I’m in a rotten mood this afternoon and I’m not sure why. Various people are pissing me off though. So I’m listening to songs that seem to commiserate with me. Allow me to share:
http://youtu.be/PBT5nAqMwvs
http://youtu.be/TraSBSNfpCg
That’s better.
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Man, is this fighting between the Occupiers and Tea Party people getting nasty.
Yesterday, my wife posted something about the occupy movement and poked some nerves.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/XvInEYevpmw
There was this comment from our cousin Ed:
“I’m sorry Erin, it’s hard for me to compare the Tea Party movement — a political party with an agenda — to a bunch of bored kids trying to find themselves and making US pay for it! I applaud the action, but now I want to know what they want and to move on already!”
That got this response from our friend Jesse:
“The idea that the 99% is a bunch of “bored kids trying to find themselves” is so utterly offensive that words fail me. REALLY? That’s why the movement is global?
“We have troops in Uganda, Iraq, Afghanistan, and are building schools in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia with taxpayer dollars. The “war” in the middle east is virtually without objective at this point, costs us millions a day and has cost us trillions in total.
“Our public schools languish in poverty and our healthcare STINKS. We are 27th in the world for maternal fetal medicine and infant mortality! Haverhill is the largest city in the state without a band or orchestra (middle or highschool) for example.
“Additionally, with 2 jobs I am unable to make ends meet. Despite that I’m pregnant for over 2 months I worked 6-7 days a week (7 most of the time) until I became to ill to continue doing so and even then I was NOT making ends meet. I have a Bachelor of Science degree, extensive training in 2 other areas and a TON of work experience in NYC and Kansas City.
“The father of my baby is irresponsible and nearly entirely uninvolved (I’m being diplomatic here I assure you). I haven’t earned so little per hour for my brain and hards work since I was in my early 20’s. I’m 40. I’ve had numerous surgeries and 7 miscarriages and 2x bailed myself out of 10’s of thousands of dollars in medical debt WITH insurance mind you.
“My credit score dropped from 800 in August of 2010 to 650 by August of 2011 because of medical bills and prenatal care/lab bills that I am unable to pay and which the father will NOT help pay.
“Please don’t compare me, the 99%, to the Tea Party where the women leaders boast about returning to a “more constitutional government that our forefathers intended” when those forefathers didn’t even give women the right to vote! I could not possibly care less if you are a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, Tea Party member or entirely apolitical. JUST PLEASE give a crap that we have outsourced nearly all of our manufacturing and that the ratio of profit dispersement/pay between the typical American CEO and the average worker is now $459 to $1.
“It is criminal, disgusting and if people were not in a television, sugar and carb coma they would absolutely NOT tolerate it. Apparently those who do not tolerate it are only JUST begining to be heard. If you think we are bored kids you are in for a rude awakening. WE are not going away. WE are the sleeping giant who has been awakened and is starving after way-too-long a hibernation.”
This is what happens. If you’re on one side, the other side is evil.
This is nothing new, of course. It’s always been this way.
People get fierce in their opinions and breath hell fire when they’re disagreed with. Then someone comes along and asks, “Can’t we all just get along?” Seconds later, someone comes along and punches out that guy’s teeth for raining on a good parade.
In my opinion, there are some smart, thoughtful people on both sides. I know them. I work and play with them. Our kids go to school together. I’m related to many of them. They are good people, but they disagree viciously from time to time.
Some say it has to stop. I say screw that. A good debate keeps our minds sharp.
Here’s where we are better than some who quarrel in other countries: We yell, but most of us aren’t punching and shooting each other. That does happen, but the vast majority of people on both sides keep it peaceful.
Disruptive? Absolutely. Loud? Sure. But we’re all (mostly) still talking to each other, and I think that says more about our nature than the more violent stuff.
In a bigger sense, we are getting along. We just disagree passionately about a few things.
That’s perhaps one of the better legacies of the Founding Fathers, that the system they created has made for mostly peaceful discourse in the last 230-plus years. Well, except for the Civil War.
People love to quote the Founding Fathers like they’re gods, forgetting that they allowed slavery to exist and, as Jesse noted, forbade women the right to vote.
It just goes to show how this country is deeply rooted in dysfunction. But for the most part, it’s a good dysfunction, because people are still generally caring and responsible beneath all the yelling.
Carry on.
Eat This! How To Survive Sans Flour And Sugar
What exactly does a life without flour and sugar look like? Read on.
Someone in work heard me rattling off everything I was eating for the day on the phone and looked at me like I had six heads. I was doing what I do almost every morning: Tell my OA sponsor what my food plan is for the day.
Mood music:
It sounds extreme. But it’s what I have to do to stay well. Going over it with my sponsor keeps me on track.
I’m often asked how I can deal with life without those two ingredients, and my answer is that I couldn’t deal with life WITH those things. People think this eliminates any joy in eating, but that’s not the case for me.
When someone asks what’s left to eat when I skip those things, the answer is quite a lot. Here’s what my food plan looks like on a typical day:
BREAKFAST:
8 ounces of a protein, typically Greek yogurt or ricotta cheese
3 ounces of Grape Nuts or oatmeal
8 ounces of berries
LUNCH:
–12 ounces of vegetable
–2 ounces of potato or brown rice
–4 ounces of protein (meat)
DINNER: Same as lunch.
A few notes:
It’s pretty difficult to eliminate every last drop of flour and sugar from your diet. There’s natural sugar in fruit, for example, and there are trace amounts of flour in a lot of things, including the Grape Nuts I eat at breakfast.
For me, the key is to avoid the highly enriched stuff (the white flour and sugar).
For those who find this diet bland, I say it’s all in how you make it. I can take all the individual ingredients of lunch and dinner and stir fry it. I add a lot of spices like hot pepper sauce. I use a lot of olive oil.
I also drink all the coffee I want (cream, no sugar).
This plan also doesn’t mean I can’t eat out. I have to when I travel on business, for example. No flour or sugar actually makes eating out simpler: No flour and sugar automatically takes a lot on the menu off the table. That makes it easier for me to make the right choices. I usually go for salads with meat in it and rice or potato on the side. I don’t put the restaurant food on a scale. Breaking out the little scale in a restaurant would be anti-social, in my opinion. The key there is to keep eating out to a minimum.
Carrying on this way keeps me from binge eating. It’s not perfect, but it beats the alternative.
Feel It, Don’t Fight It: Making The Disorder Work For You
Instead of fighting mental disorder — be it OCD or A.D.H.D. — picture yourself accepting and even embracing it, then learning to use it to your advantage.
It’s kind of like Luke Skywalker learning to use and control the Force instead of it controlling him.
Yesterday’s post on mental illness as a luxury item resonated with several readers, especially the part where I quote Edward (Ned) Hallowell, psychiatrist and co-author of “Driven to Distraction” and “Delivered From Distraction.”
Here’s what my friend Heather Stockwell said: “Dr. Hallowell shaped a lot of my perceptions about A.D.H.D. and how to live with it rather than fighting it.
From my friend Anne Genovese: “Ned is a great guy and has developed many techniques to deal with his A.D.H.D. Ask him about highly purified EPA and DHA. We did a study with him on about 20 A.D.H.D. kids; the ones on the ultra-purified fish oils did way better concentration-wise than the ones considered to be doing well on medication.”
Hallowell has written about mental disorder being the stuff legends are made of. The thinking is that you have to be a bit crazy or off-balance to do the things that change who we are and how we live:
“Consider also the positives that so often accompany A.D.H.D.: being a dreamer and a pioneer, being creative, entrepreneurial, having an ability to think outside the box (with some difficulty thinking inside of it!), a tendency to be independent of mind and able to pursue a vision that goes against convention. Well, who colonized this country? People who have those traits!
“Back in the 1600s and 1700s, you had to have special qualities — some would say special craziness — to get on one of those boats and come over to this uncharted, dangerous land. And the waves of immigration in subsequent centuries also drew people who possessed the same special qualities. In many ways, the qualities associated with A.D.H.D. are central to the American temperament, for better or worse. I often tell people that having A.D.H.D. is like having a Ferrari engine for a brain, but with bicycle brakes. If you can strengthen your brakes, you can win races and be a champion, as so many highly accomplished people with A.D.H.D. are. But if you don’t strengthen your brakes you can crash and burn as, sadly, many people who have A.D.H.D. but don’t know how to manage it ultimately do.”
That’s also true of people with OCD, like the late Joey Ramone, Harrison Ford and Howie Mandel.
Early on in my efforts to get control of my life, one of my biggest struggles was that I didn’t want to completely rid myself of the OCD. I knew that I owed some of my career successes to the disorder. It drove me hard to be better than average. I needed that kick in the ass because being smart didn’t come naturally to me. I had to work at it and do my homework.
There was a destructive dark side, of course: The OCD when stuck in overdrive would leave me with anxiety attacks that raised my fear level and drove me deep into my addictive pursuits. That in turn left me on the couch all the time, a used up pile of waste.
The two sides of the disorder were like two buzz saws spinning in opposite directions. My brain, caught between them, took a lot of cuts.
My challenge became learning to shut one of the blades down while letting the other keep spinning. Or, as Dr. Hallowell put it, developing a set of breaks to slow it down when I needed to.
My deepening faith has helped considerably, along with the 12 Steps of Recovery, therapy, changes in diet (more on that tomorrow) and, finally, medication.
You could say those are the things my breaks are made of.
I still need a lot of work, and the dark side of my OCD still fights constantly with the good side. I’ve come to see the OCD as a close friend. Like a lot of close friends, there are days I want to hug it and days I want to launch my boot between its legs.
My progress has come with a fair share of irony: Without the fear and panic driving me, I sometimes act more like someone with A.D.H.D. I lose focus, my mind wafting into that place that makes you forget to put your coat in the closet and pay the electric bill. Erin has noted more than once that I’ve become a slob.
I have. But I am in a happier place than I used to be, so it’s a trade-off I’m willing to accept, even if earns me the occasional scolding.
Is Mental Illness A ‘Luxury’ Disease?
There’s an interesting debate unfolding on The New York Times website about mental illness in America. What got my attention was the suggestion that mental illness and the related treatments are luxury items.
Mood music:
The debate — between a variety of professionals in the mental health field — runs the spectrum from suggesting mental illness is still misunderstood and undertreated to being over diagnosed and used as an excuse to hide from personal responsibility.
From the introduction:
Whether you call it hypochondria or American exceptionalism, the numbers are plain: Americans lead the world in diagnoses of mental health problems.
For some conditions, perhaps wealth explains the disparity: in developing nations, more people are focused on pressing needs like food and shelter, making depression a “luxury disorder” in wealthy nations like the United States.
But are there other factors at play for conditions like attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, that may be “culture-specific”? Maybe the condition is more common in the United States because the high-energy, risk-taking traits of A.D.H.D. are part of America’s pioneer DNA. Or maybe the same behavior is common elsewhere, but given another label? Some critics would argue that American doctors, teachers and parents are simply too quick to diagnose A.D.H.D. and medicate children. Do the American medical and educational systems inflate the numbers?
Edward (Ned) Hallowell, a psychiatrist and co-author of “Driven to Distraction” and “Delivered From Distraction,” suggests that A.D.H.D. in particular is part of the American DNA:
There are two main reasons the diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder is high in the U.S. First of all, our gene pool is loaded for A.D.H.D. Consider the central symptoms of the condition: distractibility, impulsivity and restlessness. Consider also the positives that so often accompany A.D.H.D.: being a dreamer and a pioneer, being creative, entrepreneurial, having an ability to think outside the box (with some difficulty thinking inside of it!), a tendency to be independent of mind and able to pursue a vision that goes against convention. Well, who colonized this country? People who have those traits!
His description of someone with A.D.H.D. is priceless:
I often tell people that having A.D.H.D. is like having a Ferrari engine for a brain, but with bicycle brakes. If you can strengthen your brakes, you can win races and be a champion, as so many highly accomplished people with A.D.H.D. are. But if you don’t strengthen your brakes you can crash and burn as, sadly, many people who have A.D.H.D. but don’t know how to manage it ultimately do.
As someone with OCD, I’d add that the description also fits for my condition.
Peter R. Breggin, a psychiatrist in Ithaca, N.Y. and author of more than 20 books and the director of the Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education and Living says the drugging of children for A.D.H.D. has become an epidemic:
The A.D.H.D. diagnosis does not identify a genuine biological or psychological disorder. The diagnosis, from the 2000 edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” is simply a list of behaviors that require attention in a classroom: hyperactivity (“fidgets,” “leaves seat,” “talks excessively”); impulsivity (“blurts out answers,” “interrupts”); and inattention (“careless mistakes,” “easily distractible,” “forgetful”). These are the spontaneous behaviors of normal children. When these behaviors become age-inappropriate, excessive or disruptive, the potential causes are limitless, including: boredom, poor teaching, inconsistent discipline at home, tiredness and underlying physical illness. Children who are suffering from bullying, abuse or stress may also display these behaviors in excess. By making an A.D.H.D. diagnosis, we ignore and stop looking for what is really going on with the child. A.D.H.D. is almost always either Teacher Attention Disorder (TAD) or Parent Attention Disorder (PAD). These children need the adults in their lives to give them improved attention.
He makes an important point about the use of medication. A lot of parents turn to drugs because they simply don’t know what to do. Junior is a terror in school and on the playground and he’s exhausting everyone at home with his behavior. Turning to drugs is often an act of desperation. Desperation can be a good thing. It can force us to deal with our problems in ways we weren’t willing to consider before. But it can also rush us into bad decisions.
Erin and I are walking this tightrope with Duncan. We’ve had him tested in the doctor’s office and at school, and he has all the textbook traits of someone with A.D.H.D. But at 8 years old it’s still difficult to know for sure if this is A.D.H.D or something else that acts like it. Pills could tame his difficulties, but if he has something else that’s simply acting like A.D.H.D. — bi-polar disorder or OCD, for example — the pills that work for A.D.H.D. could make those other things much worse. So we’re not doing the medication.
This much I can tell you: When his older brother asks aloud if Duncan has A.D.H.D., Duncan bristles. He doesn’t like the label. And who can blame him?
I can tell you that Duncan has made a lot of progress with the other tools we’ve deployed: cool-down exercises, activities to channel anger (painting is one of his favorites) and so on. But there are still big challenges every day. And that’s ok.
Does the search for a problem and solution make us over-reactive parents? I don’t think so. When you see your child struggling, your instinct is to help them find a better way. Their happiness is what matters to us in the end.
Are kids diagnosed too easily and drugged too quickly? I’m sure of it. But to simply write the parents off as over-reactive is silly.
Society in general has learned to take everything too far. Ever since tragedies like the Columbine High School massacre, school administrators and teachers go crazy over things that are usually nothing. A kid collecting sticks and rocks in the schoolyard because he simply likes to collect these things becomes a danger. Why would a kid collect rocks and sticks if he didn’t intend to hurt his classmates with them, right?
We all struggle to find the sensible middle ground, because American society has seen some really bad shit in the last two decades: 9-11, Columbine, kids knifing each other in schools. We’ve seen the worst of the worst. The resulting fear can blind us to the fact that we’ve also seen the best of the best, including the advances in medical care.
When I was Duncan’s age and I was behaving badly, I was simply written off as a behavioral problem. I saw it happen to other kids as well. In hindsight, the building blocks of my mental illness were already swirling around in my head, shaped by the hard stuff I was experiencing back then, like my parents’ divorce, my brother’s death, the hospitalizations with Crohn’s Disease and the schoolyard bullying over my excessive weight.
Behavioral problems aren’t written off as easily today, and we should all feel good about that. The trick is to make the best use of all the newer mental health treatments, and that’s still a work in progress for all of us.
In my case, I’m lucky because I was determined to try everything else before trying medication. That resulted in several years of hard self-discovery and a better understanding of how I got the way I am. It led me to an array of coping tools I may not have learned to use had I turned directly to medication. Eventually I learned that my brain chemistry was still too far off center for me to control without medicine, and that’s when I tried the Prozac, which has worked exceptionally well.
It didn’t turn me into a robot. I’m still me. I see everything and feel everything. I still get depressed. But with the Prozac correcting the chemical traffic in my brain, these things no longer incapacitate me.
Is treatment a luxury? Sure. If you live in deep poverty and your biggest concern is where the next meal for you and your family is coming from, that’s going to be your first focus.
But if you aren’t in that situation and you have the luxury of dealing with mental illness, you shouldn’t feel bad about it.
You should simply thank God and do your best to pay it forward.
Judith Miller: The Liar’s Journalist
Judith Miller is one of many reasons I left mainstream journalism years ago. I forgot about her until Fox News decided to run this piece of filth about the BlackBerry outage and cyber terrorism.
If you want to see a true specimen of fear-based journalism, read that article. In it, she takes the recent BlackBerry outage, which was the result of tech failure and not terrorism, and connects it to cyber terrorism anyway, despite the absence of facts to support her thesis.
From her article:
An RIM spokesman has said that the outage was caused by what Security Week called “a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” and not by a deliberate disabling attack. But the outage highlights the threat that determined cyber-warriors could pose to the nation’s communications systems if they target them. For over a decade cyber-experts have urged the U.S. to upgrade critical infrastructure to protect vital dams, power plants, and communications systems from cyber-crime or cyber-attacks from rival countries. But the country remains complacent and highly vulnerable, as the BlackBerry outage shows.
Amazingly, she goes on to connect it to biological terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, two subjects she wrote about at length last decade as a reporter for The New York Times. She scared the shit out of a lot of people with those articles, including me. The slimy part isn’t that she scared people. It’s that she scared people with stories that turned out to be inaccurate or completely false.
As her Wikipedia profile notes, Miller was later involved in disclosing Valerie Plame’s identity as CIA personnel. She spent three months in jail for claiming reporter’s privilege and refusing to reveal her sources in the CIA leak.
She willingly engaged in the fear-based journalism after 9-11 that lead to a lot of heartache and loss later. Her stories were used by the Bush Administration to build the case for going to war in Iraq. We went in unprepared for the bloody insurgency that followed.
I should probably laugh at this kind of journalism when I see it and move on. But the fact of the matter is that this stuff used to leave me a crippled mess.
When you have an out-of-control case of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), you latch onto all the things you can’t control and worry about them nonstop. Nothing feeds that devil like the kind of crap Miller writes and Fox News delivers. I’ve written before about the anxiety and fear I used to have over current events. I would think about all the things going on in the world over and over again, until it left me physically ill. I personally wanted to set everything right and control the shape of events, which of course is delusional, dangerous thinking.
Right after 9-11 I realized the obsession had taken a much darker, deeper tone. This time, I had the Internet as well as the TV networks to fill me with horror. Everyone was filled with horror on 9-11, obviously, but while others were able to go about their business in a depressed haze, I froze. Two weeks after the event, I refused to get on a plane to go to a wedding in Arizona. Everyone was afraid to fly at that point, but I let my fear own me. It’s one of my big regrets.
Part of the problem was my inability to take my eyes off the news. To do so for a five-hour plane ride was unthinkable. To not know what was going on for five hours? Holy shit. If I don’t know about it, I can’t control it!
I really used to think like that.
Her reports about the potential for bio terror fed the beast. I wouldn’t mind at all had her reports been based on truth. When there is a real danger people need to know about, you have to report it. That’s when people need to hear the scary truth. But I do mind, because the fear she threw around was not based on truth.
I can’t blame her for how I reacted to the coverage. I had a crippling mental illness that was still years away from being diagnosed. I can’t blame anyone for that. It was my problem to work on.
But I worry about people who are at the stage of illness I once found myself in. They will read Miller’s BlackBerry article and react as I once did.
True, that’s their problem. But if you are the writer, you should care about how people will react.
Then again, if you’re willing to write lies, you’re not really going to care about that, are you?
Occupy Wall Street Debate Distracts Us From A Big Truth
I’m fascinated by the debate raging over this “Occupy” movement. There’s a lot of truth AND exaggeration coming from both sides.
But to me the issue is a lot more basic than “laziness and entitlement” vs. “greed and bigotry.”
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/A-nULlfJDvk
We always look for the big boogeyman, the personified evil we can shake our fist at and blame for everything that pisses us off. For some, it’s the corporate corner office. For others, it’s the illegal immigrants.
But these are just scapegoats for all the things that make us unhappy in our much smaller circles.
Some of us are conditioned to blame all our troubles on someone or something else. In the final analysis, that’s what this whole thing is about.
As a 22-year-old I remember blaming all my troubles on George H.W. Bush. I had no reason to. I was in college and didn’t have to worry about a job just yet, and I wasn’t sent to fight in the Gulf War. But I hated him anyway, and was certain Bill Clinton’s election would make everything better.
It was a stupid notion. Clinton was a good president, in my opinion, sex problems aside. But his time in power didn’t make my life better. Those were actually some of the worst years of my life. When you’re a slave to your addictions and your brain chemistry is leaking out your ear, keeping you in a depressed fog, no corporate or political leader can help you.
You have to help yourself.
When you’re in a very tough financial situation and can’t feed your family, it’s hard not to be angry at someone. But to blame it on corporate greed is to bark up the wrong tree. Corporate greed did contribute to the economic meltdown, but our own reckless spending habits contributed as well. We always want things: cell phones, cars, houses. Sometimes we collect these possessions first and worry about how to pay for it later. It’s a vicious circle, and I get caught in it as much as everyone else.
Our material pursuits always seem to mask a deeper unhappiness we have with ourselves and our messy lives.
I used to labor hard under the delusion that if I just got a particular job, all would be right with the world. When I’d get the job and discover that I was still miserable, I’d just blame it on that particular job and all the people above me. Then I’d try to find something else. I’d get another job and expect everything to be better. But things always got worse. Because I still wasn’t dealing with the core issues that made me so unhappy: Too little faith in God and too much faith in addictive substances and material things. And I continued to find bosses to blame.
I’m years into trying to reverse that order and the closer I get to the right balance, the less I seem to care about who’s in charge of the government. I also find that I don’t get so angry at the people atop the corporate ladder.
We’re all human. We screw up every day, but it’s more glaring if you’re in a position of power, be it government or business. Everyone’s watching when you screw up, and your actions end up hurting a wider group of people.
If I’ve learned anything, though, it’s that when things are going bad, nothing gets better unless I take personal responsibility.
If I wait for government to stop being corrupt and corporate execs to stop being greedy, I’ll never get anywhere.
Neither will you.
Some will say I’m oversimplifying the problem, that even when you take responsibility and work hard to succeed, it’s not enough because someone richer and more powerful is out to screw you.
Perhaps.
But engaging in class warfare oversimplifies the problem, too, because changing the people in power always seems to have limited results.
That’s true whether you’re liberal or conservative.
Oh, Yeah: It’s OCD Awareness Week
This is OCD Awareness Week and some of you have asked why I haven’t written about it. Here’s the ugly truth:
I’m tired of all these “awareness” weeks. I admire the people behind them, and for those who don’t really know the ins and outs of the disorder there’s value in dedicating seven days to enhanced awareness.
This is just a personal quirk of mine.
I guess my lack of enthusiasm is due to the fact that in this blog, every day is about OCD awareness. Therefore, what else can I say about OCD Awareness Week?
I know. I’m a bore.
I do want to thank the folks who are doing everything they can all the time to raise awareness, especially the folks at The International OCD Foundation. They do a lot of great work, and you should follow their efforts here.
Support Your Local Crisis Hotline Person
One of the byproducts of writing this blog is that old friends and strangers have reached out to me for chats about what they’re going through.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/mso6N_eqg_k
You could say I’m doing an increasing amount of unpaid, uncertified counseling. I’d like to think it’s just me trying to be a good friend and following up on what I do here.
It can be a bit much sometimes. That’s not a complaint. It’s just the everyday challenge of life. But when someone else commits their time to counseling people through their pain, depression and crises, I respect them for what they’re getting into.
Amber Baldet, one of my friends from the business world, is in the process of getting certified to do online crisis and suicide prevention. Here’s her profile.
Donating a couple dollars to the work she’s undertaking will help her considerably.
If you see her around, thank her for doing it. You never know. She might be the one who helps you through a crisis someday.
Season of Depression
Like everyone else, I love the colors and crisp air of autumn. But there’s something else about fall that I hate: It’s the beginning of the mood swings and depression.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/DcEAI5p-wUg
When the days get shorter and I find myself driving to work in the dark, it has an effect on my brain. Welcome to my annual class on S.A.D.
People who suffer from chemical imbalances in the brain are directly impacted by daylight levels. When the weather is dismal, cold, rainy and the days are shorter, a lot of folks with mental illness find themselves more depressed and moody. Give us a long stretch of dry, sunny weather and days where it gets light at 4:30 a.m. and stays that way past 8 p.m. and we tend to be happier people.
There are lessons to be had in the history books:
– Abraham Lincoln, a man who suffered from deep depression for most of his adult life, went from blue to downright suicidal a few times in the 1840s during long stretches of chilly, rainy weather. [See Why “Lincoln’s Melancholy” is a Must-Read.]
– Ronald Reagan, a sunny personality by most accounts, was a man of Sunny California. Once, upon noticing that his appointments secretary hadn’t worked time in his schedule for trips to his ranch atop the sun-soaked mountains of Southern California — and after the secretary explained that there was a growing public perception that he was spending too much time away from Washington — Reagan handed him back the schedule and ordered that ranch time be worked in. The more trips to the ranch, he explained, the longer he’ll live.
The WebMD site has excellent information on winter depression. Here’s an excerpt:
If your mood gets worse as the weather gets chillier and the days get shorter, you may have “winter depression.” Here, questions to ask your doctor if winter is the saddest season for you.
WHY DO I SEEM TO GET SO GLOOMY EACH WINTER, OR SOMETIMES BEGINNING IN THE FALL?
You may have what’s called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The condition is marked by the onset of depression during the late fall and early winter months, when less natural sunlight is available. It’s thought to occur when daily body rhythms become out-of-sync because of the reduced sunlight.
Some people have depression year round that gets worse in the winter; others have SAD alone, struggling with low moods only in the cooler, darker months. (In a much smaller group of people, the depression occurs in the summer months.)
SAD affects up to 3% of the U.S. population, or about 9 million people, some experts say, and countless others have milder forms of the winter doldrums.
SO THIS WORSENING OF MOOD IN THE FALL AND WINTER IS NOT JUST MY IMAGINATION?
Not at all. This “winter depression” was first identified by a team of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1984. They found this tendency to have seasonal mood and behavior changes occurs in different degrees, sometimes with mild changes and other times severe mood shifts.
Symptoms can include:
- Sleeping too much
- Experiencing fatigue in the daytime
- Gaining weight
- Having decreased interest in social activities and sex
SAD is more common for residents in northern latitudes. It’s less likely in Florida, for instance, than in New Hampshire. Women are more likely than men to suffer, perhaps because of hormonal factors. In women, SAD becomes less common after menopause.
Here’s where the Prozac comes in for me:
As I mentioned in The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill, Prozac helps to sustain my brain chemistry at healthy levels. Here’s a more scientific description of how it works from WebMD:
HOW ANTIDEPRESSANTS WORK
Most antidepressants work by changing the balance of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. In people with depression, these chemicals are not used properly by the brain. Antidepressants make the chemicals more available to brain cells like the one shown on the right side of this slide:
Antidepressants can be prescribed by primary care physicians, but people with severe symptoms are usually referred to a psychiatrist.
REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
In general, antidepressants are highly effective, especially when used along with psychotherapy. (The combination has proven to be the most effective treatment for depression.) Most people on antidepressants report eventual improvements in symptoms such as sadness, loss of interest, and hopelessness.
But these drugs do not work right away. It may take one to three weeks before you start to feel better and even longer before you feel the full benefit.
I’m convinced the drug would NOT have worked as well for me had it not been for all the intense therapy I had first. Developing the coping mechanisms had to come first.
I’ve also learned that the medication must be monitored and managed carefully. The levels have to be adjusted at certain times of year — for me, anyway.
Last year, I found myself managing my moods a lot better than in years past. I still went through periods of depression, but I saw it for what it was and was and kept it from dragging me down more often than not.
I’m hoping to do better than that this time around. I’ll keep you posted.
