Really Real Mental Health Post

The last few weeks I’ve been struggling to get out of bed in the morning.

It went from “fuck, it’s 6 am and I’ve had 5 hours of sleep and now I can’t get back to sleep so I’ll get up and get productive”

to “oh look, 6 am, fuck this” and “heh, there’s 7am, nope” and then “oh hi there 8am, I don’t think so” followed by “oh shit, it’s 830 and i’ve gotta be somewhere at 9”

I’ve blamed it on low grade depression, and it’s probably that, but it’s not every day, normal depression.  It’s, “the fucking clocks changed and now it’s suddenly dark all of the time, and the cold weather isn’t helping, oh yeah, I has the SADs”, otherwise known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

So yesterday when I saw my post from last year with the picture of my smoothie and my happy light, it reminded me that doing those things in the morning for a few weeks really do help me and I made a promise to myself that I would actually push, pull, or otherwise drag my ass out of bed this morning.  I made a smoothie (and realized I was out of half the ingredients cause it’s been awhile and I haven’t been keeping track), and I’m sitting down with my happy light for 30 minutes.

Side note: My cussing filter is turned the fuck off, sorry friends, this is what happens when I drag myself out of bed and don’t wanna.

The concept behind light therapy is that is uses certain wavelengths of light that replicate sunlight and blah blah, neurotransmitters and blah blah, depression and blah blah.  I’m not a doctor or a scientist.  I know I can’t use it for too long because it will push me into hypomania for a few days.  And I can’t use it later in the day because it will keep me up at night.

They used to use giant lightboxes for this, and then at some point they became more portable.  Parker had one that was about a foot or so tall that I’ve been using the last couple of years.  Wonder Woman came with one that’s small enough I can see the computer monitor over it and that’s pretty nice. (I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m using it, it was easier to get to.  Shhhh, don’t tell her.  I mean, hi Wonder Woman, I love you!)

My typical pattern is that this time of the year I fight some low grade depression, but it isn’t too bad, I just need to keep myself active, and do things that I know work.

Which includes sitting here with a happy light for 20-30 minutes in the morning for the next few weeks until my body adjusts better to the time and weather change.