By Violet

Autumn is a mixed-bag of emotion and memory and experience for me.

On the one hand, it (in theory, at least) marks the start of cooler weather and less yard work and the opportunity to eat thick hearty stews and homemade oatmeal bread without breaking a sweat.

I can wear my sweet, precious hoodies again and dig out some of my soft fluffy socks to wear inside my combat boots. There’s an anticipated trip to the Rockton Fair and that unmistakable smell of decaying leaves and, quite often, beautiful sunsets. Good things.

There are many good things about autumn and winter. I can see them and name them and touch them.

But the flip side, of course, is the Seasonal Affective Disorder creeping into my mood and my energy levels. And the depression that lurks.

The anniversaries and memories of death and dying and funerals and sadness – my parents, grandparents, best friend.. From September to February, my world is full of anniversaries of loss.

And let’s not forget the November anniversary of my month-long panic attack and the diagnosis of my panic disorder.

The skies grow darker, earlier, and I find myself wishing that I could curl up in a duvet until spring arrives. My beloved reminds me not to dwell on the memories. To acknowledge them and let them go. I’ve been getting better at it but it’s not good enough yet. Letting go. Letting go of the past.

At this point in autumn – the late days of September – I can already feel the tendrils of an impending collapse of my happiness. I try very hard to put it out of my mind. I remind myself that dwelling – on any of the aforementioned subjects – will not help me get through this. It will not make things better.

Dwelling is one of those things I do very, very well. I could win a gold medal in dwelling.

I dwell on conversations and images that are stuck in my head. I dwell on moments – pivotal moments – when my life shifted. I stack these memories up, together, and try to make sense of how I got to be this way. How did I become so afraid of the changing seasons?

The truth, of course, is that it wasn’t just one event or one circumstance that pushed me over the edge. And, perhaps, the cumulative effect of those experiences isn’t to blame either. There are too many possibilities – from the food I eat to the sleep I get – to try to make a neat, tidy package of explanation.

I realize I need to fight this. I realize that, if I don’t fight it, things will crash around me. But fighting is hard – I am an instant gratification junky. If it doesn’t impact on me immediately – a rush of adrenaline or a sugar-induced laughing fit – I can’t seem to make myself follow the rituals and routines. And yet, I know the only way to make it through the coming months is to fight.

If I don’t fight my hardest, my husband will come home from work and find me weeping about my life, my world, my existence. Weeping and blowing my nose and uttering absolutely useless phrases like, “I miss.. I miss.. EVERYBODY.” or “Everybody hates me and I have no friends and I am so alone.” Trying to expel a build-up of emotion that encompasses sadness and mourning and grief and fear is impossible. And, oh, god, there is so much fear.

This morning, my beloved dragged my SAD light out of the closet, dusted it off, and moved it upstairs to the bedroom. The idea is that I will bask in that light every morning from now until, well, next spring. I do not particularly enjoy the basking – try as I might – but I will do my best to sit patiently in the incredibly bright light for 30 minutes each day. Some days, I know, I will cheat and sneak downstairs earlier than I should.

I am back to my vitamins, my precious B12 and D and assorted omegas. I swallow them with my lunch – taking them at breakfast makes me nauseated for hours and hurts my stomach – and, if I believed in God, this is when I would pray. Please let the vitamins soar through my veins and adjust my chemistry and trick my cells into believing it is still summer and I am happy. Please let the B12 boost my sagging energy levels. Please, please, please. Please make it all okay.

I’m trying to motivate myself to get more intentional exercise – reportedly one of the best antidepressants available. I hate being sweaty and tired and out of breath but, as winter sneaks around me, I find myself tired and out of breath anyway. It’s as if my muscles are disintegrating in order to keep me motionless under a duvet all day.

I plod my feet along the treadmill in the darkened basement, trying to focus on recorded episodes of CSI – happily edited of commercials. I take advantage of the cooler days, when they come, and I walk the dogs to the park. I don’t feel any different.

Evidence that diet can impact majorly on depression makes me begin to read the various literature on the subject. Fresh vegetables. Omega-filled fish. Low fat, complex carbs. I know all of this and still I fight my body’s increased cravings for sugar and simple carbs.

I fight the instant gratification of junk food. Sometimes that makes me cry, too, as my body screams for cookies that will immediately soothe the anxiety and my brain shouts that I’m making it all worse if I indulge. It’s like those cartoons with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other – except, in this case, they’re both angry and hostile and glaring and I can’t win.

Everything makes me melancholy. Everything makes me question myself. Everything – everything – makes me feel guilty. For being alive, I suppose. I am incredibly uncomfortable about everything – the screaming cravings, the urge to hibernate, the grief, my own body.

I struggle and I fight and I do the very best that I can but, so many times, I fear that I can’t do enough.

Am I fighting biology and chemistry or am I fighting memories that are embedded into the very core of who I am? Where does my past and those experiences end and where does the seratonin begin? How can I keep myself afloat when I am so very, very tired?

I take my daily antidepressant – the prescribed kind, I mean – and I resist increasing the dose. It sounds dramatic to say that it takes away my personality in higher doses but I’m pretty sure it does. Even my husband, who loves me and wants me to be happy, will agree that I am not myself when I am on higher doses.

And some days I am okay – more than okay – and I fool myself into thinking that every day will be like this. I will smile and laugh and enthusiastically work on a project at the dining room table. I start to think that I’ve finally won out over the sadness – I’ve won the war. I feel alive and healthy and happy. Grateful. I feel like myself.

Then I wake – the very next day – and my body feels like lead. I run the previous day through my mind and wonder what I did wrong. Was it the sandwich for lunch or did I not get enough sunshine? Or maybe it was the day before that? How did I drain all the happiness out of my world while I was sleeping?

Autumn arrives and the fight begins and I am already tired of dragging myself up the endless mountain ahead of me. And I am afraid, no matter what I say. I am afraid of the months ahead of me but I will fight.