yesterday was the first day since i started feeling better that i didn't feel so good. yesterday was also the first day a big weather change happened: it got really cold and a storm moved in and pretty much stayed.
one of the things i learned when we first moved out here was that i have a mild case of seasonal anxiety disorder. take me away from the sunshine and i wilt, get tired, lose all motivation. i'm not sure why i never noticed it when i lived in cali, but then it was easier for me to get out and i was a busy mom, then a busy single mom, so i suppose distraction worked since i don't have a devastating form of it. out here, it's not that easy to go anywhere for me. with only one car, and saxy in school and working closer to atlanta, and a bus system that might as well not exist, well, not so easy to get distracted. and i actually didn't even notice it right away, because, yea i lose energy for a day of two of overcast, but it's usually not serious enough to be considered more than a normal emotional flux. and when we first moved out, we had a stereo, and music honestly helps me counter the problems to a degree.
but go longer than a day or two and things get bad. as in i don't want to get out of bed bad. as in i forget that music helps and just want to sleep bad. it's as if everything shuts down and the anemia takes over. i crash. i can function, it just takes a lot more effort than i really want to put into it.
summers out here can be difficult because hurricanes bring in a lot of the weather that kills me, but it tends to be intermittent. heck, even when we do have hurricane leftovers hitting the state, it's often broken up with sunshine. so the sad doesn't usually get that bad. in fact, up until we realized my bp was a big part of the problem, my headaches were worse than the sad. of course, the combination can be difficult to manage, but i also know that sunshine isn't too long away and make it through.
but winters. winters are psychological torture for me out here sometimes. the storms last longer with little to no sunshine breaking them up. they seem darker to me. the rain seems harder. and the sad hits a little harder and a little earlier each time. and i can't see a tunnel. i have no idea when they'll end. often when one storm leaves, another comes in right on its heels. so winters? kill me. they hurt, they take my energy away, they make me want to sleep. i function, but barely. we can't afford the light bulbs that supposedly help, and we no longer have a stereo. so winters? they get the hate from me.
i'm honestly not sure why yesterday hit so hard. we'd had some stuff move through previously, but none of it was bad. yesterday, i had trouble sleeping, had trouble getting up, was beyond tired, and pretty much curled up and stayed there. if this is my reaction to the first not even winter storm, this winter is going to be a tough one—it will only get harder to manage from here.
yea, really not looking forward to it.
i'm writing this at 1:30 am. i'm still tired from yesterday. it always takes me a little time to recover from sad. if there's some sunshine today, i should be okay by afternoon, as long as i get some sleep tonight. but there's more coming, and i dread it. there's no way really for me to prepare. i just have to get through it.
so many people i know look forward to fall. i dread it. i'm more of a spring person. i need the sun to be taking over. i'm not into summers (too damn hot), but i'll take them over winter if only because i crave, need the sunshine. falls were nice in cali, actually, but not so much here. funny how the winter hate crosses time zones and coasts though.
~*~
word of the moment: quadratura
wall or ceiling painted with arches and columns in strong perspective
