Pictures for SAD children

[hirez]

Interesting time at the model engineering exhibition.

Anyway.

I've gone on before about not being entirely sure if I hold with SAD or not. I don't actually think SAD gives a damn about what I think and turns up anyway to give me a wallop round the back of my head. I thought it was just me being an unwilling townie that meant I tried not to think about the days getting shorter on or about June the 21st or that I was the only one for whom autumn = despair. (Really, autumn's just autumn. The 'oh shit here we go again' grim pit of horror is recently learned behaviour)

The thing is that it is genuinely bloody awful, and I'm only half-joking when I burble on about wintering somewhere warmer with more daylight. The other thing is that I thought it was just me having a proper plumb of the depths there. (I also wish I'd written this a day ago when that conversation was fresh in my head.)

Comments

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered if any eskimos experience SAD.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yep: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11942945

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Only one way to find out--go winter someplace where the sun shines and tshirts are the warmest clothes you need ever wear.

If only, right?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

EU country + bandwidth + cheap flights or working railway = potential win.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

I will put tons of


(http://www.tilazone.com/clipart/glitter.asp) in a basket marked, "JHR's SAD Experiment Fund" in the hopes sparkles buy a trip to Southern Spain, France or maybe even Hawaii. :)

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

For years I just figured I was crap at winter and must have had squirrels as ancestors (they don't hibernate as such, they just spend all winter tucked up under a duvet on the sofa watching girly DVDs and playing X-Box, and occasionally going outside, mugging some birds on the bird-table and taking their ill-gotten gains home, which sounds fairly perfect to me, although in my case I bake cookies rather than mugging birds), but not yer actual SAD because that's, like, a thing, right?
And then someone pointed out to me that my whole "being crap at winter" thing actually _is_ SAD. Which was a lightbulb moment.
And then I mentioned it to my mother, fully expecting her to tell me not to be so silly, and to man up and stop feeling sorry for myself. What she actually said was "Oh, yes, your grandad (who, by the way, was the most manned-up and least self-pitying person on the planet) had that too."

So yeah.
Incidentally, September is my favourite month, but I kind of dread it because it signals the definite end of summer. And now I'm looking up cheap Caribbean holidays and wishing I had a spare thousand or so to spend, for a week of sunshine at the end of November.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes.

The thing that I've utterly failed to mention, because the damn post took me two hours to wrench out of my head and I thought I'd written the missing bit because I could feel it in the flow of words, is that this was a conversation and my interlocutor was describing Exactly How I Feel About It.

It was another of those 'Not a special little snowflake and unspeakably glad about it' moments.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Yes; I was quite shockingly relieved to hear about my grandad, and indeed to be told "That's what SAD _is_, you dolt", when I mentioned not having SAD but being crap at winter.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I'm crap at winter too, but the last time I went through a checklist of symptoms, it turns out I have all the wrong ones so I really am just crap at winter.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

I also have issues with being special and snowflake-y. With emphasis on the flake-y. Although it would possibly make winter easier.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

You could spend less and visit North Tenerife - that's the bit that's actually Spanish and has tropical plants etc rather than just rock and sand and bars for the Brits. Really lovely, go to the capital city Puerto de la Cruz and you'll have a very Spanish time and lots of sun.

[diffrentcolours]

Is it a daylight spectrum lightbulb moment? :)

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Yes. There's a reason I'm in San Francisco instead of Seattle for good. Lots more sunlight, never need snow boots.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

I like Autumn as it's got Halloween and Christmas to lift things, but January and February truly suck.

I need to be rich so I can go on cricket tour each winter.

[mog-warbeast.livejournal.com]

I do get SAD, but would hesitate to use the word 'despair' until February. That's when it really starts to feel like a problem. (Possibly because I feel it should be Spring by that time, dammit.)

Also, I feel oddly betrayed that the days get shorter while it's still hot.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Betrayed? Yes, that too.