I start to wonder about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a kind of seasonal depression. Looking back at my life (and at my life right now), it struck me like a bolt of lightning tonight that I am seriously less happy, less stable, and less productive in the summer (to put it mildly). I have to admit, I’ve been seriously down most of the summers of my life, while I feel fine in fall and winter.
When I look up “seasonal depression,” I find SAD. Checking the DSM and a couple of other sources, the common term is the “winter blues.” Only problem is, I get it the opposite way. “Summer blues?” It would appear that it’s extremely rare to find a SAD case that functions in this inverted way, though they do mention it. But that’s me. I get unhappy in the summertime, and the only break in the bleak dysfunction is on rainy days, when I feel incredibly rejuvenated, like a weight gets lifted so long as the clouds are overhead.
One of the prescribed treatments for those with winter blues is “light therapy,” exposure to lots and lots of light to replace what you’re missing from nature during the winter months. But of course sunlight is at its strongest in summer, so I doubt that light therapy would help in my case, since it’s obviously not a lack of sunlight that brings me down in the summertime.
I don’t even like direct sunlight. In fact, I hate the stuff. I don’t suppose I had an opinion on it until the fabled “Moab trip,” but after that episode it’s always made me extremely uncomfortable. Still, what I feel in the summertime (right now, for example) is much more than discomfort at being in sunlight (I mean, I’m indoors right now and can’t feel it).
It’s also not cyclical, since I know that I get it when I go to sunny climes even in winter (i.e. Arizona, California, etc.) so it is in some way related to climate, light, etc.
Sometimes it almost feels cultural, like people and the way that they behave and socialize in the summertime is much more foreign and scary to me than the way that they behave in the wintertime. Something my parents did?
Could I possibly try to psychoanalyze myself more on my blog?
Beh.