My Story

My Story

Like many Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers I was experiencing SAD for a long time before I was aware there was such a diagnosis. I'd often feel like I was hibernating for the winter, just experiencing the winter blues. About ten years ago I was at work saying "I can't believe how great I feel now that the sun has been shining this week. I knew I was really tired this winter, but now I think I was actually depressed." One of my co-workers said "Have you ever heard of SAD?"
For a long time I denied I was experiencing SAD. I just had a bad case of the winter blues. But as I've gotten older the winters seem to be getting longer. I have had some years when all I've been able to manage is just exactly what I've had to do. Get ready for work, go to work, drag myself through the day, come home, hit the couch and sleep most of the evening away. Drag myself upstairs to bed and start all over the next day. One of the ways I've coped is everything that needs put away goes downstairs in the family room. There were a couple springs it took me half way through summer to get out from under the mess I had created in the downstairs.
This was me in the winter: very tired, eating mostly (if not only) carbs, isolating myself, dragging myself to any have-to-do activities, trying my best to be my cheerful self, always smiling, but feeling so sad inside. I would try to take a twenty minute power nap and two hours later find it almost impossible to get out of bed because my body felt so heavy, I felt like I'd become part of the mattress.
When I'm SAD things that I could laugh off, or not think twice about in the summer are overwhelming to me. I feel more vulnerable, am more easily insulted, have less energy to respond to any injustice, and become very negative. That glass is always half full in the summer but half empty in the winter!
I thought no one noticed. But both my family and my friends did notice. I was getting advice from several quarters to get on an anti-depressant but I really fought that. I just could not except I really had something I needed medical help with. I tried Sam-E at some one's suggestion one winter, and it didn't seem to help. Then I tried St. John's Wort one winter, nothing! Then I tried Krill oil, sure all those baby shrimps from the frozen waters of Alaska would be the answer, but no, not really.
On December 17, 2007, while I was at the hospital having a cardiac ablation my brother, Marvin, died of lung cancer. He was 47 years old. In August of 2008 I was in my doctor's office explaining to him that I felt like I just couldn't bounce back from the winter blues, but I was sure it was because my brother had died. I started crying, and I couldn't stop. I told him I wanted to see him in October before the clocks change to daylight saving time because my friends had been urging me to try and anti-depressant for the winter months. He said "I don't think we can wait. You need an anti-depressant now."
The anti-depressant did help. It made a difference but I was by no means energized or my normal summer self. I was able to not get so far behind with everything. I started making a list of three things I would do each evening when I got home before I would sit down, because once I did I was done. Maybe it would just be empty the dishwasher, throw newspaper in the trash, get towels out of the dryer. Most evenings I could do my list although not always. I was still low energy and still sad, just not as bad as before. I continued on my anti-depressant until the sun started to shine mid-April and then I weaned my self down by half and then by quarter so by June I was off it. I would start weaning myself back on it in mid September so that by the times the clocks changed I'd start taking a full tablet.
To Be Continued. . .