The January Blahs

It's winter here in The Great White North. While we had a slow start to our snow-collecting months, it seems we're making up for it now. Today was an interesting mixed-bag of precipitation: ice pellets, freezing rain, and snow, in that order...with a very sharp northerly wind to blow said precipitation into your face. Always makes the walk to school pleasant when you feel like you're being pelted with beebees. I digress, eh?

I don't mind the seasonal changes. I like that I don't live where it's the same season all year long, basically. Even though the winter months are my least favourite, I like the change. One aspect of the change I don't relish, though, is the onslaught of Seasonal Affected Disorder. I hate it. I'm on a mild antidepressant to help. I just had it increased. Yeah. I can pretty much set my clock to when I need to up and then down my antidepressant. It stinks, but it helps me function. Functioning is good...especially when you're a wife and mother.

Let me be clear: I don't take medication to "make me happy." I don't take medication so I can feel "up" all the time. I don't get high off this. It doesn't make me go around spinning and skipping through life with nary a care in the world. I don't take this stuff so I don't have to feel negative emotions and deal with them. That is not it...

I take this so I can get through the day without feeling like I've been dragged through the cat-door backwards. I take this medication so I can get about my day, rather than retiring to my bedroom to sleep (depression tiredness is way different than physical tiredness...worlds apart)...so I can not feel overwhelmed with my house being a mess from having Christmas trees in various states of undecoratedness, and so I can manage myself better so I can in turn manage my kids better. My kids and husband deserve a mom who dresses, showers, and gets out of bed every day...and makes real food for them...and doesn't feel like she's standing on the edge of a cliff looking out into a dark void, about ready to tip over at a moment's notice...and who remembers the things she's supposed to remember in the run of a day.

I hate depression. It's like walking in a perpetual fog all the time...not being able to see clearly...or rather, seeing just enough to be dangerous. That commercial that says depression hurts? Yep, it does...physically. You have to will yourself through the day, and not give into the urge to hibernate and withdraw from everything and everyone. f

So, while I enjoy the changing seasons, it's usually about this time of year, January, where I wish it were April already...