Red Cedar

I’m having a profound-realization day since discovering that there is actually a condition know as Reverse Seasonal Affective or Summer-onset Seasonal Affective Disorder.

A few years ago, I identified a particular kind of cyclic mood issue that seemed to show up mostly in August, and carry through until September – hallmarked by extreme anxiety and even thoughts of suicide (I stress here – thoughts! not actions) that always seem completely incongruous to everyone else’s great summertime joy. Because it generally came on towards the end of summer, I always thought it had something to do with seasonal transition, some childhood trauma issue about school starting or the end of time at the lake – who knows.

But this year, Vancouver’s summer was early and June has been unseasonably hot (July temperatures), and I have found myself increasingly agitated, anxious, and upset for no discernible material reason. Yesterday (spent at home in East Van where temperatures were in the mid-thirties) I experienced a spike in those feelings that left me miserable for most of the late afternoon and evening. Because it was so acute (up until yesterday the symptoms have been just a bit there) it was easy to identify as identical to the pattern I normally experience later in the summer – leading to an ah ha! moment. What if my cyclical depressive/anxious episodes were more linked to the days of sunlight and heat than to a particular month or stage of summer? And what if then summer came a month early as it did in Vancouver this year (normally June is off and on which means that July is the first month of all sun. This year June was been blistering hot with almost no rain.)

So this morning after a long meditation, I Googled and discovered that not only is there a summer-version of SAD, but it is characterized by extreme anxiety (versus winter SAD which has a main symptom of lethargy). In fact, pretty much every symptom listed for summer SAD (except the weight loss dammit) is one that I experience to greater or lesser degree after about a month of true summer. I also have the genetic predisposition (family members with major mood disorders), and a lessening of emotional symptoms when I spend time in cool places (like my air conditioned office).

Issues with Internet self-diagnosis aside, I am pretty sure that this is the root of my emotional stress in the warmer months and I feel oddly better to know that there is a diagnosis for this quirk of mine. The worst part about this has been feeling out of sync with everyone else and not knowing why. Turns out that only about 1% of the population gets summer SAD (compared with 5% for the winter version), making it pretty rare, and also meaning that many people who have it don’t realize that they have something a bit more diagnosable than “summertime blues”. Unfortunately there isn’t a ton of treatment options except medication, nor is this a well-understood phenomena. For my part, knowing that this is *something* at least gives me some ground to work with in my self-care and meditation practices.

I’m interested to hear from others out there who might have some experience with this and what works for you in dealing with it?  At the very least your experience might help me feel less freak-like 🙂

Last night my husband (a little drunk from drinking Old Fashioneds in the yard with our friend Jon) came to bed and said a bunch of things that were very sweet – including the line “I don’t have a bucket list, because I can’t imagine a life with anything else in it than I already have.” And I realized when he said it that I have never had anything approximating a list of things I want to do before I die. Not only that, but the idea of creating one feels artificial and odd because while some of life is planning, a lot of it is also just luck and circumstance, and even more than that – it’s personal temperament. If you have to put skydiving on a list of things you would like to do – it seems to me that you’re not someone for whom skydiving has been much of a priority which might speak to a personality that is actually happier doing other things. And yet everyone has this on their bucket list for some reason (for the record, I had a great-uncle who had skydiving on his list, snuck out from his family on his 80th birthday and did it, damaged his legs in the process and pretty much never got out of bed again – so don’t wait too long on these things if they really are that important.)

I do understand that life is full of chores and obligations, so we might not always get around to everything we think we might want, but it does seem that there is a great unhappiness in creating these lists and the message out there seems to be that one needs one in order to live a fulfilled life. And that notion goes hand-in-hand with some idea about what fulfillment looks like (travel, endless adventure, exciting parties, sexy people).

In my life (and the life of my husband) fulfillment looks like having a compatible life partner and a kid who is doing pretty good in the world, work which affords us some material comfort, little projects worked on together and apart, travels into the local forests, and fun times with our friends. It’s not the kind of stuff you put on a list, really. But it is the kind of stuff that you build together, bit by bit, constructing one experience onto the next from foundation, to frame, to finished product.

It would be foolish to say that we don’t plan and strive for things when we are paying off a house in Vancouver and building a cabin the countryside – it is not that we sit contentedly in the present without any thought for “what next” – but at the same time we are not grasping for experience, we are not hungry for more more more. Which is to me what the bucket list represents…. the unquenchable thirst for experience beyond everything else. As though a life is built by climbing Machu Pichu and then skydiving and then going to Mardi Gras because #YOLO.

Blech.

Peak experiences are grand in their place – but we seem to forget that they are simply the punctuation in the sentence – not the sentence itself. We should not let them dominate our imaginations or desire, thinking “if only I could do this thing or that thing — then I would be happy”.

On the outside, perhaps it looks as though my life is terminally boring because it is not full of drama, and I don’t care much for international travel. But I am never bored (for real – never), and I am rarely unhappy with the substance of my days. (Though, yes, it would be nice to work less days and have more time for my own projects – on the other hand, I love my home and my ability to pay for said home). I am frequently blown away by the beauty of the landscapes right on our back doorstep – the mountains, rivers, and ocean of BC give us endless opportunities for adventure. When I sit alone, I may choose to meditate, or to knit. Read a book, play my fiddle. I am never without the capacity to make art, or to consume it in the endless environment of culture that we live. I am never without the deep sense of home that I have cultivated in myself and build on with my partner. How could I be bored with this or unfulfilled?

On the one hand, that is privilege. And on the other hand, it’s an orientation. It’s something that we develop in opposition to this culture of cheap thrills and consumer adventure in order to find the truth of this life for ourselves.

Here are the things which bring me the greatest happiness these days:

• time spent with my partner
• meditation
• making things – knitting and crochet at the moment
• time spent with friends and family
• lifting heavy weights at the gym and zumba classes
• picking blueberries in the garden (there are a lot of them to pick these days)
• playing music

Here are some things that bring me stress, but still have positive consequences/outcomes attached:

• building the cabin
• large work projects that I am currently engaged in

Here are things that just bring me stress with no positive outcomes:

• worrying about or judging what other people do
• trying to control the behaviour of others
• planning and re-planning things in my head
• thinking about playing music

So you can see there that doing things that take my full engagement (ie – make me present) are the most enjoyable, and thinking about things that I have little control over are the least enjoyable. You can also see that my life is pretty quiet these days and does not involve any excessive behaviours on my part – also, it’s really healthy right now. Who knew that I would turn out to be so happy with small things?

I am in the process of giving up certain identity desires right now – have been doing that slowly over the last several years and am a better person for it. On the other hand, I continue in my desire for a certain material standard of living (see column two – stress, but with positives) which probably holds me back from freedom in the truest sense. I just read an interview with the “happiest man in the world” in which he essentially says that to be truly free, we can be attached to no one romantically – and at my current point in time I can say that I’m not giving that up either.

That’s okay, because I wasn’t aiming for “happiest” person in the world. I would settle very comfortably on “second-happiest” if it means I get to keep my husband and the life we have together.

These days I can tell that I am generally feeling pretty good because the stressful periods of very pronounced. I am dealing with a family matter right now, one that doesn’t have a huge effect on me but is upsetting, and I find during my meditations that my shoulders are much more tense and I am aware of a knot in my stomach. That awareness is unpleasant but good, because it helps to guide me to the right course of action and allows me to work with the tension in my being. Much of this tension is, of course, caused by the fact that I cannot make the other person do what I want them to do (in my mind “the right thing”). I am working on letting go of this desire, not by staying silent, but by speaking my mind and then putting the issue to rest inside myself.

It’s a no-brainer, that this should bring greater ease and joy into one’s life, but in practice it can feel impossible. As the monk in the linked article says – happiness is always available but it’s a skill and one that we must work at to develop fully.