One of the better articles I've read about surviving winter is found at BustedHalo.com. Writer Nora Bradbury-Haehl penned a beautiful piece about her love-hate relationship with the cold months. As a spouse of a depressive, she gets it. She really gets it. I've excerpted below the first three paragraphs of her piece, which you can find by clicking here.
What? Snow???" I exclaimed. "Honey it is November" my husband gently reminded. "But I still have flowers blooming in the garden" I retorted, as if that were proof that it shouldn't be allowed, this shift from fall to winter. I know it is time to turn my attention away from this season and onto the next, I just don't feel like it. I want to linger in the garden. I sometimes imagine while I look at my flowers that it's still summer, even as I pull up my socks and draw my hood tighter around me.
I have a love-hate relationship with this bittersweet time of year. The glory of fall-turning-winter in Upstate NY is not to be matched- spiced cider and brisk winds, crystal nights with harvest moons and sparkling starlight. The last Canada Geese are fleeing southward, the squirrels move at a frantic pace now and the rustling leaves pile higher each day. But, of course, fall turns to winter, which for our family, carries a special weight. My husband Greg suffers from severe bi-polar depression and winter is the hardest time of year. I remember him commenting last winter in a lighter moment, "January wouldn't be so bad if it were followed by something other than February."
"What are you depressed about?" one well-meaning friend asked him recently. "I'm depressed because I have depression." he replied and I was proud of him for not finishing the statement with "duh!" This is nothing new for us. Greg's been diagnosed and medicated for over 10 years We've tried light therapy, diet, exercise, he takes 5 different medications now and the list of has-beens grows every year-Prozac, Zoloft, Trazadone, Wellbutrin, Lamictalin, Eskalith, in doses ranging from miniscule to mammoth. He sees his shrink once a month, it should be more but since he's disabled and we live on my salary that's the best we can do. Everyone has a helpful suggestion, this kind of tea, that book, as I'm sure happens with every illness, and I appreciate the sympathy and compassion but as nightfall comes earlier and his mood spirals out of his own grip and into the clutches of his illness it becomes more difficult to greet these well meaning offenders with a patient smile.
To continue reading her piece click here.
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I was told about this blog today and came to check it out. I both snickered and winced as I read the paragraph about "What are you depressed about?" I snickered because I've wanted to say "DUH!!!!!!!" to a lot of people myself. I winced because there is still so much misunderstanding about depression as an illness.
The word is used to describe too wide of a range of experience; people ARE depressed in the popular sense over disappointments and such, while a lot of people aren't aware (or don't comprehend) that there is a medical condition called depression which doesn't require any kind of cause (there may be a trigger event or thought which is the OCCASION of a particular funk, but not a real cause).
I almost cried when I read "his mood spirals out of his own grip and into the clutches of his illness" because I know that helpless feeling of being overwhelmed by the illness, and at the same time surrounded by well-meaning but misguided and uninformed people who think I'm somehow at fault for the effects of my illness, as if it were a character flaw or moral failure. People who think if I just did thus-and-so, I'd be fine or a problem created by my illness would go away. For example, my home is a literal indoor junkheap because of my inability to address the building chaos there, and a best friend recently made a biting comment about my "self-made mess", as if I had the ability to have averted the situation or correct it on my own. I live by myself so have no moral support at home, which makes a world of difference in my ability to self-motivate.
The uplifting part of this particular article is that at least I'm reminded that there ARE people who understand, and that I'm not alone. Thanks.
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