A year on and half the world away: some thoughts on SAD and moving to California

by bezukhova

[Content note: this post is about mental illness. It discusses seasonal affective disorder, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and suicide in some depth.]

It is October. A year ago, I left my job, without having another one to go to.
I spent two months packing up my life and sorting out admin and paperwork, traveling around the country to see friends, family, loved ones. Then I got on a plane, a second plane, a third. I traveled thousands of miles across an ocean and a continent. I got off the final plane, left the airport, and started a new life; or at least a new chapter of my life.

I look back now, and I am so glad I took that huge step. That huge risk. My life now may not be exactly the way I envisaged it would be, but to be honest, I don’t know exactly how I did envisage it. Looking back, I am also struck by how brave it was. How strong, and how determined I had been. That surprises me, because it didn’t feel that way at the time. I didn’t feel brave. I didn’t feel strong. I felt desperate. I had to do *something* and this was the only thing I could think of to do. I felt so trapped and powerless and miserable in my old life. I would trudge the mile uphill from work, let myself into my flat, sit down with my cat, and cry. I was truly wretched. I couldn’t make plans because I couldn’t face the idea of the future. Endless days and weeks and months and years stretching out ahead of me. I couldn’t face the idea of getting up each day and having to get through to the end of it. It was hell, and I was in it.

It is October. It wasn’t a coincidence that October was when I finally left my old job, which was incredibly stressful, which didn’t suit me, which helped contribute to my misery and my depression and anxiety. I handed in my notice a month earlier, in September, at my annual review (which I had been dreading to the point of nightmares and panic attacks), but it wasn’t just that that was a convenient time to do it, either.

It was also autumn. I don’t think I can express in words how much abject terror autumn used to strike into my heart. I realize now that it wasn’t even just autumn itself, it would begin long before. The summer solstice, the longest day, midsummer, was painful, because it marked the moment that it began to draw towards winter. “It’s all downhill from here,” I thought, every year at midsummer. And the thought was almost unbearable. By September, it was an omnipresent dark heaviness, dulling my senses and thoughts.

The best description I’ve ever heard or seen of SAD comes from the website of the UK mental health charity, Mind. “Every year when the clocks change I feel like I’m being buried alive.” This description has haunted me since I first read it because… That’s what it feels like (although it starts earlier than that for me). It feels like a sort of slow death. It feels like being buried alive.

No one knows exactly what causes SAD (well – it’s caused by seasonal changes, but no one knows why it happens, or how exactly seasonal changes cause the symptoms). There are a number of different theories (Mind’s website also explains several of these) but no clear consensus. There is also some suggestion that people born in Spring or Summer (as I was) may be more susceptible.
Treatment is also a little tricky. Light therapy can help (it did help me a bit, though not enough). Antidepressants can also help (I was on them anyway for other reasons). Exercise helps some people. Talking therapies can also help. None of these helped alleviate my symptoms enough.

I have read a lot of accounts of SAD from people who describe themselves as cheerful and happy during summer and then depressed and withdrawn during winter. That sounds horrible enough, but it isn’t my experience. I don’t only suffer from SAD, I have depression and anxiety disorder all year round, as well as quite a lot of trauma issues. My baseline is not happy and cheerful. I didn’t go into the sheer bleak death of autumn from a summer of careless joy. I had dredged myself through my baseline depression and anxiety toward the ever looming spector of the darker half of the year. I didn’t have reserves of strength from the happiness of summer. I was already weary, heavy, and weak. I was running on empty and I couldn’t afford to do that.

People ask me why I moved here and I give one of a range of slightly different answers, none of them lies, but none of them fully true. In some situations, with some people, I feel able to come closer to the truth. But I do not answer with full honesty. The truth is, for a long time, as each winter approached, I was increasingly worried it would be my last. I knew that I could not go on indefinitely. I knew that eventually, sooner or later, I would not survive another winter. In short, I left England because I was terrified I would kill myself. I didn’t want to. I baulked at the thought (even if I did sometimes find some comfort in it, I didn’t really want to do it). It didn’t feel like something that was within my control. I think that is one of the darkest and most terrifying things about mental illness for me. Sometimes, contemplating suicide can be comforting and reassuring because it is the knowledge that you do have *some* control. But the feeling of no longer being in control of that… The feeling that you might kill yourself without wanting to is horrible. But the dark, crushing, hollowness of winter was too much to bear and I knew that that would be a way out.

I didn’t kill myself. (Obviously). I moved away, instead. I didn’t expect moving to resolve my other mental health issues (though it actually helped a great deal – but I don’t want to go into that too much here), but I did think moving somewhere with less marked seasonal differences would be one way to solve SAD. It may seem an extreme solution – but firstly, there were other reasons the idea appealed to me, and secondly, it was the only one I could think of. I didn’t seem to have much choice. I was so caught up in my own misery that I couldn’t see any other way out. In a way, it was almost easier to make a big dramatic change than to try to make smaller ones.

It is October now. And… I am not afraid. I am not haunted by the oncoming winter. I feel so incredibly light and free. It is growing darker in the mornings and evenings, but I know the days will not grow as short as they do back home. It is growing cooler, too, but I don’t mind that. I am enjoying it being not quite so hot. The main thing though, is that there is still sunshine. The sky has not become a grey mass of despair. The sun is still there. Sometimes I am overcome with the sheer simplicity of not needing to fear the changing of the season, the inevitable marching on of time. Again, I do not have the words to express the sense of relief. Glorious, beautiful, unbridled relief. I feel like my life is my own again, like I have at least some semblance of control over it. I am not fully free of the dark shadow of SAD – I don’t feel that I can ever again go home in the winter. There is still a lurking dread that this will be a bad winter and it will be too difficult. I wonder where I will be able to move to, if I ever need or want to leave here. But overall, the improvement is staggering. I feel free and contented and human in a way I never thought I would. It is October. And that is OK.