SAD
Mood goes downhill very fast at this time of year. It's not what's actually going on in the world around. OK, Dubya has won his four more years; and OK, we're still embroiled in a foreign war of uncertain justice and unknown and potentially disastrous outcome; and OK, global warming is getting worse by the day and by the time my not-yet-born grandchildren are young adults, a third of Britain will be under water. One rises above such things.
No, it's that little hour by which the clocks went back last Sunday. Just sixty minutes; but it's like having the sky fall on your head, or being mugged by the US Marine Corps. From one day to the next, instead of daylight through the stained glass at Evening Prayer, there is darkness. And this tells you that it won't be long before the windows are black for Morning Prayer, too. And you'll get up in the dark and come home in the dark. And that's how it's going to be for four more months; and all through that time, whatever moments of relief there might occasionally be, you'll feel like you're firing on at least one cylinder fewer than whatever your full count of cylinders is.
November is the month when all my serious mood crashes have happened. The worst one ever was the day after going out to dinner with some dear friends, and having a great time with them, and that following day being plunged into deepest despair. Knowing the pattern makes it a bit more survivable. When the black dog appears, instead of taking to your bed with a bottle (or a gun), you say "Oh, there you are already. Well, come in - you're going to anyway - and for God's sake try not to cause too much trouble this time." But there are days when it feels very like clinging on by the skin of your teeth, and double-praying every relevant word of the psalmists (who were fellow sufferers, for the most part). Like this evening's "O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand, and there is none to help me." (Psalm 22.11)
The truly worst thing is knowing that the reason November is a bad time, is not that it is the worst, but that it brings with it the fear of what the next four months will be like. It's fear itself that kills. Perfect love casts out fear ... but I haven't yet found a way to love November that much.
See:
SAD Association
SAD Learning Centre
No, it's that little hour by which the clocks went back last Sunday. Just sixty minutes; but it's like having the sky fall on your head, or being mugged by the US Marine Corps. From one day to the next, instead of daylight through the stained glass at Evening Prayer, there is darkness. And this tells you that it won't be long before the windows are black for Morning Prayer, too. And you'll get up in the dark and come home in the dark. And that's how it's going to be for four more months; and all through that time, whatever moments of relief there might occasionally be, you'll feel like you're firing on at least one cylinder fewer than whatever your full count of cylinders is.
November is the month when all my serious mood crashes have happened. The worst one ever was the day after going out to dinner with some dear friends, and having a great time with them, and that following day being plunged into deepest despair. Knowing the pattern makes it a bit more survivable. When the black dog appears, instead of taking to your bed with a bottle (or a gun), you say "Oh, there you are already. Well, come in - you're going to anyway - and for God's sake try not to cause too much trouble this time." But there are days when it feels very like clinging on by the skin of your teeth, and double-praying every relevant word of the psalmists (who were fellow sufferers, for the most part). Like this evening's "O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand, and there is none to help me." (Psalm 22.11)
The truly worst thing is knowing that the reason November is a bad time, is not that it is the worst, but that it brings with it the fear of what the next four months will be like. It's fear itself that kills. Perfect love casts out fear ... but I haven't yet found a way to love November that much.
See:
SAD Association
SAD Learning Centre
1 Comments:
Hi Tony! I popped into blogger to view your blog after you posted the wonderful Moleskine comment.
SAD can be devasting. I am not afflicted with it but I also live in a place with 300 days of sun a year (Boulder, CO.) But the shift in time always makes me blue, going to work and returning home in the dark makes me feel like a serf trudging back to the croft.
Re Dubya... a lot of Americans are thinking about moving overseas as being in a country run by a meglomaniac just isn't fun. (I moved to Germany when Reagan won his re-election.) He isn't my president, and I personally consider him guilty of war crimes in Iraq. (Did the Brits see the ad where he is joking, during a fundraiser, looking for WMD under a coaster? It was unforgivable.)
Yes, I feel we have all moved into a time of despair, as both seasonal and as a metaphor for our times. What does one do? I decided writing and being creative and working with kids modelling restorative justice were all radical acts in these times we live in. We may not be able to stop the madness, but we can make our tiny islands of sanity slightly better. I guess that is the function of faith: belief in humanity in a time of despair.
Warm Regards
Penny
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