How I Cope With Summer Depression
It’s a “thing.” It sucks. Here’s how I broke a repeating cycle of rumination and despair this past summer. It might work for you or someone you know.
Exactly seven years ago, the summer that Robin Williams killed himself, I published an essay that was widely read: When Depression Creeps In Like the Fog. It was about my own struggles with depression.
So many people approached me after the article appeared: childhood friends I’d lost touch with, longtime business colleagues, friends in our new hometown in Maine.
And they all said the same thing: “Debbie, YOU suffer from depression?! I never would have guessed.”
I vowed then to be open about my own experience coping with this chronic affliction. For several reasons: to be authentic and honest, because that is one of my operating principles.
Second, because the sense of “shame” around suffering from depression is so great. I want to lessen that.
And third, to help de-stigmatize depression. The topics of depression and mental health have been off limits for too many years. That has begun to change, slowly.
Witness the reaction to all-time gymnastics star Simone Biles stepping back in the 2020/2021 Olympics to tell the world, “I’m in pain. It’s too much. I need time off.” At first we were stunned; then we understood. She is human.
Summer depression is a real thing
My hope is that my reflections on coping with a repeating cycle of despair may be helpful to you or to someone you know.
My bouts of depression are very real but, it’s important to note, they come and they go and my life is not endangered. Oddly, depression envelopes me during the precious few summer months here on the coast of Main where Penobscot Bay sparkles fiercely, spruce and fir trees jut up from the granite-rimmed islands, and the air is distinctly briny.
Summer depression is a thing, BTW. Some call it reverse SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Researchers estimate that up to 30 percent of depression sufferers experience it in the warmer months. And it’s more common in women. As with all depression, the causes are a mix of biological, environmental, and psychological factors. More here about summer SAD.
I don’t know why depression ensnares me in the summer. Although I have a few hunches. One is that members of my close family descend upon our tiny coastal town for several months. To be fair, we are all familiar with difficult family members. I won’t go into details about my own.
I only know for certain that it’s a repeating pattern in July and August and that, eventually, the feelings of despair dissipate. The cycle of rumination stops and I emerge calmly into the present moment, rather than obsessively looking back with sadness or forward with hopelessness.
Content is the word that describes this post-depression state of mind. It’s not happiness exactly. When I emerge from depression, I feel as if things are good enough. I can stop searching, ruminating, for elusive solutions to a better (different? more successful? more productive?) life.
When I emerge, like a Stonington harbor seal poking its shiny head above water, it’s a good place to be: in the here and right now, not looking back with longing, or forward with anxiety.
How I cope with summer depression
I’ve developed a few tricks to try and climb out of depression. But as the TV commercials say, “Individual results may vary.” So I can’t promise my tricks will work for you (or anyone you know who suffers from depression).
1. I remind myself it will pass
Knowing that the depression will pass is only small consolation when I’m in the pit of hopelessness. But, I remind myself, any kind of logical thinking is useful because real depression is, above all else, illogical.
I’ve been jotting in The Five Minute Journal for a number of years (with gaps of three or four months here and there). I was startled to look back exactly one year, to July 2020, and find these entries:
“Depression is creeping in. I’m resisting!” “Feeling unliked, unwanted, superfluous, not useful, unworthy, DEPRESSED.”
And four years ago, in August 2017, this notation:
“Depression is nibbling… a summer tinged with anxiety and depression.”
Oh jeez. If you’ve ever been depressed you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the voice of depression talking. And it’s eerily familiar to me.
Someone close to you might try to rebut each of these statements (“You are NOT superfluous!” or “Of course people like you!”) but you simply can’t hear them. For me, the self loathing is too great at that moment.
Of course, I can keep turning the pages of my journal and see that the depression lifts.
2. I try to break the cycle of negative rumination
- Meditate daily (yes, it’s easy to let that drop)
- Walk or bicycle to catch glimpses of sparkling Penobscot Bay
- Read an escapist book
- Or most beneficial, get together with a friend or friends
And eventually, usually in weeks, the deep depression lifts.
3. I redefine what is “enough”
An old rule of effective marketing is to use odd numbers: three strategies, five tips, seven best practices, etc.
But sometimes two tips are enough. (#1 It will pass; #2 Break the cycle.) If there’s a third tip, it’s this: less is more. I set fewer goals each day. I try and savor the simplest things: a pink and orange sunset, the wind in my face when I’m bicycling down a side road on Deer Isle.
Finally, I’m already planning how I might break or even prevent a cycle of depression next summer. I might sign up for a two-week arts workshop at nearby Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Few places on earth are more magical or make me happier.
Photo at top: I snapped it on an August afternoon when we were speeding through the Deer Isle Thorofare. At full throttle, we managed to stay ahead of a fast approaching afternoon squall. Then, to our surprise, the storm passed just north of us leaving only scattered rain.
Kind of like depression, right?? It seems so big and enveloping and permanent when you’re in it. But ultimately (at least for me), it passes.
Debbie Weil is a podcaster and nonfiction writing & storytelling coach. Download your copy of her free 34-page guide: Knock Down Roadblocks to Writing the Book on Your Bucket List.
