All the Leaves Are Brown…and I’m a Basket Case.
No Matter How Hard I Tried to Run From It, There Was No Hiding From Seasonal Depression.
Let’s be clear.
Full disclosure: I just don’t suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). I’ve had a life-long struggle with major depression peppered with an exciting touch of general and social anxiety. Good times!
There isn’t a time when I can’t recall the struggle. It was particularly challenging growing up. I spent a lot of time masking my feelings and overcompensating with a lot of over-the-top goofiness and dramatics.
I’m not exactly certain when the SAD set in. I believe I was a teenager—past the days of sledding and playing in the snow. When depression was felt more to my core, hormones raged, and when all I could do was dream of getting out of my small town and moving to the West Coast. (To be a star!)
It didn’t take more than a couple of years to recognize the pattern. November through February. Like clockwork. November would hit and so would I—like an anchor breaking away from its vessel.
I would sit at my iced-over bedroom window listening to sad music, watching the grayness blend upon other grayness, the last of the leaves clinging for dear life, hating that the holidays were…
