On “seasonal depression”
It’s March, and I’m still struggling to get out of bed. Friends call it “seasonal depression” but I feel it’s something more profound. My entire social life has shifted recently— and no, I don’t mean it shifted a full year ago; This is not since the “since the start of the pandemic” sort of thing. In early 2020, when this all was still pretty new for us, I visited parents. I brunched with friends. I did Zoom happy hours. I dated. But something changed this winter. The connections I struggled to maintain—the longtime friendships of more than five years—most of them sort of fell off.
I often recoil at the knee-jerk rationale to things: “Oh Saul, it’s the pandemic. We are all feeling that,” and maybe we are. But it took me awhile to realize how angry it made me. Feel free to stop reading, but I am mad if you found comfort in your significant other, or if you did with your family for the holidays, or roommates, or your freaking “social bubble” at whatever gathering you all justified was safe for you. No one officially designated me part of theirs and I live alone, and my Trump-voting father sort of nixed my interest in visiting home this past year. So in addition to family struggles, my life that once teemed with social opportunity and warmth feels now almost totally empty.
Not that it is entirely empty, and it’s worth noting a number of surprising voices who weren’t close to me that now consistently reach out. My friend circle is dramatically different, but it still exists in this new, weird way, with people who only knew me from events or passing by me at a house party we both went to. Now they call, they suggest hikes, they message to make sure I’m okay. I’m really grateful for that.
But this new quiet is still deafening, and I can’t stop myself from feeling resentment and disappointment in people I thought I was closer to. I’ve been emotionally independent and on my own for most of my adult life, so I know I can’t put on others to be there for me, no matter how much I was for them; Giving is something that has to be done freely, without strings. That’s fine, really— I accept it. But it means these friendships are also done, I think? It’s hard to imagine a moment a few months from now when I’m vaccinated and just have amnesia about how bad it all got, and how alone I truly became, and how much I shouldn’t, but do blame them for that. And the only way I see out of it is to find different and better people.
So I think that’s the “seasonal depression.” Sure, the cold nights, the early sundowns, the holidays, they all contributed. But the reason I remain in bed feels more than that. I’m sleeping in ways I used to in college: to make time pass and hope tomorrow is better. I’m grateful I saw it coming and have been mitigating as best I could. I take vitamins daily, I exercise, I walk, and I diet. I get out when the situation warrants it. Moreover, I’ve been viewing men differently; I want to date now, to find that special someone and to build a family I wish I had the past year. San Francisco for me has been listening so much to men tell me they “go with the flow” as if that’s some excuse for being flakey and emotionally unavailable. I’ve been more directed in avoiding that.
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