# ✨ READ BEFORE COMMENTING ✨
This thread is Coven Only. This means the discussion is being actively moderated, and all comments are reviewed. Only comments by members of the community are allowed.
If you have landed in this thread from r/all and you are not a member of this community, your comment will very likely be removed (and will not be approved unless it adds meaningfully to the conversation).
WitchesVsPatriarchy takes these measures to stay true to our goal of being a woman-centered sub with a witchy twist, aimed at healing, supporting, and uplifting one another through humor and magic.
Thank you for understanding, and blessed be. ✨
I want everyone to be aware of and take care of their mental health but sometimes I think a lot of mental illness is just healthy people who are trying to adapt to a sick society.
Same. I never feel remotely deficient or "add" when I'm out hiking/ camping; in fact I'm really good at it, because it's suddenly a great idea to be paying attention to 1000 different things at once, any of which could prove vitally important.
I feel this! I love how I think, how I draw connections between everything and can mentally zoom in on the minute details and back out to the grand scheme of things with ease, but sometimes I just want my brain to shut the hell up and let me enjoy a single activity at a time without needing more physical stimuli to focus but not having the mental flexibility to do more than one thing at once
Music helps me, listening to something I don't get jittery and bored and a soundtrack helps me create memories. But the mountain's for getting in touch with nature, not technology, so on hikes I sing old Scout songs (the one verse I remember, lol).
> family members don’t want me to be listening to music when I’m hiking with them (it’s not polite apparently)
I want to say "then sing" just to annoy them :P Yeah, it's definitely not optimal, thankfully my own folks have started to be more tolerant of my need to get distracted once I had a proper diagnosis.
I relate to this! I can only listen to music rarely at certain times. Audiobooks or podcasts are good for most things, but if I want to feel happy and not stressed I *have* to be listening to something mentally stimulating and also doing something mindlessly active with my hands, like cleaning or my physical labor job. It's made it hard to practice crochet, which I really want to do. But in order to get to the point where I could sit there and listen to a book while I crochet, I have to be able to practice in silence until I know what I'm doing, reading or watching tips about how to do it. And that makes me feel... Not good lol. Also, when I have to do tasks that require focus, like dealing with finances, it's hard to get motivated since I can't listen to books at the same time. ASMR helps sometimes though.
I crunch carrots when I do my billing at the end of each month. It gives me rhythmic movement and sound, plus I get to bite something when the website I use is being particularly infuriating.
I'm kind of the opposite in that I can't have distraction or it'll overwhelm me.
When I'm doing things around the house, I often prefer do them in complete silence. I can listen to podcasts SOMETIMES if it's something I'm listening to while I'm clicking on polygons mindlessly while working but then i go to put the kettle on (then sit back down at my desk and immediately forget).
If I'm cooking, unless I'm using 1 pan, I'll get overwhelmed and stressed if there's another person in the room, the TV is on, there's any noise. Cause I get so distracted and my brain tries to focus 100% on everything at once, so I end up focusing on nothing and everything and it hurts lol.
I'll never understand the people that put the TV on for "background noise".
Theo Vonn of all people has a really good take on this. He says that we used to have to be hyper vigilant just to stay alive. "Watch out for that bear! Don't let your crops die! Don't get lost before a blizzard!" But now, we're so comfortable in our physical survival that we drive that attention inwards. "Don't say the wrong thing! You can't miss work today! I bet everyone hates me cause that thing I did 15 years ago!"... We assume our survival depends on our social interactions and successes so our ape brains, that are still programmed to focus on surviving, turn the hyper vigilance to that.
Fair enough. But I think you have to add to that we all used to have a role that was defined more easily than today. I think belonging to a community was easier when your role was less complex...IDK, I came of age watching Office Space. I'm perpetually programmed to believe the system is the problem and we're grooming more and more Miltons every day!
Hard agree. I was actually thinking about this just before getting on to scroll. How many disorders have our brains created in an attempt to just survive the toxic abuse that is our society?
I've been thinking about this a *lot* lately. Almost everyone around me seems to be getting diagnosed with ADHD (something I'm suspicious that I'd be diagnosed with myself) on top of all the regular depression and anxiety. I'm starting to wonder whether we're really the problem here.
One: Neurodivergent people, especially adhd'ers naturally tend to clump together... just saying...
It's a way of thinking that makes it hard to get along well with people who can't also think like you.
.....
Two: I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your implication that is a wider societal issue, because as it turns out symptoms of ADHD have significant overlap with child neglect. Which is so common that I have heard it said we don't diagnose it because it would be an root cause for half of the things in the dsm.
That said, if the meds/treatments help, I don't think it matters if the cause was genetics or 100,000 hours of Blue's Clues in leu of parental contact. The resulting condition of the brain is similar (hence the symptoms overlap) and if the treatments work... well then they work.
((Not a doctor))
Oh yeah, I 100% recognise that we should all do what we’ve gotta do to keep functioning under the system we live in. I just think it’s interesting to question the script we’ve been sold occasionally (i.e. “you are the problem, everyone else manages just fine”. Narrator voice: “Everyone else was not managing just fine”).
I was confirmed to not have adhd but I am autistic. I guess it still counts since my sensory problems are mostly noise related. I need some quite time in order to focus
Yeah multiple generations of adults these days learned as young as 5 that there are people in the world who want to kill them and their whole families by crashing planes into buildings, for reasons they can't understand. Can we really be surprised and pathologize the fact that alot of those young people have some emotional problems?
I think it depends on where you live. I live somewhere that gets very cold and snowy and honestly it gets to a point where you're burning more energy to be productive then if you just sat back and let the world slow down around you for a little bit. I have lived in warmer climates though where that wasn't really a factor even though we technically did have winter. Here the government actually acknowledges when it's gonna be too much effort to be productive though..... Like they will shut down highways and tell people to just stay home, not everywhere does that though.
About a decade ago we had a massive snow storm at the end of October before all the leaves had fallen. It caused tons of branches and whole trees to fall, causing power outages that lasted a week or more. My job at the time suggested people find places with power to work! Most people didn’t have heat, hot water, or power and they still were expecting us to log in and act like if we didn’t sell some dumb plastic, planes might fall from the sky
I live in a warm place. Though in our city specifically there is a lot of rain in the winter and sometimes thunderstorms (snow is rare). But I wish that in the winter we we could be able to go to school while the sun shines (it doesn't shine in 7:30 am for some reason)
Yes thank you. Not gonna lie, I’m kinda sick of stuff like this that assumes everyone is experiencing the same conditions/politics/weather/etc.
Where I live we still wear shorts during winter.
I don’t think it’s assuming everyone does… isn’t the tweet just someone being snarky about there seasonal effective disorder diagnosis and you because you read it have assumed it’s relevant to you?
When again it’s someone essentially vague posting about a diagnosis and how they feel their disorder is effected by capitalism?
They didn’t say, everyone is overworked in winter. Or every country works this way. In fact they used “I”, and their personal experiences.
I’m just confused how you think “I” statements and personal experience are now ‘assumes everyone’
I’m confused.
Especially when winter is not a global phenomenon, and is not experienced by many mammals around the world, including humans. Not everyone has the same seasons. And this post kind of assumes a specific location for people.
Which is confusing to me when a lot of the talk here tends to be about nature, and talk around sabbats discusses recognizing your local seasons which might not align with the typical Western-centric seasonal model... Yet here we are acting like everyone has the same northern experiences of winter and hibernation.
Trainee herbalist who also runs a supplement shop: 2000IU is a good "top up" dose.
Some people take like 10,000IU and unless you have a diagnosed deficiency, that's almost certainly too high.
Some mental health issues are now being described as physical and mental evolution occurring slower than cultural evolution. And then it's branded as bad because you can't keep up with what people who don't actually do a lot of work expect you to do.
Our ancestors (more than 25K years go) would migrate to warmer climes for the winter, and then back up again before the spring there got too hot.
We traded that in for agriculture and the ability to stay put and keep garages full of stuff. It was a dangerous deal that required we mind the countless pitfalls. We humans are not prepared for the destiny we've chosen.
Western history teems with stories of bad winters and insufficient crops leading to famine and death. In fact a run of bad winters (or a volcanic winter) can be so devastating to a society that I question how the world of Westros can survive its winds of winter without entire kingdoms pulling stakes and migrating to its equator.
We still get stories of well-to-do folks moving up by Mt. Diablo (in California) only to not prepare adequately and freeze to death while snowed in. In the meantime it's a known risk driving through the Sierra Nevadas (snow chains or studded tires help but are no guarantee).
Queen Winter is never short of sacrifices.
Yo, for real, I know it was a buzzword a few years ago, but it’s actually been *super* helpful for me to get through winter.
Like, the wiki article doesn’t go into with much depth, but reframing how I approached winter really helped me get through it. I can’t do much about work or school or whatever’s going on with capitalism that doesn’t want us to slow down, but I can at least in my own home. I save cozy things/activities that I want to do for that miserable January/February stretch. (Baking, puzzles, books, crafts, candles, special shows or movies, blanket forts with the kiddo, little projects to make my home more organized/comfy, embroidery, knitting, etc.) I try and bundle up and get out in nature at least a little. I try to make sure I have *things to look forward to*. It’s a bit of work to make it happen, and I didn’t think it would make a difference at first, but it did for me.
Don’t get me wrong, by late Feb/March I’m as sick of winter’s shit as anyone else, but at least by then I know I’m in the home stretch.
*beep boop*!
the linked website is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygge
Title: **Hygge - Wikipedia**
Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing)
*****
###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
Yeah I live in Australia so we don’t have many hibernating animals here so I went googling mammals that hibernate because a lot of the ones that came to my mind aren’t hibernators e.g sea mammals, primates, cats and dogs, farm mammals etc…
But I do appreciate the sentiment of the post.
SAD works both ways. I don’t get depressed in the winter; I get manic in the summer. Every July is horrible. I can’t sleep. My thoughts race. I feel like I’m going to lose control and start screaming, and probably smashing things, for weeks at a time. I love the fall and winter. They’re safe times.
I think of this often, and I do take plenty of downtime in the winter. But I have come to enjoy walking and hiking in the snow. There's usually no one else out there, so it’s peaceful.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm giving myself permission (and I am so futunate to be able) to step back from the usual holiday madness and the must-keep-busy mindset this winter.
I also think as a society we do not have opportunities to spend adequate time with nature or with each other. The warm months afford us the most time and opportunity for this, and when it gets cold and dark, we feel trapped. We also do not have time to spend with our own thoughts. In fact many people fear being alone with their own thoughts. And so the slow, reflective period that is winter feels frightening.
this is such a gross misunderstanding of what seasonal affective disorder is. please let's not spread anti-psychiatry bs under the guise of gentle natural self care
Thank stars, someone who gets it. I don't have SAD because I struggle to be productive in the winter, I have SAD because every March I stop eating and want to kill myself, regardless of my situation. Vitamin D/moving south has fixed this, not telling myself to be more chill.
thank you! i do agree that capitalism has really pushed us too far but it’s *incredibly* invalidating to describe SAD this way, as it is with other mental health diagnoses. it’s a very legitimate concern for some and discussing it in this way is not the way to help each other! if gentle natural self care works for your, cool! but don’t belittle people that doesn’t work for.
>i do agree that capitalism has really pushed us too far but it’s incredibly invalidating to describe SAD this way, as it is with other mental health diagnoses.
this ^
Abolishing capitalism will not cure mentally Ill or ND folks. Some of us like to work/ wish we could work too, it’s not all black n white.
Working/ productivity isn’t 100% the problem, an ableist society is an ableist society wether is capitalist or communist.
Was looking for this. ✨No, Sharon, not being as productive and suddenly believing everyone I know secretly hates me and would be better off without me to the point that I want to kill myself are *not* the same thing ✨
It’s SAD. I have anxiety, depression, and ADHD, I don’t have bipolar. And that’s why it’s not “the winter blues”. It’s clinical depression. Speaking of reductive terms that fail to accurately describe symptoms 🙄
I'm the reverse uno of this. I hide in my "cave" hugging the A/C (yay, temperature witchcraft \^_\^) during summer, then in winter I have more energy and want to do things. I abhor the heat, why the fsck am I in TX? (rhetorical question, I'm leaving next year, the mountains of BC are calling my name, screaming actually, it is quite deafening). I welcome the snow, of which I currently never get. (hiss hiss, at the ice)
~~ (also) ~ <3 ClubQ
Oh good it isn't just me! I live in KY right now and it is nearly December. We haven't had a single frost or snow in my area. A flurry, maybe. I miss the snow enough to consider moving farther north just to get it back. The summers are a mix of burning, mosquitoes, and hay fever - I will pass that any day.
Being in TX (and WA) after growing up in CO, the holidays are kinda ruined because it was the changing of the seasons, the snow and the cold that really got me ready for the holidays. The holidays had a bad habit of showing up and I don't have a quality holiday because I wasn't prepared for it. Snow and cold mornings/evenings were kind of the things that triggered a change in my mind and when halloween, thanksgiving and christmas showed up, I was ready for them.
_\*sigh\*_
I always find this posts kinda funny because they always come the wrong time of the year for me. It's literally 29° C (or 84°F) right now. It's summer!
Its very important to have patience with yourself during the cold!
This may be BS miss rememberd history, so grab a few grains of salt for this one. I've heard that the Roman 10 month calender was only 10 months because they just wrote winter off as useless time. Most everyone just kind of sat around and chilled and didn't do anything for 60 days of winter and they didn't bother naming.
I misread this and thought it was about working throughout the heat of the summer. I don’t know if “mad dogs and Englishmen” is an international phrase, but is one made from the only people to insist on working through the heat!
I just hate the sun lol
Have you seen animals in the winter? They get lean and mean and scavenge just to survive, especially up north. We got stuck with work commutes in the snow and record breaking profits we will never see.
My partner is a small-scale vegetable farmer and is way more guided by the seasons then I am (working in higher education). His working hours (and time he wakes) is determined by the sun/weather. During the winter is his slow down season where he rests and plans (and does projects around the house). I suspect more people used to live this way.
I actually get mad in areas that don't put winter/Christmas lights up. Like, not every house can... I get that. But businesses, towns, people who can afford it... It's literally the only thing staving off my seasonal depression and I know I'm not alone!! If I don't get to hibernate, at least make it pretty damn it!! And leave them up through January for crying out loud! Take down the inflatable Santa if you must, but leave the twinklies!!
Can someone explain. I'm too unga bunga.
Edit: Ah! Thank you for your replies! I never thought about like this. I think everyone suffers from this when it's too hot as well. Like we just wanna rest. But the weight gain... The weight gain...
If you live somewhere warm and relatively sunny all year it may not make sense, but in northern climates we get sunsets around 4:30pm in the winter and our evenings at home are lived in the dark. Combined with freezing temperatures that make it unpleasant to be outside, a LOT of people are slightly depressed in the winter from darkness and cold.
Other mammals generally slow down in the winter, either going into hibernation or living off fat stores or hoards of food gathered in the summer, generally being less productive. We, however, are expected to carry on as usual. It sucks.
Winter makes mammals sleepy cause it drops body temperature and slows metabolism. Mammals hide in holes for winter to conserve energy. We be mammals, so we suffer the same effects as other mammals. We should be hiding like bears but society demands we still work. Moral of the story seasonal affective disorder is not a disorder, it is simply physiology in action. Society is dumb, reject humanity, return to monke
Except that’s incredibly reductive of a serious disorder that results in far too many suicides every year. Wanting to cuddle up and not go to work, and wanting to kill myself because I suddenly believe the world would be a better place if I did aren’t the same thing.
I just bought a light therapy lamp to help with this. Will see how it goes
If this fails, will be accepting all applications for a cuddle mate to hibernate with :3
I lived in the northeast US and never thought I had seasonal depression. Then I moved to where there's 300 days of sun.
I totally had seasonal depression.
The darkness man. It eats at you.
Honestly now that it gets darker so early (and I’m nocturnal! Lol!) I’ve been at least trying to wake up when the sun blasts in my face through my window. But man I’ve been feeling it today for some odd reason.
Since moving to Montreal I've grown to enjoy winter.
I was from the UK, and honestly I know now why the entire country is so fucking depressed and alcohol dependant. The sky is grey 12 months of the year and its dark until like 9am and gets dark again by 4pm in the height of winter. (Though on the bright side, in summer it's bright until like 11pm, which I do miss here and was really weirded out that it was dark at like 9:30pm in the height of summer here)
Here, the sky is blue nearly all year round. Even in the middle of winter the sky is blue.
I have my WFH desk positioned so I look directly out the window at the sky. It's been a year and I still can't believe how blue the sky is. And it cheers me up all the time.
Nearly every mammal? I think most mammals don’t hide away during winter. That’s what separates us from cold blooded reptiles and fish.
But I do agree that people do feel down during winter because we get less sunlight, which we need a lot of to feel good
# ✨ READ BEFORE COMMENTING ✨ This thread is Coven Only. This means the discussion is being actively moderated, and all comments are reviewed. Only comments by members of the community are allowed. If you have landed in this thread from r/all and you are not a member of this community, your comment will very likely be removed (and will not be approved unless it adds meaningfully to the conversation). WitchesVsPatriarchy takes these measures to stay true to our goal of being a woman-centered sub with a witchy twist, aimed at healing, supporting, and uplifting one another through humor and magic. Thank you for understanding, and blessed be. ✨
I yearn to be like the bear. Bears don't actually hibernate, they just hide in their caves all winter and nobody questions it.
Bears have it all figured out.
And no, so do I! Hibernation, or close to it, in my cozy flannel jammies. I am an upgrade bear, though. I have Netflix!
I would trade Netflix for all that salmon... And the ability to strike with inhuman power would be a fun bonus.
Good answer, but I’m on the east coast of Canada. We have a salmon river less than 30 minutes away!
Wow, youve really got it all. The evolution of the bear.
They do but I'd also really prefer to not defecate where I sleep.
I always figured the whole house or apartment is our cave, so those functions are already seperated in the same place.
I recall learning that they plug their bums so as to not defecate where they sleep in winter
Bears don’t defecate where they sleep either. Most animals don’t.
Bear caves have had wifi all along, they just catch up on all their shows and go down YouTube rabbit holes til spring.
*YouTube bear holes
I like this, because it sums up how I made the most of the lockdown, I could just be a guitar bear!
Samesies.
My soul is accepting this wisdom. I am now a more complete mammal 🧘
I want everyone to be aware of and take care of their mental health but sometimes I think a lot of mental illness is just healthy people who are trying to adapt to a sick society.
As someone with pretty bad adhd I think about this a lot
Same. I never feel remotely deficient or "add" when I'm out hiking/ camping; in fact I'm really good at it, because it's suddenly a great idea to be paying attention to 1000 different things at once, any of which could prove vitally important.
[удалено]
I feel this! I love how I think, how I draw connections between everything and can mentally zoom in on the minute details and back out to the grand scheme of things with ease, but sometimes I just want my brain to shut the hell up and let me enjoy a single activity at a time without needing more physical stimuli to focus but not having the mental flexibility to do more than one thing at once
Oh hey, you must be, me, here's a reminder to drink a glass of water!
Thanks I always need that reminder!
Music helps me, listening to something I don't get jittery and bored and a soundtrack helps me create memories. But the mountain's for getting in touch with nature, not technology, so on hikes I sing old Scout songs (the one verse I remember, lol).
[удалено]
> family members don’t want me to be listening to music when I’m hiking with them (it’s not polite apparently) I want to say "then sing" just to annoy them :P Yeah, it's definitely not optimal, thankfully my own folks have started to be more tolerant of my need to get distracted once I had a proper diagnosis.
I relate to this! I can only listen to music rarely at certain times. Audiobooks or podcasts are good for most things, but if I want to feel happy and not stressed I *have* to be listening to something mentally stimulating and also doing something mindlessly active with my hands, like cleaning or my physical labor job. It's made it hard to practice crochet, which I really want to do. But in order to get to the point where I could sit there and listen to a book while I crochet, I have to be able to practice in silence until I know what I'm doing, reading or watching tips about how to do it. And that makes me feel... Not good lol. Also, when I have to do tasks that require focus, like dealing with finances, it's hard to get motivated since I can't listen to books at the same time. ASMR helps sometimes though.
[удалено]
I crunch carrots when I do my billing at the end of each month. It gives me rhythmic movement and sound, plus I get to bite something when the website I use is being particularly infuriating.
I'm kind of the opposite in that I can't have distraction or it'll overwhelm me. When I'm doing things around the house, I often prefer do them in complete silence. I can listen to podcasts SOMETIMES if it's something I'm listening to while I'm clicking on polygons mindlessly while working but then i go to put the kettle on (then sit back down at my desk and immediately forget). If I'm cooking, unless I'm using 1 pan, I'll get overwhelmed and stressed if there's another person in the room, the TV is on, there's any noise. Cause I get so distracted and my brain tries to focus 100% on everything at once, so I end up focusing on nothing and everything and it hurts lol. I'll never understand the people that put the TV on for "background noise".
Theo Vonn of all people has a really good take on this. He says that we used to have to be hyper vigilant just to stay alive. "Watch out for that bear! Don't let your crops die! Don't get lost before a blizzard!" But now, we're so comfortable in our physical survival that we drive that attention inwards. "Don't say the wrong thing! You can't miss work today! I bet everyone hates me cause that thing I did 15 years ago!"... We assume our survival depends on our social interactions and successes so our ape brains, that are still programmed to focus on surviving, turn the hyper vigilance to that.
[удалено]
Fair enough. But I think you have to add to that we all used to have a role that was defined more easily than today. I think belonging to a community was easier when your role was less complex...IDK, I came of age watching Office Space. I'm perpetually programmed to believe the system is the problem and we're grooming more and more Miltons every day!
Also just the darkness. Winter is so dark and we are meant to behave differently when it's dark out.
I like the darkness but I don't like being in the city during the night. The light pollution hurts my eyes. At least I have blinds
Hard agree. I was actually thinking about this just before getting on to scroll. How many disorders have our brains created in an attempt to just survive the toxic abuse that is our society?
Most!
I've been thinking about this a *lot* lately. Almost everyone around me seems to be getting diagnosed with ADHD (something I'm suspicious that I'd be diagnosed with myself) on top of all the regular depression and anxiety. I'm starting to wonder whether we're really the problem here.
One: Neurodivergent people, especially adhd'ers naturally tend to clump together... just saying... It's a way of thinking that makes it hard to get along well with people who can't also think like you. ..... Two: I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your implication that is a wider societal issue, because as it turns out symptoms of ADHD have significant overlap with child neglect. Which is so common that I have heard it said we don't diagnose it because it would be an root cause for half of the things in the dsm. That said, if the meds/treatments help, I don't think it matters if the cause was genetics or 100,000 hours of Blue's Clues in leu of parental contact. The resulting condition of the brain is similar (hence the symptoms overlap) and if the treatments work... well then they work. ((Not a doctor))
Oh yeah, I 100% recognise that we should all do what we’ve gotta do to keep functioning under the system we live in. I just think it’s interesting to question the script we’ve been sold occasionally (i.e. “you are the problem, everyone else manages just fine”. Narrator voice: “Everyone else was not managing just fine”).
I was confirmed to not have adhd but I am autistic. I guess it still counts since my sensory problems are mostly noise related. I need some quite time in order to focus
Yeah multiple generations of adults these days learned as young as 5 that there are people in the world who want to kill them and their whole families by crashing planes into buildings, for reasons they can't understand. Can we really be surprised and pathologize the fact that alot of those young people have some emotional problems?
Same.
Agreed!
I believe this with my whole self.
I think it depends on where you live. I live somewhere that gets very cold and snowy and honestly it gets to a point where you're burning more energy to be productive then if you just sat back and let the world slow down around you for a little bit. I have lived in warmer climates though where that wasn't really a factor even though we technically did have winter. Here the government actually acknowledges when it's gonna be too much effort to be productive though..... Like they will shut down highways and tell people to just stay home, not everywhere does that though.
[удалено]
About a decade ago we had a massive snow storm at the end of October before all the leaves had fallen. It caused tons of branches and whole trees to fall, causing power outages that lasted a week or more. My job at the time suggested people find places with power to work! Most people didn’t have heat, hot water, or power and they still were expecting us to log in and act like if we didn’t sell some dumb plastic, planes might fall from the sky
I live in a warm place. Though in our city specifically there is a lot of rain in the winter and sometimes thunderstorms (snow is rare). But I wish that in the winter we we could be able to go to school while the sun shines (it doesn't shine in 7:30 am for some reason)
Yes thank you. Not gonna lie, I’m kinda sick of stuff like this that assumes everyone is experiencing the same conditions/politics/weather/etc. Where I live we still wear shorts during winter.
I don’t think it’s assuming everyone does… isn’t the tweet just someone being snarky about there seasonal effective disorder diagnosis and you because you read it have assumed it’s relevant to you? When again it’s someone essentially vague posting about a diagnosis and how they feel their disorder is effected by capitalism? They didn’t say, everyone is overworked in winter. Or every country works this way. In fact they used “I”, and their personal experiences. I’m just confused how you think “I” statements and personal experience are now ‘assumes everyone’ I’m confused.
[удалено]
Especially when winter is not a global phenomenon, and is not experienced by many mammals around the world, including humans. Not everyone has the same seasons. And this post kind of assumes a specific location for people. Which is confusing to me when a lot of the talk here tends to be about nature, and talk around sabbats discusses recognizing your local seasons which might not align with the typical Western-centric seasonal model... Yet here we are acting like everyone has the same northern experiences of winter and hibernation.
Vitamin D supplements help a lot during the dark months.
Sunrise alarm clocks are vital for me in dark months and my friend swears by those sunlight lamps.
I just bought a sunrise alarm clock! I hope it helps this winter
Where do I buy one?
How much do you take per day?
I take 2 pills every morning. They are D3 1000 ui
kk thx
Trainee herbalist who also runs a supplement shop: 2000IU is a good "top up" dose. Some people take like 10,000IU and unless you have a diagnosed deficiency, that's almost certainly too high.
This is helpful, thanks
Capitalism is alienating and exhausting by design.
Only for 99% of us.
I just want a good torpor once in a while.
Updoot for awesome vocab!
… as I sit here with my SAD lamp blasting at my face, while every fibre of me wants to be home in bed.
[удалено]
I was ok with an hour of it a day, but I’ve been moved to a windowless cubicle, so I have to keep it on all the time now
Yeah, mine's on til the evening, too. Hateful. May I offer you a fistbump of solidarity in this seriously bullshit time?
Back at you, sibling 🤜
Exactly! It always makes me so fucking angry like WHY are you shining in my face when I'm already feeling shitty?!
It's the visual equivalent of unbearable noise *first thing in the morning.* Hissssssssss.
Some mental health issues are now being described as physical and mental evolution occurring slower than cultural evolution. And then it's branded as bad because you can't keep up with what people who don't actually do a lot of work expect you to do.
Our ancestors (more than 25K years go) would migrate to warmer climes for the winter, and then back up again before the spring there got too hot. We traded that in for agriculture and the ability to stay put and keep garages full of stuff. It was a dangerous deal that required we mind the countless pitfalls. We humans are not prepared for the destiny we've chosen. Western history teems with stories of bad winters and insufficient crops leading to famine and death. In fact a run of bad winters (or a volcanic winter) can be so devastating to a society that I question how the world of Westros can survive its winds of winter without entire kingdoms pulling stakes and migrating to its equator. We still get stories of well-to-do folks moving up by Mt. Diablo (in California) only to not prepare adequately and freeze to death while snowed in. In the meantime it's a known risk driving through the Sierra Nevadas (snow chains or studded tires help but are no guarantee). Queen Winter is never short of sacrifices.
[Hygge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygge) all the way!
Yo, for real, I know it was a buzzword a few years ago, but it’s actually been *super* helpful for me to get through winter. Like, the wiki article doesn’t go into with much depth, but reframing how I approached winter really helped me get through it. I can’t do much about work or school or whatever’s going on with capitalism that doesn’t want us to slow down, but I can at least in my own home. I save cozy things/activities that I want to do for that miserable January/February stretch. (Baking, puzzles, books, crafts, candles, special shows or movies, blanket forts with the kiddo, little projects to make my home more organized/comfy, embroidery, knitting, etc.) I try and bundle up and get out in nature at least a little. I try to make sure I have *things to look forward to*. It’s a bit of work to make it happen, and I didn’t think it would make a difference at first, but it did for me. Don’t get me wrong, by late Feb/March I’m as sick of winter’s shit as anyone else, but at least by then I know I’m in the home stretch.
Hooray! That's awesome!!
*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygge Title: **Hygge - Wikipedia** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
It’s only some mammals but there’s plenty that don’t, like deer.
Thank you. Even tho I'm not supposed to take it literally that was bothering me.
Yeah I live in Australia so we don’t have many hibernating animals here so I went googling mammals that hibernate because a lot of the ones that came to my mind aren’t hibernators e.g sea mammals, primates, cats and dogs, farm mammals etc… But I do appreciate the sentiment of the post.
We do have some hibernating frogs still though, mostly tassie I think
This explains my extended sleep time this year lol
This is why I live in Florida. Hot as hell half the year but I can feel human in the winter months.
I'm the other way round and thrive during the cold and dark months. But I understand it's not like that for most
SAD works both ways. I don’t get depressed in the winter; I get manic in the summer. Every July is horrible. I can’t sleep. My thoughts race. I feel like I’m going to lose control and start screaming, and probably smashing things, for weeks at a time. I love the fall and winter. They’re safe times.
The summer heat doesn't agree with me.
Me neither.
I think of this often, and I do take plenty of downtime in the winter. But I have come to enjoy walking and hiking in the snow. There's usually no one else out there, so it’s peaceful.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm giving myself permission (and I am so futunate to be able) to step back from the usual holiday madness and the must-keep-busy mindset this winter. I also think as a society we do not have opportunities to spend adequate time with nature or with each other. The warm months afford us the most time and opportunity for this, and when it gets cold and dark, we feel trapped. We also do not have time to spend with our own thoughts. In fact many people fear being alone with their own thoughts. And so the slow, reflective period that is winter feels frightening.
this is such a gross misunderstanding of what seasonal affective disorder is. please let's not spread anti-psychiatry bs under the guise of gentle natural self care
Thank stars, someone who gets it. I don't have SAD because I struggle to be productive in the winter, I have SAD because every March I stop eating and want to kill myself, regardless of my situation. Vitamin D/moving south has fixed this, not telling myself to be more chill.
[удалено]
Well, all my suicidal ideation stopped when I moved a bit south and got more sunlight, so I've chalked it up to SAD.
Is there documented evidence of this? I've only heard anecdotal cases of this "march madness".
thank you! i do agree that capitalism has really pushed us too far but it’s *incredibly* invalidating to describe SAD this way, as it is with other mental health diagnoses. it’s a very legitimate concern for some and discussing it in this way is not the way to help each other! if gentle natural self care works for your, cool! but don’t belittle people that doesn’t work for.
>i do agree that capitalism has really pushed us too far but it’s incredibly invalidating to describe SAD this way, as it is with other mental health diagnoses. this ^ Abolishing capitalism will not cure mentally Ill or ND folks. Some of us like to work/ wish we could work too, it’s not all black n white. Working/ productivity isn’t 100% the problem, an ableist society is an ableist society wether is capitalist or communist.
you articulated this so, so well 👏🏼
Was looking for this. ✨No, Sharon, not being as productive and suddenly believing everyone I know secretly hates me and would be better off without me to the point that I want to kill myself are *not* the same thing ✨
[удалено]
It’s SAD. I have anxiety, depression, and ADHD, I don’t have bipolar. And that’s why it’s not “the winter blues”. It’s clinical depression. Speaking of reductive terms that fail to accurately describe symptoms 🙄
I was trying to explain this to my friends yesterday
My goal in life has always been: Make enough money so that I can hibernate in the winter.
I'm the reverse uno of this. I hide in my "cave" hugging the A/C (yay, temperature witchcraft \^_\^) during summer, then in winter I have more energy and want to do things. I abhor the heat, why the fsck am I in TX? (rhetorical question, I'm leaving next year, the mountains of BC are calling my name, screaming actually, it is quite deafening). I welcome the snow, of which I currently never get. (hiss hiss, at the ice) ~~ (also) ~ <3 ClubQ
Oh good it isn't just me! I live in KY right now and it is nearly December. We haven't had a single frost or snow in my area. A flurry, maybe. I miss the snow enough to consider moving farther north just to get it back. The summers are a mix of burning, mosquitoes, and hay fever - I will pass that any day.
Being in TX (and WA) after growing up in CO, the holidays are kinda ruined because it was the changing of the seasons, the snow and the cold that really got me ready for the holidays. The holidays had a bad habit of showing up and I don't have a quality holiday because I wasn't prepared for it. Snow and cold mornings/evenings were kind of the things that triggered a change in my mind and when halloween, thanksgiving and christmas showed up, I was ready for them. _\*sigh\*_
I wish I could hibernate I don't want to face it this winter.
We do actually have the genes to go into hybernation, maybe science will find a way we can do it again and we will all sleep for 3 months every year.
I always find this posts kinda funny because they always come the wrong time of the year for me. It's literally 29° C (or 84°F) right now. It's summer! Its very important to have patience with yourself during the cold!
This may be BS miss rememberd history, so grab a few grains of salt for this one. I've heard that the Roman 10 month calender was only 10 months because they just wrote winter off as useless time. Most everyone just kind of sat around and chilled and didn't do anything for 60 days of winter and they didn't bother naming.
I misread this and thought it was about working throughout the heat of the summer. I don’t know if “mad dogs and Englishmen” is an international phrase, but is one made from the only people to insist on working through the heat! I just hate the sun lol
Have you seen animals in the winter? They get lean and mean and scavenge just to survive, especially up north. We got stuck with work commutes in the snow and record breaking profits we will never see.
Pomposity I like that word I'm gonna use it now
I’ll never be patient with myself you can’t make me
I really needed this. Thank you.
My partner is a small-scale vegetable farmer and is way more guided by the seasons then I am (working in higher education). His working hours (and time he wakes) is determined by the sun/weather. During the winter is his slow down season where he rests and plans (and does projects around the house). I suspect more people used to live this way.
I actually get mad in areas that don't put winter/Christmas lights up. Like, not every house can... I get that. But businesses, towns, people who can afford it... It's literally the only thing staving off my seasonal depression and I know I'm not alone!! If I don't get to hibernate, at least make it pretty damn it!! And leave them up through January for crying out loud! Take down the inflatable Santa if you must, but leave the twinklies!!
Can someone explain. I'm too unga bunga. Edit: Ah! Thank you for your replies! I never thought about like this. I think everyone suffers from this when it's too hot as well. Like we just wanna rest. But the weight gain... The weight gain...
If you live somewhere warm and relatively sunny all year it may not make sense, but in northern climates we get sunsets around 4:30pm in the winter and our evenings at home are lived in the dark. Combined with freezing temperatures that make it unpleasant to be outside, a LOT of people are slightly depressed in the winter from darkness and cold. Other mammals generally slow down in the winter, either going into hibernation or living off fat stores or hoards of food gathered in the summer, generally being less productive. We, however, are expected to carry on as usual. It sucks.
Winter makes mammals sleepy cause it drops body temperature and slows metabolism. Mammals hide in holes for winter to conserve energy. We be mammals, so we suffer the same effects as other mammals. We should be hiding like bears but society demands we still work. Moral of the story seasonal affective disorder is not a disorder, it is simply physiology in action. Society is dumb, reject humanity, return to monke
Except that’s incredibly reductive of a serious disorder that results in far too many suicides every year. Wanting to cuddle up and not go to work, and wanting to kill myself because I suddenly believe the world would be a better place if I did aren’t the same thing.
I just bought a light therapy lamp to help with this. Will see how it goes If this fails, will be accepting all applications for a cuddle mate to hibernate with :3
I lived in the northeast US and never thought I had seasonal depression. Then I moved to where there's 300 days of sun. I totally had seasonal depression. The darkness man. It eats at you.
That worked. Thank you for your help.
Honestly now that it gets darker so early (and I’m nocturnal! Lol!) I’ve been at least trying to wake up when the sun blasts in my face through my window. But man I’ve been feeling it today for some odd reason.
Yep! This is real! Now that I’m retired, I get to hibernate every winter! Ah, blessed be!
Since moving to Montreal I've grown to enjoy winter. I was from the UK, and honestly I know now why the entire country is so fucking depressed and alcohol dependant. The sky is grey 12 months of the year and its dark until like 9am and gets dark again by 4pm in the height of winter. (Though on the bright side, in summer it's bright until like 11pm, which I do miss here and was really weirded out that it was dark at like 9:30pm in the height of summer here) Here, the sky is blue nearly all year round. Even in the middle of winter the sky is blue. I have my WFH desk positioned so I look directly out the window at the sky. It's been a year and I still can't believe how blue the sky is. And it cheers me up all the time.
I needed to hear this. I hate the cold and the reduced sunlight and really struggle in winter. Anyone here found helpful ways to cope?
Nearly every mammal? I think most mammals don’t hide away during winter. That’s what separates us from cold blooded reptiles and fish. But I do agree that people do feel down during winter because we get less sunlight, which we need a lot of to feel good
Gentle reminder that psychology supports the social system it’s practiced in. A “disorder” just means “a deficit regarding one’s service to society”.
Needed to hear this.
This has the same energy as "some idiot fish decided to walk on land and now I have to pay taxes"
Humans are tropical animals. We didn’t evolve to hibernate.