Feeling kinda S.A.D.

by Rich Miles

Anyone who reads this blog even remotely regularly will notice that I haven't written much on it lately. There is a good reason for this: it's the weather.

I have been for a number of years now an acute sufferer of S.A.D., or Seasonal Affective Disorder. Which is, in short terms, a deep sense of melancholy that takes place in the worst of the winter. When sunlight is rare, and gray skies are the norm, and temperatures are too cold to allow for much outdoor activity, and generally, the otherwise pleasant activity of going outdoors doesn't help in perking up the spirits in the dead of winter.

It's a recognized and medically-documented syndrome, causing more than the occasional suicide, and while I've never tried to kill myself, there has been more than one occasion when I have been curious as to what it would be like to be dead. But I didn't do it, because if I think it's dark and cold now, I can't even imagine what it would be like to be buried 6 feet under in the dead of winter.

So anyway, cheery as all these thoughts may be, I have had to contend with them for at least the last 40 years or so. And it hasn't been a bundle of fun, I can tell you that for free.

But at any rate, my life has not, so far, turned out the way I hoped it would. I lack any meaningful work. I lack meaningful connections with other people. I feel like I have alienated an awful lot of people, though they've all been inadvertent. I've managed to drive off at least a half-dozen people who were once important to me, but who now want nothing whatever to do with me. All inadvertently. I really didn't mean to drive them off. But nonetheless, I have driven them away. Part of it was my brain disease. But part of it wasn't. Or at least not as far as I can tell.

But anyway, lest I sound even more self-pitying than I already do, I'll see if I can't come to some sort of point in this essay.

I think the point must be that one must have meaningful work in amongst all the other things we need to live. Air, food, a warm place to live out of the elements, friends, lovers perhaps, and -- meaningful work. What 'meaningful' means is a moving target, but -- each person knows what it means most of the time. Working in a plastic bottle-making factory, shifting cartons of empty bottles from one side of the factory to another -- that's not meaningful. Creating the 'Mona Lisa' -- that's probably pretty meaningful.

Doing nothing at all -- that's not even remotely meaningful.

So anyway. I tend to come out of the S.A.D. symptoms when the weather starts being consistently warm. And I am the first to admit that my variety of S.A.D. is by no means the worst there is. People really do kill themselves or others sometimes simply because the sky is overcast yet again today - for the 22nd day in a row.

But just because mine is not the worst variety doesn't mean that it's not bad. It is.

If you've had this happen to you, I recommend a visit to a psychiatrist. Sometimes medications can help the syndrome. Sometimes not, but just because not everyone can be cured doesn't mean you shouldn't seek medical help.

The upside is -- winter doesn't last forever.

Does it?