Hello, steemians, and welcome to my page, eh!
Today, I'd like to write a bit about a subject that I have to deal with on a regular basis, winter depression.
In 2006, I was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety by a psychologist at the local V.A. hospital. That was just the start of discovering why I had been feeling the way that I had for so many years before that. After years of treatment at the V.A. my depression is a lot more manageable than it was before I started treatment and counseling for it. In the summer, I don't have nearly as much trouble with it as I used to have. The anxiety comes and goes depending on the situation, but I've learned a lot about how to deal with that as it happens.
In the winter, however, I have a lot more problems with managing my depression. I have seasonal affected disorder as well as the clinical depression, I just don't deal with winter very well. I usually manage to do ok until after the holiday season is over but it keeps creaping up on me and sneaking into my frame of mind until I find myself no longer interested in doing anything except sleep. This depression gets better and worse in cycles of various duration. It seems that the further into winter I get, the longer the duration of depression is for me. This kind of depression is not the kind where you feel self hatred or worthlessness, I've dealt with my share of that in the past and through therapy have come to terms with much of that. This winter depression is the kind of thing that robs you of any and all motivation to do anything. I feel listless, with no energy and no desire to do much at all. My brain keeps trying to get me to sleep, but the sleep I get is of low quality.
If there are a few days in a row that are sunny, my mood almost always improves. When the days are overcast and cold, my mood always suffers. I have several ways of trying to deal with these moods, I have a lightbox that is designed for use by people with winter depression, it is helpful to some extent. I take vitamin D3, I try to use positive self talk, all these things help, but sometimes it's just not enough.
This week was one of those weeks, I had no motivation to do anything except stare at the computer. I didn't even have the ambition to interact on discord very much this week, I just didn't feel up to it. Today is the first day this week that I've felt like doing much of anything. There was a few things I had to do anyway, such as going to my weekly shrink appointment at the V.A. on Wednesday, and I had enough ambition yesterday to move some stuff around in the basement, but that was about it. This is the first post that I've written in about 5 day, I just didn't have the ambition to write a post, and nothing appealed to me to write about. Hopefully, I'll continue to be in a better mood for the next few days, I might manage to get a few things done around here.
If you've read to the bottom of this, thanks for reading, and I hope I didn't bore you with my subject.
That's all I have for this post, thanks for reading!
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May the Steem Force be with you!
