SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER (SAD)
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Alina Imai As summer ends and the time for warm drinks from the vending machine and being trapped under your kotatsu begin, there’s something not so pleasant that a lot of us aren’t looking forward to, seasonal depression. It hasn’t been easy, especially for most of you who don’t have family in Japan, to have drastically altered your living experience so unexpectedly. We were thrown from leaving our homes thinking “keys, wallet, phone” to “let me double check for my face mask” and although we’ve normalized it, that could very well have been a scene from a dystopian movie. For those of you who have experienced seasonal depression before, you know very well that the shortened days and grey weather can’t help but cloud your mind and sometimes get the best of you. To the people who have just recently experienced what I’m calling Seasonal Depression 2.0 Covid Edition, take a deep breath, straighten your back, and try to remember if you drank enough water today. These days it’s quite hard not to be further discouraged when it feels like every time you open an email it’s about canceled enkai’s or events and your Monday work small talk is no longer about where you went over the weekend instead it’s about how safely you stayed at home but you can’t let that stop you from trying to have fun in any small way you can. It’s heavy and maybe just now bringing it up again made you feel down but here’s what I have learned about dealing with depression, depression is an unfair war between you and your own brain. Depression will tell you to lay in, cancel plans, isolate yourself and binge watch anything because it’s comforting and doesn’t require any energy but you have to actively fight those thoughts. Similar to working
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