It’s that depressing time of year again… The heats been over for a little while, it’s cloudy, it’s rainy, it’s well, depressing, and to top it all off, we won’t see another sunset after 7pm until March! That is a lot of darkness until daylight savings kicks in again in 5 months! Now, we call it depressing, but depression is more serious than dark clouds and a little rain. There are different types of depression, one of them called Seasonal Affective Disorder. The symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder include those of depression, but occur during the winter months. For example, sleeping all day, or not being able to sleep at all, loss of energy, diminished pleasure from activities one normally enjoys, weight loss or weight gain, feelings of hopelessness or feeling empty, feeling worthless, or thoughts about death or suicide to name a few (APA, 2013). Depression can be debilitating, it affects not only the one with depression, but also his/her job, coworkers, children, spouse, parents, and the list could go on and on. Depression, however, is only the symptom of something deeper going on inside us. One needs to work on not only the symptoms of depression, but truly figuring out what is causing those symptoms, the tip of the iceberg, depression, tells us there is more work to do underneath, as someone once told me. Only curing a symptom does not cure a disease. The depression simply tells us there’s something else lurking in the depths. It will be difficult work to work on more than depression, but it can be done! We can work on work on chipping away at that iceberg together, regardless of the symptoms that are poking up out of the icy waves, even if it is depression!

Reference:

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM–5. Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Association.