Seasonal Affect Disorder

Twist-open bottles are pretty much the best thing for an alcoholic.

Yes, just the simple twist and it’s open. None of the guilt associated with opening a second bottle of wine – the ripping off of the foil, the search for the wine opener, that delightful popping sound when the cork comes out. With a twist-open, the seal is broken almost instantaneously, noiselessly, and the wine is flowing into your waiting glass in no time.

Guilt is something I’m very familiar with. Yes, I was technically born Catholic, but that has nothing to do with it. Mine is the guilt of having a chemical imbalance. A depression for no reason. None that is simple and makes sense, anyway. It does tend to happen more in the fall, when the summer light starts to fade earlier and earlier, until it is cold and dark by the time I get off work in the evening. But it can happen anytime. Mostly when I really don’t want it to.

Some days I wake up and stare at the ceiling, motionless. I feel like a weight is laying on my chest. It’s not that I don’t want to get up and go to work, it's that I can’t: I feel tethered to the bed. I don't want to stay in bed all day, either. That’s the last thing I want to do because that’s the perfect opportunity for my mind to race and my thoughts to spiral downward and downward, making the guilt more real, more consequential.

My dog hasn’t died. I didn’t lose my job. No one I love has a terrible disease. So why do I feel this way? There must be some reason, some trigger. When I am finally able to admit to someone that I am feeling “down,” they always ask why. I can never give them an answer that makes sense to them, unless they’ve felt depressed before - then they get it, no questions asked.

It’s a bad day. For me, usually a bad night. When the sun goes down, my depression comes out to play. It asks me questions I never would ask myself in my happy, light, sunny days. “What are you doing with your life? Why don’t you have a boyfriend right now? Why don’t you lose some weight? What if no one every loves you again? What’s the point of your life?” You can see how quickly things can start to spiral.

So I drink.

And it doesn’t really help. At least, it doesn’t help make me any happier. It does soothe the depression. It makes me somehow feel guiltier about having it, which in a very masochistic way makes me feel more relevant. It gives me some strange reason to feel awful, like maybe the copious amounts of red wine I drink is making me feel this way, but deep down I know it’s a symptom, not an answer. The answers are too complex for alcohol to solve.

I’ve been like this almost as long as I can remember. My parents told me I was a happy, easy baby. I remember smiling and playing when I was younger. I had friends in the neighborhood. But when I hit about eleven or twelve, I would start feeling odd. I was sick a lot as a child, but this wasn’t sick. It was just…. not good. I was tired, sad, and sometimes I would cry over ridiculous things like missing a show I liked to watch on TV. And not just crying: I mean sobbing for half an hour, completely inconsolable. That’s how I felt. But it wasn’t about the TV show. What was it about?

I have been to a lot of therapists, some better than others. And they help me through the bad times and teach me how to cope. But they don’t give me any concrete answers. Why do I feel this way to begin with? Why? Why?

I take medication, and it helps most of the time. When I am off it, I feel worse. Which means I know that I will probably have to take it for the rest of my life. That used to make me feel despairing. Now it’s just a fact of life. Wake up, brush my teeth, take my medications, grab something to eat, and out the door.

Sometimes they are not enough. Sometimes I feel so bad that the questions ring in my ears. I know they are coming from my own head, but it doesn’t feel like me. I know that I am a good person with a good job who deserves to be loved. But when I am in that depressive hole, nothing seems to matter. And the more wine I drink, the better the idea sounds to put all those words to sleep for good.

I can’t do it.  

No matter how terrible I feel, my will to live is stronger. I guess most people would say that’s a good thing. I think it means a lot more years to suffer. There will be highs, I know this. But there will be other lows, terrible lows, yet to come.

So I twist the top off another bottle and try to get through today.