New here...first post

Hello Mo, and welcome!

First I'd like to say that everything you describe sounds to me like typical SAD. Yes, everything. Unfortunately it's all part of that awful beast. You are not alone and we understand how you feel.
You might get a lot of benefit from reading a book called Winter Blues by Norman Rosenthal. It discusses the symptoms you've been describing and contains a lot of suggestions for things you can do to help yourself feel better in the winter.
Light therapy is obviously an important treatment to try, and it sounds like you are using it. Would you like to share info about when, and for how long? Sometimes that can make all the difference as to whether it helps you, or makes your condition worse. (It made mine worse until I discovered I needed to use my light in the evening.) A helpful website I found with a good diagnostic test for this is www.apollohealth.com
Finally, taking an AD for this condition has got nothing to do with lacking willpower. The problem is biochemical. I can't imagine you tell your depressed patients that taking an AD is their fault because they're weak-willed, so why say this to yourself? You are simply doing what you can to try to keep your head above water. I myself have been resisting ADs; I tried four or five a few months back and got awful side effects from them all, and stopped. Now with my SAD getting worse I know I need something, and I'm going to see the psychologist today. Sometimes we just have to be pragmatic and do whatever it takes. But if you feel the Lustral isn't giving you a lot of help, might you try something different?
Keep posting here and we'll help you as best we can. Don't worry about talking about yourself, that's what we all generally come here to do (smile).
Best wishes,
Linda.

Oh my giddy aunt ! (I actually wanted to say Feck me! but don't want to offend anyone}
There are other aliens out there. Don't know wether to laugh or cry at your describing my symptoms, if that's what they are.
Thank you for your replies, I got to bed at 4am last night/this morning, and just got up at 10 am. Don't normally ever do that, but I was reading some of the posts here. Now I seem to have even more questions.
Thank you for the suggestion of the book Winter Blues, I will be looking for that on Amazon as soon as I have finished posting.
Linda....I have been using my light box , it's a Travel light box by the SAD Light box company, SADA approved apparently, for the past 5 years or so, and only in winter ...dark mornings.
I get up at 6am to leave for work at 7.30, and I put my light box on as soon as I wake and after a shower just sit there slowly putting on my make etc for at least an hour, one of the upsides of having sad is that it's a great make up mirror !
Having said that I haven't used my box yet, I got it out yesterday fully meaning to this morning, but there is bright sunshine...I don't use it on sunny days 'cos I always thought that it was for dull days only?...also, I have never used it at night as I thought it interfered with melatonin production and would add to sleeping difficulties?...but I see that some people here use it at night.???
You say "but this year autumn arrived overnight with a thud on 8 August and the impending gloom and pure fear of what a struggle life was going to be".....describes so well what I go through every Autumn. I sometimes wonder if the feeling which pre-empts the depression is worse than the depression.
Prozac...is that not more likely to cause any associated anxiety to be worse? I have wondered about that, but any time I have taken ad's I just take my GP's word that double dose Lustral are best for me. Don't imagine he'd appreciate being told what I want, they always seem to think they know what's best.

Julie, thank you. I know what you are saying about the street cred around therapy and ant depressants. I would definitely be telling my truly depressed patients to try them, but I also have to say that a lot of people whom I've known on anti depressants would take them if they missed Eastenders !...It gives people with real biological conditions (sound like an advert for Ariel washing powder) a bad press in my view.

On reading the sad regime post. apart from being on my feet all day running around the place at work, and walking my 2 dogs every day... I must walk miles in a day, I don't do organised excercise, never have, and at 55 years of age most likely never will. I think I'd rather shove wasps up my arse in fact.
I know all about the sweetie craving...would you believe though that I'd forgotten? Yesterday when I went shopping at a place where everyone else in the world was happy and smiling and had a life...I bought a load of chocolate and sweeties. Does it really really help to stay off them? Dammit.
Why do people mention internet shopping? Is it not better to force yourself to do normal things like that, and make oneself socialise etc to try to be normal rather than hibernate, hermit like, for the winter....or is that just another way of punishing myself. I make myself do that stuff because I'm afraid of really letting go and never leaving the house.

Thank you so much for your replies

Hiya Mo,

Light box -- yes, I'm afraid that to be effective, you have to use it every day. Gloomy days in summer maybe, but definitely every day in the winter. You may be pleasantly surprised at the help it will then give you. It would be unusual for at least some of your symptoms not to ease, including the cravings for sweets, and you might find yourself becoming sharper and more focused. Many people have come here saying they couldn't be bothered to use their light every day/they couldn't fit it into their schedule/no time/it's a pain etc. You need to decide how important feeling better is to you. Sometimes you'll come across advice that says you can skip a day or even more sometimes, but some of us have found that if we do that we fall very quickly into a pit.
Yes some of us use light at night. Some use theirs twice a day or more. Some make sure they have a bright light on in the room all the time, even if it's not at therapeutic levels (a brightly lit room still helps). Again, it depends on what you feel you need. As well as helping you to feel better and causing your body to produce serotonin, bright light also has the power to shift your body clock/sleep cycle if used early in the morning or later in the evening. Most people with SAD have trouble getting to sleep and then have trouble waking up; morning light helps with this. In my case, I have the reverse problem, and so I need light in the evening. But when the days get shorter I also tend to have a session at about 9 a.m., as soon as I'm out of the danger of shifting my body clock the wrong way. I feel I need it then after surviving a dark morning. In your case you might eventually find that an afternoon session helps you too.
As for the antidepressant, I would have thought it would be up to you to tell your doctor what you want or need. I suppose some listen better than others. My own switched my drug straight away as soon as I told him about the side effects I was having. But if you don't feel you're getting a lot of benefit, I would expect him/her to take that on board. There are so many to choose from, maybe there's another that will work better for you. There's a good discussion of various ADs that seem to help with SAD in Winter Blues.
Finally, keep up with that walking, it will help you. A little aerobic exercise would probably give you even more of a boost, but do what you feel you can manage. It's better than vegetating in a chair :)
Hope this helps,
Linda.

Welcome Mo!

Another one here who can empathise completely. The thing you said about work struck me especially - I know a few people on here don't work because of their SAD, but for a similar reason that you don't like to take anti-depressants, I don't like to be off work. I like to try to be as "normal" as possible, and I am VERY stubborn! But like you say, keeping up the act each day is exhausting... I know exactly what you mean.

Hope you will find some comfort and good advice here!

Hey thanks for your posts...it is indeed heart warming to know that I have fellow sufferers...not that I'm pleased for one second that any of you have SAD...but if you have it anyway then perhaps you don't mind me drawing comfort from it for a wee while.

Have had my dawn simulater coming on at 5.45 since I last posted, and my light box at 6am when I get up for an hour,....got permanent red eyes throughout the day .....have also ordered Winter Blues from Amazon.

.I went to the doctor the following day after I posted and asked to try something else as I have taken Lustral for years now,, she was quite good, ( I say quite because I never feel that doctors, or many people in fact, understand what SAD is about)
I am trying out Cipralex, (a kind of hybrid of Cipramil I think) got the usual gasto intestinal side effect that should hopefully wear off in a few weeks, hope so, don't feel too sure about having much distance betweem me and a toilet at present!.
Haven't been around to reply for a few days as I have had to literally drag my self into work on a couple of 13 hour shifts. It was terrible at first, but as I 'faked it to make it' and saw to other people's needs for a while it got easier. Light box? ...can't be the pills yet...finding this place?...who knows, don't care, I just know that I survived it without killing myself or anyone else! (which is nice)

Was wondering if anyone here has better days when they wonder if they have just imagined that they are depressed, or in my case wonder sometimes if I have talked myself into it, only for it to hit full force on another day?

Hello Mo,

Yes my moods can plummet seemingly overnight. Last week we had bright sunny weather and the following day it was lead grey skies so I went on the Prozac again before I get too low. Some of the bright autumn days can also pick me up for a short while, it does get confusing and frustrating with the yo-yo effect.

I work in mental health (hostels) and I have a light box at work, people are either interested or accepting. I work shifts so would fall asleep on late ones without it. I didn't feel I had to disclose I had depression but if they asked about the light box I explained that I have S.A.D. Like yourself at work (and here 8) ) I joke and take the p-ss and don't act depressed. If I am struggling I use words like I am very tired if I can't function. I take a couple of sickies a year which are put down to flu :wink: . I actually layed down on the kitchen floor on one of my last shifts as I felt so overwhelmed with tiredness but nearly everyone I work with is very relaxed and takes the p-ss :lol:

I suppose these days I don't kid myself about going out unless it is with people I feel very comfortable with and is relaxed. Really I probably only go out for food :D

Yes I'm a nurse (in a prison full of murderers)....there seem to be a preponderance of nurses here....what's that about then?

thanks once again for your replies, it's not always easy to share honestly about these things, well, not for me anyway.

I was trying to explain to my best friend today why, although I said only a few weeks ago that I wanted us to go camping before the cold weather set in, that now I don't, and in fact would rather have my nipples peirced! (which I really really really DON'T want to do)
How hard is that to understand?...but even she, and she's known me for 15 years, kept trying to persuade me. The harder she tried the worse I felt, I also tried saying that I perceived it as added pressure, her answer?..... "oh go on, you'll love it when you get there"

Always wonder why I have any friends left by April/May.

Sunny today, walked my wee dogs legs off in the sunshine, used the lightbox, dawn simulater, took my pill....feel crap.

On a scale of 1 to 10 though, I'm about a six....could be worse.