Springtime Affective Disorder: Not in the DSM-5. Maybe it should be?

Some people find the wintertime increases their symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. In fact, there is a disorder called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder. However, typically, when you think of people who are affected by the seasons, you think of the cold and dreariness that comes with the months of January, February, or March. However, some of us experience what I like to refer to as Springtime Affective Disorder. As far as I know, this is not something you can find in the DSM-5, but it is something you can find evidence for in the literature on the changing of the seasons and anxiety. Just google “anxiety and spring” and read the list of articles that link the change of this season with an increase in symptoms of both anxiety and with those who have bipolar disorder, mania.

With this version of SAD, just like the flower buds that seem to have appeared overnight and the birds that suddenly jar us out of sleep at 5 am, symptoms of anxiety and mood change seem to pop up out of nowhere.

Personally, for the past two years, my own GAD has kicked up as spring approaches. So, though I can finally go for long bikes rides or sit in the sunshine on my porch—which are typically things that help my mental health—I’m so overwhelmed in my generalized anxiety, that I don’t necessarily want to.

Me, on my porch

This year, it particularly sucks because I’m now a licensed therapist who specializes in anxiety disorders. For me, despite all I’ve studied and know, I still feel the weight of shame and stigma, and it’s two-fold as a clinician who also has a condition.

I was in total remission of GAD for over a decade when it returned with a vengeance in spring (see that connection!) of 2014 (ironically, also the year I started grad school to become a therapist). I worked hard at recovery and by the fall, I was much better. By 2016, GAD seemed like a distant memory again, and by early 2017, I almost forgot (though you never forget because, by nature, it lingers as a constant worry in the background of your mind) and then…Spring of 2017, a mini relapse. I worked hard and pulled out of that one in just a couple of months and then…mid-April of 2018 HELLO!? Why are you back?

This time, I am well aware of the reality that anxiety doesn’t go away permanently, and I really know that…from being on both sides of the couch… In fact, I’ve come to understand that it is your companion, at least when it doesn’t spiral into existential hell. What I also know is that though this is totally UNCOMFORTABLE, it’s not going to kill me or make me go crazy—common thoughts/fears that we anxiety disorder suffers know all too well.

I know what to do. With a little over 15 years of on and off therapy throughout my life and three and a half years as a therapist, coupled with enough reading to fill several graduate degrees, I am an (semi) expert…from both sides of the couch.  

So, as soon as I felt it these last few weeks, I did two things: 1. Remind myself that the spring is activating for me (and millions of others). And, 2. Recommit, with even more determination, to utilizing my tools. So, though I don’t want to take that bike ride or sit outside, I do and when I do, it definitely helps. In fact, it helps a whole lot.

And, though I have never stopped using my tools all this time, I turn up the commitment and discipline a bit more. I think of it this way: the diabetic can’t just stop the insulin because he doesn’t want to deal with the chore of it, and the cancer patient can’t just stop chemo because it’s uncomfortable or it makes them nauseous. Similarly, we, too, must not stop our mental health care treatment just because it requires an effort we sometimes feel we don’t have. 

Bike path

By the way, that’s another reality of recovery: you have to continue to use the tools, to make them into daily habits, in order for your recovery to stick. And even then, sometimes, symptoms flare because of something completely out of your control, like the shifting of winter into spring.

So, recommit yourself to your recovery. Push beyond the stigma and shame you may feel. Get on your bike or grab your sneakers and go outside, no matter how anxious or depressed you feel. I guarantee it will make you feel better.  

NaJoWriMo

In preparation for NaJoWriMo, I have been doing some nightly reading of my journals dating back to 1989, when I was a 13-year-old 8^th grader experiencing my first love, all the way through 1999, when I married my college sweetheart.

What strikes me—after the mortifying reality of how teenage-me was so boy-obsessed—is the way my voice and sense of self evolved from 13 to 24. I was always very introspective and self-aware but as a teen, those things were way too clouded by hormones and a desperation to be loved (and my parents’ crumbling marriage). As a young adult, I had unclouded access to that same introspection and self-awareness, which acted as intuitive guides through the terrifying maze of post-childhood, post-college reality, including career and marriage decisions.

Now, here I am at 42, and as I approach a month of pen-to-paper journal writing, I wish for myself that same total access to my inner-me. An access that, in adulthood,—with the onslaught of social media when I was in my late 20s—has been as clouded, at times, as it was during my teenage-hood.

What I have learned in my social-media entrenched adulthood is that I need my public writing outlet (blogging and posting) and my private writing outlet (my dear old diary). Both have helped me to navigate the transition from early adulthood into middle adulthood. Through social media, I can lament and validate the hardships of being a writer, a mother, and a therapist. Through my private journal, I can gripe and moan about things I would never even say out loud…about mothering, writing, and therapy-ing.  

I can tell you all this: Nothing I write over the month of April will be for public consumption—and that’s the point, right?

National Journal Writing Month

Please join me as I spend the month of April participating in NaJoWriMo. National Journal Writing Month. This is an awesome way to get yourself to journal on a regular basis. Read more about this here: http://www.najowrimo.org/

Journal writing has been part of my self care since I was in middle school when my journal was the place where I could release all of my anxieties and fears without fear of judgment from anyone else in my life. Back when I was growing up, there was no social media, and most people would have NEVER dreamed of spilling their guts in such a public way as many do now...Times have changed and now we tell each other just about anything online, from what we ate for dinner to how much our BFF is pissing us off. Despite all the public revealing of inner most thoughts, nothing can replace true, hand-written journaling. The very act of hand grasping pen and then putting pen to paper is therapeutic, in and of itself. Private journaling is a safe way to release all the pent up and unexpressed emotions and thoughts. So many people may not even know that it's okay—it's actually beneficial to NOT share every thought with the world.

Join me and the millions of others as we dedicate an entire month to journaling, privately. I will share my experiences with you but not my journal entires!

Happy journaling!

8 Weeks of Mindfulness

I've wanted to like meditation for decades. When I returned to school to become a therapist, I tried really, really hard to do so. I joined Headspace and spent months and months trying all the different mediations offered in that app. Unfortunately, I wound up disliking meditation even more and eventually gave up.

I decided that my daily walk outside and yoga stretches were enough and to let go of trying so hard to learn to meditate. I focused more on practicing mindfulness, instead. Mindfulness is the conscious effort of using your sense to become aware of the present moment. This was relatively effortless. 

The benefits of mindfulness became so great that I sought out deeper study and stumbled upon the the Palouse Mindfulness, a free online course. 

I signed up and was excited to begin...until I saw that my daily homework would involve meditating.

The first words I wrote in my meditation practice log were: “I didn’t like it.” I went on to add, “I felt anxious, bored, uncomfortable, at times disconnected. My body, itself, felt fine. Yet, my mind was all over the place and not present.”

The final words in my meditation practice log, scribbled in roughly 2 months later, were: “Busy mind—aware and accepting.” Those two entries capture the essence of my entire journey into the practice of mindful meditation.  

The basic commitment for the duration of the course was to meditate daily as well as practice mindfulness exercises and complete assignments in the form of readings and videos. The daily meditation was a chore I never looked forward to until the last two weeks. However,  by the end, I no longer resented daily meditation time, and how I felt about meditating didn't matter. The point was that I was aware and accepting of all the sensations and feelings that happened in the moments of my meditations—the good and the bad. The awareness and acceptance of the present moment became the goal, not whether or not I liked meditating. 

There were subtle shifts that occurred that brought me to this place of eventual acceptance. The first one was to say to myself, it’s okay if you aren’t perfect. This was reinforced when I watched psychologist Shauana Shapiro’s video about her own struggle when she went to a meditation retreat and was very much caught up in her head about not meditating correctly. She met with one of the teachers at the retreat and he finally helped her to see that in her quest for perfection, she was missing the point of meditating, which is to accept ourselves where we are in that moment, imperfections and all. That story replayed in my head as I went through the early weeks of the course, and it helped to strengthen my resolve to not give up; it told me I didn’t have to be perfect at this, I just had to be. Without that burden of perfection, I really was free to "be".

The next shift occurred as yoga was brought into the course, which really stressed me out. Although I love yoga, I no longer attend classes because of the pressure I would feel to perform each posture perfectly. Yet, with the introduction of the 10 mindful movements, that evaporated, and another shift occurred, bringing me closer to myself in the present moment. The movements were not perfect or about being perfect, and I would close my eyes and really feel them. This was a precious gift.

The final and most important shift was when meditation went from being a struggle to get myself to do it, to it feeling as natural as my daily morning walk. I don’t always want to do it, but I accept that reality and do it anyway because it brings me such physical and mental peace. 

I now have solid and simply daily meditation and yoga practice now that feels grounding and healing, even though it is not perfect.

I went into the course hoping to, at least, learn how to meditate, and I told myself no goal and no expectation that this will change much, but it actually did. Moment by moment.