In every online community I’ve ever seen, winter depression has been a noticeable thing, and this site is no exception. The combination of weather and being indoors, having to deal with shitty family over the holidays, being lonely over the holidays, etc. is bad enough, but I feel like this year is worse than usual due to the election and other events.
I don’t know if recent bad vibes might be in part due to this, but regardless, please treat both yourself and others with kindness, at least as much you’re able to. Also, don’t hesitate to open up to people you trust if there’s anything on your mind you want to discuss.
Does anyone else have any good tips for dealing with it? Please let us know in the comments, and thank you for reading this.
Let’s see here, I work 3rd so society already considers me an outcast, live in rural ohio so finding anyone remotely closely aligned may as well be functionally impossible.
Seasonal depression for me ends up being all year. New years, nobody to be with. Valentines day, “look at all these happy couples, experiencing a part of life you’ll never be able to have, get fucked loser”. 4th of July (seriously, it’s the 2nd closest thing to a community event here), I really hate being in large groups of people, plus I just don’t care for overpriced carnival food/games. My birthday, it’s become nothing more than a reminder that I’m another year older and… oh right I turned 30 this year, well we all know what society thinks of a single man who hasn’t ever dated really at all. Halloween, homeschooled church kid so I never had any feelings on it at all, besides hating it because I got to watch other have something and I just couldn’t. Thanksgiving/Christmas, I’ve been avoiding it mostly because my grandparents have somewhat given me the implication that I should’ve been married and had a kid at least 5 years ago at the latest.
Self care to me just ends up being me continually finding distractions to not ending it in spite wanting to.
If you’re able-bodied, I cannot stress enough how much exercise does for emotional regulation. Used to think this was all bullshit but then after a few days of consistency, it turned into weeks and now here we are years later. It’s such a needed outlet and an important part of my day. I still get moments of depression, but exercise has made it not as long or as intense. It also gives you a goal which I think is needed. Having something to look forward to, some sort of routine, I feel is something innate, and feels good to work towards something.
I’ve had extremely bad seasonal depression for most of my life and i finally grabbed some vitamin D3 tablets and honestly i feel like they’re helping a lot
recently ordered my first batch of D3 and have been taking them daily. feeling not quite as gloomy as usual so maybe they work
I have been taking D3 on and off / its possible its just placebo but I DO feel Im sometimes just more upbeat on days when I take them.
Just got my bloodwork done and my Vitamin D was way too low. Trying a supplement now.
Yeah every time I think “I’ll be fine this time!” I end up super fuckin deppressed for 2 months and don’t realize
Today is that day this year, thanks for the post lol
Can you explain in simple words how to self-care? It was not a thing when I was growing up, and I never really understood what it means.
Will definitely try the vitamin D, thanks for reminding me, read a post about it on here a while ago, but then completely forgot.
You’re the mod of /c/cute, right? Here’s a cute Pokémon art that I found
Jolteon is the electric-type Eeveelution, and in this picture they’re using it to charge a phone hehe
I’m definitely not an expert (and in fact, I’m quite terrible at self-care) but I see it as just paying attention to you’re own mental health and taking whatever steps you can to protect it. Like for example, I don’t get enough sleep and I’m always up to late on the internet, like I’m doing now. I should log off and get some sleep. Nightie night everyone.
what do you do if you’re depressed all the time and it just gets worse during the winter
watch One Piece
I highly recommend people at least try guided meditation too. It’s not a silver bullet by any means, but some days I get really bad anxiety and taking a step back to breathe, ground myself, and pay attention to my own body and surroundings provides a sense of relief for a few moments.
seconding this.
i personally do some tai chi, and some other eastern meditations in addition, but learning how to get into that meditative state where you can just exist, is really really nice. I like to think of it as taking a break from reality and giving your mind some time to rest and in return you get like a +5% buff to everything you do.
Thanks for this. I’ve been pretty depressed since the election. I’m so tired of fighting.
I’m not looking forward to 4 years of Trump trying to destroy marginalized people and having to organize against that happening. It makes me feel like a pawn of the liberals too, since they only organize against it when it’s a republicans doing the bad things, so working with them feels too gross, I can’t do it any more. They are so disingenuous and easily manipulated by liberal MSM into the correct liberal outrage of the day. I don’t even want to watch it all happen. Ughhhh I’m so sick of it all.
If you’re any shade of brown or dark at all , get vitamin D supplements, the strong ones. Then, make it part of your routine to take them daily.
Also get some sunshine, even if it’s cloudy outside. It helps your body fix the vitamin D
Honestly everyone should full stop. 42% of the US is vitamin D deficient. I’m on that 10,000 UI a day type lifestyle
Get a happy light, if you have poor sunlight exposure for your eyes (cloudy, especially in the mornings), start using one when you wake up. Ideally have it placed towards the upper end of your vision. I don’t remember the right amount of lumins, might be 10k but just make sure you get the right kind of light.
Take supplements, vitamin D and maybe fish oil (or whatever vegan supplement is equivalent, sorry I’m not sure). Honestly take a multi vitamin if you’re at all unsure about the quality of your diet, at least for the bad months (I’m not a big believer in multivitamins but depression/seasonal depression is a multi-pronged thing you need to deal with, you need to seek out as many small improvements you can even if not all of them work). If you feel like you don’t eat a lot of fiber at least start supplementing fiber as well.
If you have issues with your sleep/sleep schedule getting weird I would suggest taking melatonin about 1 hour before your intended sleep time, nightly. The main problem with melatonin supplements is that they are dosed way WAY too high, probably because the people who researched the correct dose ended up doing a trademark on it (or something like that). The correct dose is about .25mg or so, much smaller than the doses you normally find. My suggestion is to buy this bottle: Life Extension Fast-Acting Liquid Melatonin – https://a.co/d/7Z7LALB , this comes as a liquid with a dropper and you only need about 3-4 drops to have the right dose, it’s also just a ton of melatonin for the price and will last you a very long time. For me this keeps my sleep super regular, gently nudging me to sleep at the correct time, but I can also stay awake if I really want to until the melatonin wears off (it should only really noticeably last for a couple hours). Being consistently well rested is important for anxiety/depression.
On that note I would also suggest making absolutely sure you don’t have any sort of issues with breathing while sleeping. Sleep apnea is also pretty bad, although admittedly resolving it can be kinda hard, especially without health insurance helping. Regardless, sometimes even doing something small like training yourself to sleep in different positions can make a large difference.
By upper end of your vision do you mean, ideally the light should be above your eye level? I have one but my thinking is too disordered to remember to use it
Yes should be shining like right in the upper part of your vision, ideally
I live in a hot place with no AC, so my seasonal depression is in July. winter is heaven
100% this, my depression has always been at its nadir in summer, the cold and dark of winter? Paradise, especially since I get migraines triggered by light. However, when the sun reflects off snow just right or someone burns a Christmas cookie candle I’m hosed.
Anyone else get the opposite of seasonal depression, feeling invigorated by rain and darkness? I don’t know, I live in a desert, and the norm is clear skies and heat. Every summer I can feel my depression acting up when I’m constantly inundated by intolerable heat and oppressively bright sunlight.
sometimes I wonder if this is me. I grew up in the sunny subtropics. the only relief from the temps was hiding indoors, long storms, or being shit faced. if you were loaded you could live near a beach or had a pool. I spent many years doing outdoor physical labor, getting absolutely brain cooked in the heat and humidity, in the glare of an oppressive sun.
I’ve steadily made my way north and now live in a place with supposedly dreary weather. grey skies, rains, cold and snow. dark early in winter.
it’s kinda G. I like being in layers, like armor against the cold. I have more energy and drive to move around because it warms me up. and when it’s too cold and crappy out from icy rains, I can just cozy up at home and make some warm food. like there’s no social pressure to go out to some packed bar and be all sweaty with the other big boys trying to get so drunk the heat and stink doesn’t bother us.
sometimes I wonder if all the dislocating of the last several hundred years is one of the factors behind all this. like some of us just function better in certain contexts.
idk if I feel invigorated by rain, but in the last few years as wildfires in north america have gotten worse and there are more frequent drought conditions, I always really appreciate the rain when it comes. especially in the fall, you can tell how thirsty the ground is as water soaks in.
also, as I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to change my thinking. instead of thinking ‘wow it’s a nice day, this is a beautiful place’ or ‘this is a miserable day and it’s ugly outside’ I try to think ‘this is what it’s like to be in a beautiful place when it is raining/dark/foggy/sunny’.
learning about botany has been helpful in the off-season as well. it is helpful to understand what vegetation does when it is not bursting with green. plants/trees/shrubs etc. aren’t dead when they are grey, they are just sleeping. does seeing a sleeping child make you sad? to me no, even though they are less exciting than when they are awake.
i like the cold
but then it got too cold
My safe place is dressing up like one of the strangers from Dark City and walking around in the rain
Even better if there’s a nice fog billowing about
It can be nice and comforting as a change of pace. Every setting and climate has its charm but
when I’m constantly inundated by intolerable heat and oppressively bright sunlight.
this is where i fucking thrive lol i am a sunny boy, give me arid conditions with scorching heat, drought, and deserts, I live for this sit
Rain and darkness yes, I love the before storm ozone smell. If the power wasn’t so unreliable here I would want much more frequent thunderstorms. Grey ice, melting snow & slush though? Nah, that season is very depressing for me.
I get it, heat is absolutely withering to me but I love the cold. Moving around feels good and warming, instead of making me feel like I’m dying.
seasonal depression, feeling invigorated by rain and darkness?
Yes! Whenever it is rainy all day (and I’m talking like, stormy weather - constant drizzles are alright but I wanna hear the rain against the window inside) I usually have a better day mentally. I’m more likely to do stuff in the early morning (I am NOT a morning person usually) if its raining; more likely to just do stuff I wouldn’t normally do on a sunny day in general (rainy days are usually my ‘lets check off a bunch of random stuff I put on my to-do list months ago like buying a new showerhead & installing it’ days)
I grew up close to the equator, so sunrise and sunset would be pretty much at the same time all year. It was rainy af too, but I never really struggled with lack of energy or weather-related depression symptoms. I think it’s because I got enough sunshine during the day.
Moved somewhere with very marked seasons, and seeing the sun set at 4:30 pm is rough. Had to learn how to deal with it the hard way
Get a SAD/happy light too!
been dealing with it for most of my life. used to be i would do a bunch of drugs in the winter. this resulted in bad shit.
now i’ve started embracing the cozy laziness of it. when the weather is nice i feel guilty for not going hiking or doing yard work. it gives me an excuse to do nothing. eat some hot food. take a relaxing night shower. play the vidya games and not feel like im wasting time
honestly i think my seasonal depression might be shifting to the mid summer since at least in the winter we get some warm days now but i can’t stand boiling climate change heat domes
but then again with my work hours i often never see the sun
Good post.
