Text by Emily Black
If I asked you what S.A.D was do you think you could tell me? If you asked me a year ago I wouldn’t have had a clue, and if you told me it stood for Seasonal Affective Disorder, I’d still be none the wiser.
The ‘winter blues’ is a phrase commonly used, and we probably all think it affects us. When it’s cold and raining we all reminisce of those eternal sundrenched days, but for some of us the ‘winter blues’ are for more extreme, and for some our summers aren’t too happy either. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a form of depression that is season sensitive and can result in deep depression for half of the year.
S.A.D can be a disorder that is equally tormenting and destroying as any other. But how much do we all actually know about it? How seriously is it taken? For a disorder that affects two million people within the UK and ten million in the US, it seems it is something we should educate ourselves on. Women more than men are affected by this disorder, so Gynosome went on a mission to talk to women suffering with this seemingly unknown illness.
However, finding an S.A.D sufferer was easier said than done. We were able to find distant connections that partially suffered or, with lack of more suitable phrasing, ignorant idiots that were willing to offer their close minded view on the matter. It wasn’t that easy to find people that were strongly affected or were willing to talk about it, though.
That was until I decided to search online, in a depression chat room. Now, I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone. The chat room is advertised as a help forum for sufferers to communicate and support one another, but when joining the chat room I found mostly people sharing tips on how to distract yourself from eating and how to self harm. It was an immediately distressing situation seeing people shamelessly fuel one another’s troubling fires. Internally conflicted as whether to a) report the site, b) exit my browser immediately c) not take my eyes away or d) do what I came here for, I decided to posted a message. Asking if anyone who suffered from S.A.D would be willing to talk to me for some research, I was surprised that instantly seven personal message chats binged and I discovered why these chat rooms may be helpful; all of these people were comfortable discussing their lives and disorders, which is something many mental illness sufferers struggle with.
My first chat was with a fifty year old woman who went by the username of ‘al-’. Initially Al- gave pretty curt answers. When asked how S.A.D affected her life she responded, “during the winter I tend to be a recluse, stay at home with low motivation” and she said, “during the summer I’m better, active and get out more”. From commencement it felt like Al- wasn’t going to pour her heart out, and perhaps I was expecting too much she was, after all, answering all of my questions. Before I could pose another question, Al- told me that “last winter was rough”. Al- ‘s winter had been far rougher than I could imagine; “my wife became sick, I had to prepare myself for the fact she was too unwell to function, and then she passed. She died on the 11th of January last year, I didn’t leave the house for three months”. My chest was throbbing from this confession, I felt devastated and cruel that this woman had told me this on a depression chat line and I was going to use it for my work. I had told Al- instantly that this was for work purposes and that it may be published, but a bilious sensation engulfed me- this was someone’s life.
My devastation did not overrule my inner-cynic. I still couldn’t help but wonder if Al-‘s S.A.D was actually a result of a horrific, life changing event? I thought that maybe her depression during the winter was actually a depression due to the memory of the previous winter.
“Did you suffer from S.A.D from that moment or was it something you had suffered with before then?” I went on to ask. Al- had actually had S.A.D for around 15 years. Immediate guilt struck me for questioning her knowledge of her disorder. That is the thing with S.A.D; people know little about it, which results in many choosing to dismiss it as a legitimate mental illness.
Gynosome created a poll to discover what people thought of or knew about S.A.D some of the responses startled us. When I saw some of the answers I was startled,and pretty disappointed with the human race. We received responses such as this ill-informed list entitled “Season Affective Disorder: Why it doesn’t exist.” The list goes on to make a point that S.A.D is essentially a Vitamin D deficiency and instructs that S.A.D sufferers should “stop making things up to explain why you feel sluggish.”. This person may potentially have an argument in that the lack of vitamin D during cooped up winter months doesn’t help our health- however this kind of mentality towards mental illness is, frankly, disgusting. The person, finishes off their pleasant little prediction with the message “we all know it’s because of Netflix and Cooler Ranch Doritos. Do not accost me with your delusions. SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER IS NOT A THING”.
How someone can feel so strongly about a disorder that they clearly are not affected by is quite worrying. Why are we so quick to dismiss what we don’t understand? Al- admitted that she had not told any of her family for fear “they just wouldn’t get it.” I asked Al- if she thought many people understood what the disorder was and she said, “not unless they have been through it. Most people don’t recognise it”. When asked what she would say to help people better understand the disorder, Al- said “It is real. It is hard to over come. The first step for us all is to recognise it”. We need to begin to spot and acknowledge the signs of the disorder in order to help ourselves and others around us. I asked Al- what the signifiers of S.A.D are, she believed them to be “no motivation, becoming with drawn and wanting to sleep a lot”.
It may not be clear what the effects are, but doctors have proven that sunlight can affect some of the brain’s chemicals and one theory is that light stimulates a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which controls mood, appetite and sleep. These things can affect how you feel. In people with SAD, a lack of sunlight and a problem with certain brain chemicals stops the hypothalamus working properly.
S.A.D is often associated with Winter Blues, but that term doesn’t accurately represent the severity of the issue. It isn’t just winter that affects sufferers, a lot of people with S.A.D can go into remission and sink into deeper depressions during late summer with the worry of winter. Now, that doesn’t just sound like a mere case of the winter blues, does it?
Al- directed us to a support group on Tumblr, where we found a user who goes by the name of Princess Horse Face, and would like to be known in this article as that. I personally don’t think I could have chosen a better anonymous identity for someone, and Princess Horse Face also was the perfect person to defend S.A.D sufferers. “There’s a huge difference between regular depression, no depression and S.A.D. When you have S.A.D, you completely drop in the fall/ winter (when it gets darker earlier) and you stay that way with occasional happiness every once in a while. The second spring starts, you’re brought back to life. It’s like waking up totally happy one day after months of being buried in turmoil.” When asked how her life in particular is affected, Princess’ passion on the matter became very evident; “here’s the thing about living in Canada with S.A.D, winter weather can start in October and last until May. There are around 8 months of the year that I become disgustingly wrapped up in depression just because of the way that darkness and cold affects my body and mind. I am completely aware of it. I always feel the transition. I try so hard to fight it, and it’s okay during the day, with my drapes open, letting the sunlight in and people are awake and happy... but when the sun goes down, and suddenly it’s only 3 or 4 degrees and I’m alone and can’t sleep, that’s when I feel like throwing up from actual sickness because of the way my brain is making me believe that I am ill”.
I still wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the matter, but this statement if anything proves that S.A.D is more than just lack of vitamin D. “I feel alone, but I want to be alone. I feel cold literally and figuratively, as if parts of me are frozen in ice and I have no will to break it. I get lost and never know what to do in my frosted tundra... and no amount of love or support, or remembering how great my life is will help because everything is just cold and dark”. Princess’ poetic and in depth portrayal of the brutality of Seasonal Affective Disorder is harrowing, yet refreshing. Hopefully, soon, for every doubter there will be a defender.
“I’ve had people tell me that Seasonal Affective Disorder is nothing but “winter depression” and I’m just over-reacting, and that everyone gets depressed when it gets cold. I’m not just sad because it’s cold out, and I’m not “fake depressed” just because this only happens for a few months. S.A.D is very real and is completely based on the seasons and how they affect some people. It’s a separate form of depression all on its own and we with S.A.D are people who so often have our issues devalued, that we hate to tell people when the transition begins for fear of being a burden or being annoying, or worse, being told that we’re “just sad that summer is over””.
By rejecting the legitimacy of S.A.D, you could be sending someone with this disorder, someone who could easily be helped with the various treatments available, to the chat rooms that I viewed, the chat rooms that do not comfort but fuel and worsen depressive states.
If you still don’t trust that S.A.D is real or if you still are unsure of what the mental illness is, we spoke to philosopher and psychologist Amen Eghosa-Aimufua. She says S.A.D is “actually not a disorder in its own right because seasonal depressive symptoms are associated with a few mood disorders. It’s an identifier for mood disorders, e.g. bipolar disorders or major depressive disorders, so generally there’ll be a large degree of comorbidity in diagnosis of one of these personality disorders and SAD. Also, depressive moods during the winter are quite common in the sub-clinical population, so it’s quite a natural phenomenon. But, obviously, it’s the severity that counts and examination by a clinician, along with knowledge of any other mental disorder (like the mood disorders) is what is key to diagnosis.”