So, recently I have been pushing my limits when it comes to social environments and venturing out of the house. I am currently compiling updates on my year with theme parks, but I wanted to put a little insight together of the drain winter has on my mental health and the effects of societal expectations push during Christmas time. Winter is my favourite season, but also my worst. Let me explain.
Media tells us that winter is a magical time of year with hot fires, cold snow fall, and the enjoyment of holiday season ringing all around us. In reality it is to mental health what Paris is to Paris syndrome. For those who don’t know, Paris syndrome is a “mental condition” given to persons who are expecting Paris to be as amazing is it is portrayed in Media, only to find out it is like most major European cities full of crime, hustlers and disappointment. Often experienced by Asian tourists who are only shown the glamour presented within the “city of love”, the Chinese and Japanese consulates amongst others, actively promote therapy sessions for visitors to Paris and other glamourised cities. Don’t get me wrong, not everyone struggles during the winter time, however, you will find many do. For me personally, I can’t think of a winter I haven’t struggled. The problem is, there is no single reason why. Lets explore some of the examples which have been attributed to my struggles.
Vitamin D
While it has been proven that I do struggle to create and maintain Vitamin D, this alone can not be the reason why I struggle so much. After all, I am not exactly on my own when it comes to Vitamin D. I live in the North of the UK where sunshine is often a luxury. Coupled with social anxieties and other problematic ailments, even supplements can only do so much. My struggles with Vitamin D has been a long term problem for which I try to take supplements for and I do try to build it up naturally the best I can.
Shorter Days
Lets be honest, the shorter days may be a big contribution to my “winter blues”. Not only is there very little opportunity to build natural Vitamin D, but, dependant upon your circumstances, you can run into a cycle of living in the dark if you are not careful. Let me explain. Depression can hit so hard I will struggle to get out of bed. When I do finally drag myself out of bed, it is already dark outside. Because I have spent most of my day in bed, I am unable to sleep at night meaning I will finally fall asleep when my mind switches off, just as the sun is rising. This is a perpetual cycle which takes over me every winter for up to half of the winter cycle. On the days where I am able to get up and “enjoy” the day, by the time darkness comes I am completely drained and depression hits hard, starting the cycle over again. Overall, I am lucky if I get 3 consecutive “good” days before I drop back into the cycle. I have tried to keep a routine but when the depression monster is at it’s worst, routines don’t exist.
Lack of Routine
As covered above, routine is a nightmare when it comes to depression and “the winter blues”. Attempting to maintain a routine while struggling with depression often becomes an additional cause to the perpetual cycle. I am aware that my lack of “constant routine” is a complication when it comes to this trivial matter, however I am currently trying to work on that. This is something I will cover in a later blog while I wait for my recent actions to manifest responses, however what I can say is my lack of working commitments and contractual expectancies does have a big impact upon my mental health, the reasoning behind it may become more clearer when I finally received the greatest clarity of my life. But I digress. So in short, yes lack of routine does impact my mental health during the winter, but in all honesty it affects it all year round. I could give many reasons why I can’t maintain a constant structured routine but I am aware my blogs already run on far too long. But surely “Christmas” gives you positive things to enjoy? I hear many people ask me!!
Christmas / Festivities
Contrary to popular belief, Christmas is a very stressful time for a lot of people. The problem is most people will hide their traumas over the winter period to try and “fit in” with media influenced societal expectations, or as in my case, to ensure our children enjoy the most expensive time of year. The problem with this is the crash that comes from donning the false face for what can potentially be months of pretending to be “okay”. Now Christmas as a child was not an exciting or fun experience, and certain aspects of the festive time of year incite PTSD episodes that can knock me for six without warning. Despite this I will try to keep positive so the children don’t feel the negativity. I have tried to change what Christmas means to me and run a positive spin on it but anyone who experiences these struggles will tell you that changing how something affects you when it feels like your own internal existence is out to get you, is almost impossible. Maybe I should move to a warmer climate to see how Christmas in the sun would impact me.
The weather
The weather has always been a big impactor to my mental health. No matter what time of year it is, the weather will cause my mental health state to fluctuate from one extreme to the other. Surprisingly rain brings out positive vibes while hot sun will make me irritable. Cold weather isn’t a big impactor as I feel more comfortable and balanced in lower temperatures, it is the unreliability of winter weather which impacts me the most. Admittedly, the unreliability of weather throughout the year does have an adverse effect upon my mental health but when included with other impactors such as mentioned above, I can go days when I even struggle to string sentences together, let alone function productively. Lets not forget, I live in the north of England where the weather is as unpredictable as the local residents.
Anything else?
Overall there are many things that can attribute towards my “winter blues”, he says downgrading the problems. I have looked into many things which could be attributing to my condition. I was told it was down to my diet so I changed my diet. Un-surprisingly to most, it just made it worse. I have been told it is because I am not spending enough time to exercise. Now saying this to someone who only struggles in the winter may be helpful, but saying to to someone with crippling anxieties who struggles to walk down the street without thinking everyone is out to get you, is exacerbated by the darkness that is so present within the winter months. I would love to be able to grab my dogs lead and go for a nice walk down the canal, but dogs sense everything and my dog is always on protect mode when out with me in the winter. I could look into every aspect of my life and how the winter affects it, but to be fair I think I have covered the most complex reasoning. So what’s the diagnoses?
Lets give it a name
I honestly can’t think of a winter in which I haven’t struggled. The younger years I hid it from the world, turning to excessive spending, excessive drinking and other self medicating responses. It’s no coincidence that the majority of my life ending attempts and treatment requests have been between the months of October and March. I’ve been “pencilled in” as having seasonal affective disorder (SAD), Cyclothymia (mild bi-polar). It’s been diagnosed as low vitamin D, winter/seasonal depression (another name for SAD), and just plain old “depression“. More recently we are venturing down the emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD/BPD), complex post traumatic stress disorder (c-PTSD), and neurodiversity. Lets be fair, it can come under as many names or diagnostic situations as you can present, but to me this is life and it is a problem for me. So what’s the cure?
Recovery and cure
I have already covered some changes which I could implement to help me cope with the struggles but as far as I am aware, there is no magical cure. No tablets in the world will help me during these events, and forced expectations from others just exacerbates the symptoms. I do try to stick to a structure but when you are in a really low place, structure is non-existent. I would love to get back into full time work as I miss the controlled structure so much. Most of my “sick time” when I was working full time was round the winter for reset days where I would just sleep straight for days trying to reset ready for my return. For the last 7ish years I have been unable to spend more than an hour focusing, let along a full days work. I am currently trying to work myself back into a working role, with a gradual return to employment but that is for another blog as mentioned above. Maybe I could take more walks or exercise more but unless I can move to the middle of nowhere with no civilisation, unfortunately I am stuck where I am for the time being. So why not move to a more constant climate I hear no one asking? I have far too many commitments in this country to uproot to another. As much as I would love to move to somewhere where the weather is guaranteed and vitamin D is in abundance, but unfortunately I am a little late/early for that transition at this point in life. So what am I doing to help myself?
Conclusion
This is not a new thing for me, as I said above, I have struggled with this for as long as I can remember. I have made some changes to help with my cPTSD issues including stepping away from certain people and avoiding locations or situations which I would foolishly push myself into enduring each year. I have pushed myself to visit various Christmas markets, I am trying to walk my dog when I am able to and I have even got my motorbike back on the road which I have not ridden for a long time now. I am also working on starting a voluntary position within a role I am passionate about and I am finally coming to the part of my life where I can start what will be a new normal. While this problem is back again to knock me down, it will not keep me down and I will come out of it as I do every spring. Until then I will keep on trying to function as expected.
Anyway this has turned into a waffle with no clear understanding so if you got this far, thank you. If your head is scuffled, I’d apologise but to be fair it is easier to say, welcome to my world.
