Seasonal Affective Disorder, v.2009

Seasonal Affective Disorder has hit me! :-(

I felt it start, if you can believe it. Things were fine on Wednesday last week when I went to bed, but on Thursday, I started feeling sad for no particular reason (one would say that being in a lot of pain would be a good enough reason to feel sad, though). Friday, it had hit me big time and I procrastinated most of the day. This week was tough, and today I realized that this was it: SAD has hit me.

This is proof that SAD is mostly chemical. Seriously, my life is very good right now and other than that tailbone injury (which still hurts a lot), I have no reason to be depressed. I love my new job, I have a good relationship with JF, our pets are healthy (at last), I have a strong plan to pay off my credit card debt and JF and I have a lot of plans for the coming months and years. I'm in a much better place than I was a year ago and I really thought that the vitamin D I took since November as well as the trip to Mexico would have been enough to keep me from experiencing SAD this year. It is apparently not the case.

My brain has a chemical imbalance. No matter how good my life is. Sigh... I guess SAD is part of me, then. When I have SAD, everything is more difficult and motivation is usually very low. I'll just sit around and procrastinate instead of doing the things I love. When I do those things, they won't bring me as much pleasure as they usually do. For example, there was a song that I discovered last week that I really liked. It made me feel happy. This week, when I was listenning to it, I didn't really care. SAD is like I'm sleepwalking through my life, like a zombie.

Fortunately, I know what is going on in my body and I know that my brain is deprived of serotonin. Knowing there is a physical reason for the way I am feeling right now really helps. Understanding what is going on in my brain also helps. I know it should be a matter of weeks before I start to enjoy life again. In the meantime, I'll try to hold tight.