RandomBliss: Defeating Seasonal Afffective Disorder from the Inside Out

A little rabbit, a little tree...
who cold be sad?
(And if you look very closely, there
is a kitten peaking over Zoe's left shoulder.)

Listening to: A happiness injection from Denmark.

Bliss: The sun is trying very hard to defeat the clouds. I appreciate his effort!

For too long in my life, and for many reasons, I have thought the weather was somehow about me. Not having a car helped tremendously to break me free from this illusion, as did a love for the moon which led to the keeping of a weather journal.

And for too many years of my life, I thought I suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). As soon as the days got shorter, I expected to feel badly. You usually get what you are expecting.

All winter long, I would pine for the summer days; I romanticized them, telling myself stories about how as long as the sun was out, I was this happy, joyful, free, and creative person. Then in the winter, I could barely move. I never went outside unless it was to get into a car. I huddled all day, wrapped in blankets and depression.

But all of this was just story: in the summer, I could have some serious bouts of depression -- how had the sun saved me from it? It hadn't.

In the winter, though, the weather seemed to mimic my internal landscape.

This is key. I felt gray and dark on the inside, and so when it looked gray and dark on the outside, it was too much. Or so I thought.

You see, I had this all backwards.

If we truly believe, as many of us claim to, that happiness does not reside outside of us or in anything external to us, then what of this belief that sadness and depression can be imposed?

Yes, yes, yes, I know what you are thinking about chemical balances. First, let me say, that I am not talking about diagnosable, responsive to drugs mental illness.

I am talking about the kind of depression that haunts too many in this culture of humans living in ways that they think they "should" rather than in the ways they want to live.

I am talking about the depression for which millions of prescriptions are written and pills are taken and the "patient" still feels like shit.

We have to start wondering why? Why, when we take the pills, do we feel a bit better and then go back to feeling just as bad? Why do we tolerate the side effects for barely any real effect?

Because we don't want to do the hard, internal work. We don't want to express our anger at having parents who abused us. We don't want to face the grief of lost partners or friends. We don't want to feel the sadness over a life not fully lived. We don't want to have to really change.

We just want it all to go away.

So instead of digging deep, scooping out the goo, we look to the outside. We think, well it's so dark out...who could feel good during this? Then we have an excuse and that excuse becomes a badge we can wear, which we point out to people when they ask how we are.

There are things you can do during dark times: you can take vitamins; you can exercise; you can use a sun lamp (which does actually work); and this list of "remedies" can get very long.

But the main thing you can do is walk through the dark inside you until you get back to your own internal sunshine. That's the only permanent solution, as corny as it may sound.

If happiness is to be found inside, then the solution to your sadness resides there also.

Stop wasting your energy cursing the weather.