Tag Archives: seasonal affective disorder

Photo by Sonny Sixteen: https://www.pexels.com/photo/dry-broken-branch-on-the-ground-11522978/
Poetry, Survival

Inertia

Low pressure

in the atmosphere and in an indeterminate one of four tires

13 miles till empty

Critically low levels of battery life

The evidence amasses in the case against energy

A body at rest tends to stay at rest

in these days of the tail end of winter,

the cold strung out to a sparse thread of frost,

the wind a constant movement that won’t blow it away

Weak sun filters through a constant cast

Broken branches brittle and gray

join at intersecting angles

skeletal shapes the only thing of interest on the ground

And yet no where near alive

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Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash
Mental Illness, Survival

What no one ever tells you

about your worst bout with whatever mental illness you’ve had

is you’ll put yourself back there

every. other. time. you struggle

forever.

Every time

you get oh so tired

or life’s bitter edge rubs sharp against you

or you just can’t crawl deep enough into the corner of the couch –

You will think,

here it comes again

it’s back

I’m falling down the rabbit hole once more.

And then, a flicker at the edge of your consciousness.

It’s midafternoon; you haven’t taken your meds

The sun hasn’t shone in days

A deep mood does not mean a depressive down swing.

But the feeling is so unsettlingly familiar

it sets off alarm bells

of a flame that once fueled an inferno

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anxiety, Identity, Living, Mental Health

Damn the Weather, Man

That’s a very precariously placed comma.

I don’t wish eternal damnation upon all meteorologists, nor do I have the authority. However, as an anxiety-sufferer who already has enough on her plate, weather reports add another element of doom and gloom.

Perhaps if I didn’t live in New England at the ever-encroaching tail-end of winter . . .

from realbodywork.com

Perhaps if the cold clime didn’t make my already shriveled trapezius muscles jerk ever upward . . .

Perhaps if I woke up in the morning, looked at the thermometer and decided on my wardrobe at that moment on current conditions . . .

Perhaps if I could notice the gentle unfolding of the season with my own eyes rather than through the lens of radar screens and predetermined dates on the calendar . . .

Maybe, then, I wouldn’t be psychologically distraught at the impending snow storm we’re about to get.

I wouldn’t be worried about the fresh shoots that I’d unearthed beneath their layer of winter leaves. I wouldn’t bemoan the loss of soft earth between my fingers that I’d felt just this weekend. I wouldn’t begrudgingly look at the lightweight fleece jacket hanging forlornly on the doorknob.

I wouldn’t feel trapped. I wouldn’t feel like I was experiencing a relapse into unforgiving ways. I wouldn’t be nervously anticipating the loss of something I’d only barely gotten a grip on.

Driving home and noticing shutters pulled tight against the windows of a historical building that I swear I’d never noticed shut before, I actually thought of banishing all weather reports from my existence. If I didn’t know I was supposed to be battening down the hatches, I might delight in the snow. At the very least, I’d adjust accordingly when I woke up that morning by pulling on my knee socks and down coat. I wouldn’t obsess. I wouldn’t worry. I might actually live in the moment.

And that, dear people, is really what this is all about, isn’t it? It never really was about weather reports. That’s my irrational psyche’s way of pulling attention away from what is really at the heart of the matter. If I can blame the weather man for my obsessive tendencies, then I don’t have to take the onus on myself. That I can’t live in the moment. That I can’t still the whirling dervish in my mind and so must look to external forces, such as a lovely spring day, to calm me. Or, in their absence, to name as the reason for my failures.

If only the sun were shining, my heart would be light.

If only spring had truly sprung, my mood would refresh.

If only I had no prior knowledge, I wouldn’t obsess and worry.

If only it were that easy.

(Though weather reports and the attendant technology do pull us out of synch with the natural rhythms of the earth and our surroundings. 😉 )
 

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