Ahhh, October. The gently falling leaves, the up and down temperatures, the shorter days. And, in my case, the end of the summer buzz.
I hate this week.
It happens every fall. A period of a few days where I wonder what the hell is wrong with me lately. Pardon my language, but for this one post I won't edit. Maybe . . . it will help someone.
What the hell is wrong with me lately?
Oh, that. It's fall. The summer with its gentle lift of extra energy, optimism, Faith I don't have to work at, ideas I don't have to reach for -- it's over. There's a period of floating. Of normalcy. I experience it some years as a gentle peacefulness, a contentedness, I stop rushing and pace myself better. I hardly notice the affiliation with the season. I think it's me. That I did something to make things more even. And, maybe I did.
But then, like a car coming around a bend, the road slopes gently down. At first it's compeletely ordinary. The road levels out in spots, but after a bit you realize that jeez, we were up WAY higher than we thought and the valley floor seems awfully far away. The slope steepens. Your ears start to hurt and you find yourself swallowing frequently so they keep popping. You're not looking out the window anymore, not enjoying the scenery anymore. You're spending all your energy manning the breaks and swallowing to ease the pain.
It used to be impossible for me to stop the slide and I had to spend all spring fixing whatever damage I had done over the winter. Rebuilding relationships and catching up on school work or work work or whatever. That was before we got to Minnesota and met the Mayo clinic the same year that the first Minnesota winter kicked my butt.
Alaska, this is your light box. Lightbox, meet Alaska.
It's an incredible thing to find something that WILL relieve the worst of the symptoms. It stops the fall. It relieves my personal worst symptom which is anxiety and can manifest itself in terrible images drawn from every horror movie I ever forced myself to sit through because I was with people who would have taken it personally that I really just CAN'T expose myself to those things. The visuals come back so vividly and apply themselves to the people I love and it just the most horrible thing.
Regular use of the lightbox takes away the images, takes away the unreasonable fear of abandonment, of loss, of violence. It takes away the unreasonable belief that I am fundamentally flawed.
But I have not yet figured out a way to avoid the week each fall when I realize that the fall -- not Autumn, but my brain's fall -- has begun. And the disappointment that comes with it. Like I secretly hoped that this year I would find myself miraculously -- and I mean that in its original context -- miraculously cured.
Whole.
I feel angry about it. I am tired of being "cracked." I am tired of doing my homework and finding a good doctor and moving the stupid light box. I am tired of monitoring my sleep and avoiding triggers and eating right so I can feel my best and have all my coping skills in place. I am even tired of pretending that it's not that big of a deal. So tonight I am saying just once, for this fifteen minutes here, that it sucks.
I hate it! I hate it. I hate it.
and I cry, "GOD! Why have you for. . ." and then I remember that he has NOT. In the moments before his death Christ took all the pain and sorrow exactly as we feel them -- and exactly as all those who feel so much worse than this feel it.
And I STILL hate it. But at least I don't feel even remotely alone anymore. And I pick up the self-pity and crumple it in a ball like a poem that was going nowhere and toss it in the trash. And I walk downstairs and dig the lightbox out of storage. I set it up. And I put my scriptures in front of the lightbox. In the morning I will come downstairs and before 9am I will sit for 30 minutes in front of the light and read my six pages for the day. And I will wonder, as I do every year when I first turn on the light again, if maybe God didn't appreciate the analogy, too -- the bright light. The scripture. The relief from pain.
It's not so bad being me. It could be worse. Maybe next year I won't fight it. Forgive the typos. If I go back and edit, I'll erase it all.
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7 comments:
Thanks, Alaska. This was good for me to read.
Good luck this winter.
That is completely inspiring to me. I feel your pain, in a less degree, but I do feel it. Life does get very uncertain at times. Being the mother of this infant is hard, especially at night. And I wonder, if I'm trying to do things the "right way" why is breastfeeding so hard. Why am I sore. Why won't she sleep at night, but will sleep great all day. The nights make me question, and the days make me believe that I can make it through the night. As that cheesy LDS song goes "Hold on and the light will come." And it's right, it always does. Whether it be the sun or the Son and light of Christ. I know if I hold on I will be comforted by the light. I love you.
S.
You helped me. I keep forgetting about this myself. I've never been brave enough to even make myself by the light... but I can't figure out what's wrong sometimes. Duh. Maybe this year with the exercise it will be different. Maybe. And maybe I'll be calling to ask for the name of the place you bought your light. The other kind of Light I've got covered. :-)
Thanks for sharing this. So many of us struggle with this issue. I keep thinking that I should just move closer to the equator & not have to deal with it! For now I'm just glad we never did make that move to Yellowknife; Vancouver is bad enough. Sometimes, during the summer, when the living is easy - I try to think about the positives of suffering from the blues. When it's contemplative melancholy, it can be a time of growth & re-examination. It's when it slips into despair that things really begin to go downhill.
Best wishes for a bright winter for you.
I know exactly what you are talking about!!! I feel exactly the same way! That is why I absolutely need to live in San Diego. I lived in Houston and it almost made me crazy -- I should have gotten a light box, but never did. I totally know where you are coming from and felt the same dread there in Houston.
{{{hugs}}} God's grace and mercy and ever-present comfort are abundant, and even amidst all that it's okay to hate the broken parts we have to deal with. It's nice that we *can* deal with them, and that we aren't alone, but I don't think we have to like them.
FWIW, you are not cracked, or broken. You are wonderful, vibrant, complex, and a great servant to the Lord. You're just what He needed you to be in order to do the work only you can do. I honestly believe that. Enjoy your reprieve that comes from the Light (both of them), and know that you're cherished.
I'm glad you're taking good care of yourself, and will be praying for a great winter for you this year.
Dy
I resonate with your post. Compared to my childhood and young adulthood dark seasons in Washington state, grad school in central PA was much better -- the trees lost their leaves and often there was snow reflecting the light night and day, LOL! Then we moved much further south (California, Florida) and things improved or held steady.
BUT. Here in Oklahoma I need to get a light box right about now (*I* think -- no diagnosis per se). I don't have problems with images, but I do spend every spring dealing with the wreckage I made in the fall and winter. A friend suggested that doing light therapy through April 15 might be good :) Taxes are never filed on time in this household!
Thank you for this post.
I offer this song lyric bit that I love:
"Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in."
~ Leonard Cohen Stranger Music (copyright 1992)
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