Light - Keeping The Tunnel Bright All the Way

At the same point every year for as long as I can remember, I start to feel that heavy black oppressive feeling that means a bout of depression is heading my way. It comes with the approach of the clock change in autumn and the knowledge that the night is going to begin encroaching on my day.

Historically, I have always tried to push back against the bleakness by focusing heavily on Christmas because there's nothing better than keeping so busy you can't think for putting off the inevitable. And the inevitable usually hits me smack in the face on January 3rd as all festivities of Christmas and New Year fade away with the last noise of the last cracker and the falling of the last champagne cork. Two days to get the house back in order and then...nothing.

January and February offer up little better than yet more dark nights with a biting wind and lashings of mean rain to add insult to injury. The depression that I've been battling with for months usually finds me here, at my lowest ebb, least able to deal with it.

The year before last, it dawned on me that this approach (essentially one of complete denial) wasn't working very well. I don't know why it took so long to figure out - the patterns have been the same for the last decade at least. With my new found insight I decided that the answer must be to put off the inevitable even further. If I just filled January and February with fun things to do that involved lots of planning then I'd stay too busy to be depressed and surely by March I'd have got over my seasonal slump and be ready to face the world again. Right?

Sort of. Only now I was knackered and although I'd avoided a full-scale bout of depression there was a low-grade sense of anti-climax that prevented me from feeling truly positive about anything at all. Evidently this was going to need more thought, and it was after reading (on the internet of course) that I decided to tackle things from the other end this previous year. I bought myself a SAD light, and as the days shortened I used it daily. Within a week I could already feel the dark clouds that had been rumbling in the distance start to fade. They hadn't quite disappeared completely but for the first time ever I felt confident that they would.

For the first time in a long time I felt I could start planning Christmas with enjoyment in mind and not just as a displacement activity. And although I had organised a few fun things to do as a family during January and February, it was just that - fun things to do, not a desperate attempt to fill the days. We went to the pantomime just before the kids went back to school in January. I joined friends in Edinburgh to see Scotland play (well, lose to) France in the Six Nations Rugby tournament in February. The kids had sleepovers with friends and I went to a candle party and spent far too much money. March was quiet - school and church events notwithstanding but it felt calm as opposed to disappointing.

I haven't turned my light on in the mornings now for several weeks - I haven't felt the need. It wasn't a conscious decision - it just happened naturally. I guess I'll naturally know when I need it again. In the mean time it's just another thing to dust!