholic treat later in the day.
I am always ‘reborn’ on sunny days. Unfortunately in England, sunny days are rare. In fact I would say with firm conviction that they are in danger of becoming extinct. Full days of sun shine are becoming as difficult to find as a Snow Leopard.
We are learning to become content with a few hours of the invigorating rays of sun that beam down on our grateful heads. My energy level goes up and down like and out-of-control bungee jumper. One moment, my mood and outlook on life is in the stratosphere, then the clouds move in and thwart the suns rays and I plummet back down to earth with a thud. My bungee cord of elation has snapped and hurled me earthward viciously.
I suppose I could get one of those ‘light-boxes’ that are prescribed to those poor souls that suffer from SAD. But for me, it’s not the answer to my sunshine dilemma. I could move countries, somewhere where the sun doesn’t make a reservation only to cancel it at the last minute. But that would require money that I do not possess or have the ability to borrow from anyone.
I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it and figure out how to cope with the horrible weather that prefers clouds and miserable wet, humid days that magically and frustratingly clear away as night settles in.
I’d write a bit more about it, but the clouds have just rolled in and my interest level in anything has dropped into negative figures. My mood is as deflated as that football and just as bouncy.
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