It’s my favorite time of the year! I love Christmas and
Hannukah. My tree is up, decorations properly coordinated, and as I type this I
am baking my second batch of cookies. I’ve already watched my two favorite
holiday movies – The Family Stone and This Christmas – and plan on watching
them again. I truly cannot wait to have a family to do these cool things with
on a yearly basis but that dream is in the works and on its way to coming true.
As much as this is my favorite time of year, it’s also a
time of year I dread…and have come to dread since my mid-twenties. Once the
Fall leaves begin to turn, it starts getting dark at 5PM as though it were
10PM, and the anxious anticipation of the first holiday – Halloween – is upon
us something inside me just changes. My tug of war between my love of the
holidays and hatred for the potential horrendous snow storms begins to take
over my life.
It starts out as insomnia. As much as I’d like to go to
bed like a normal human being, my mind won’t shut off the second my head hits
the pillow. I could stay up until 3AM, watching movies or just planning like it
was nothing. Yet I’d have to be up at 5AM or sometimes 4AM.
Back then, before I
knew what was really going on, I’d just exercise more to make myself tired to
the point where all I could do was shower and sleep. It worked…but it didn’t
last.
Another year, another season transition and another bout
of insomnia to accompany my joy during the holiday season. This time I got a
little wiser and asked my doctor for something to help me sleep. She prescribed
me Ambien. Life was good. Just pop this pill right before I hop into bed and I’d
be out like a light in 15 minutes tops. Mazel Tov! But then we got snow…not a
lot of snow but enough that I was confined to the house. And then I discovered
another issue – feeling trapped. I know cabin fever is normal when you’ve been
cooped up in the house for days on end but this was just one day. I was going
stir crazy. I hate the snow as it is now if I wanted to get out and go
somewhere it was too much of a hassle. I couldn’t just get up and go. I got
depressed. From January until mid-March I was depressed and my insomnia got
worse to the point where I doubled up some nights on my Ambien.
Fast Forward to my moment of clarity - January 2014. By
now we had enough snow storms that either shut down the city or severely
delayed business and school openings. My depression had taken a turn for what I
believed to be the worst – instead of being an insomniac, all I wanted to do
was sleep. I didn’t give a fuck about school or work. Everyone and everything
annoyed me. I barely spoke to anyone and just kept to myself. After seeing my
doctor for routine blood work she began to ask me how I was doing. I told her
something just doesn’t seem right, like there’s a disconnect and it’s ruining
my mood and ability to remain awake. She asked me how long had this been going
on and I told her it’s never been this bad, I was always able to manage it –
whatever the fuck this was – somehow but now something’s changed.
Seasonal Affective Disorder. That’s my diagnosis. According
to my doctor more people suffer from it than we actually know about, yet not
many sufferers are being treated for it. Based on my history she believes this
is something that has been going on since my twenties and has gotten worse with
the recent rash of snow storms that have slammed the Northeast the past few
years.
The scariest thing for me was not actually knowing what
was going on, but being labeled. I now have a label and a medication regimen I
must follow…even if it is for six months out of the year. There’s a stigma
associated with mental illness, no matter how mild or severe your issue. If you’re
taking psych meds you’re somehow delicate yet incompetent.
Am I on my meds now? Yes. Has life gotten easier? Yes. Do I still have the occasional bad day? Oh yes but I’d rather have one or two bad days than one or two bad months…
