It turns out that among the other endless list of depressive, mentally draining, physically exhausting, unable to think clearly, scatterbrained SHIT going on in my body–I also have SAD, or seasonal affective disorder.

I’ve been thinking for years about getting that magic light that everybody in the North talks about getting right when winter starts–but–just never got around to it. This year I’ve felt a lot better though, I’ve been getting various types of treatment for various bullshitty horrible things (depression, hypothyroidism, ADD, blah blah blah. UGH!) and I made it through the summer feeling relatively normal. So when early Fall hit…then September…then October started with it’s bullshitty cloudy days that last for weeks at a time…I really felt it hard.

And I went right back to sleeping for 12-16 hours at a time, eating carbs non.stop. letting friendships fall by the wayside. Not writing, not commenting on blogs. Not attending meetings. Just generally falling to bits.

And doctor lady said to me–I think you should try the lights.

And I said back, “I know, I know I FUCKING KNOW.” (or something. :p)

Because everybody has to tell me what I need to do with myself, but do you think I have even the energy it takes to *listen* to everybody telling me what I need to do with myself? Much less actually having the energy to DO what everybody suggests I do with myself?

Well, W* has good enough insurance that he got me one of the sacred light boxes. And boy, do I feel….good.

??????
WTF?

At least, I have so far. Today is an incredibly off day where I don’t have the energy to do much more than sort of whine about how shitty I feel. I dreamt over and over again last night about getting up and getting out of bed, but then my eyes opened and I realized I was still in bed–so I’d fall back asleep and start the whole dream over again. And that particular dream that I’ve had since I was a small kid–is fucking exhausting. And I think stems from my fear of always being so goddamn tired all the time. I *want* to get up. I *want* to be alive and participate in the world…but, I’m always still asleep in the end.

But I’ve had the thing for two weeks now, and the change in me on the whole has been startling. I went from sleeping 12-16 hours a day to a somewhat normal 7-9 hours. I have energy. I go for a walk every morning. I’ve managed to email some friends and have even signed W* and I up for some volunteer work at our kids school. This weekend we’re going to get the power cord that our cat destroyed for our computer replaced (it’s been broken for about three weeks now, and it just sits there staring at me–reminding me, hey, here’s another thing that you failed at fixing!).

Today is a really low day–but I still went on a walk. I went on a walk, and then sat in the sun as it rose over the field. And I felt the light and did tonglen for the youth that are locked up in the “boys home” that is right next to the path I walk on.

I am not grateful that I can walk when others can’t, I’m not grateful that I can feel the sun when others can’t, I snarled and hissed at W* pretty much all morning and at about 2Pm, I just ran out of steam and began doing endless facebook updates whining about how tired I am and what a magnificent train wreck jackass Rick Sanchez is.

But even as it is a really bad day–I’m awake. And it’s simultaneously comforting and a big fat pain in my withered up asshole that even when you have a magic light, you still have bad days.