While some may experience seasonal depression during the winter, my experience has been the opposite.
The beach, vacation, music and sunshine are all things that make people long for summer to come sooner. For me, I have viewed this huge block of free time as an opportunity for my mind to wander, and I have found myself in not the sunniest of mindsets.
Growing up, like many kids, I spent my summers at a summer camp hosted by my community center. To say I wasn’t a fan is an understatement. I had trouble making friends and the last thing I wanted to do was to find myself being picked last in dodgeball for the twelfth time in a row. As I grew up, I luckily convinced my parents that I was too old for summer camp. The problem then was now I had a whole summer with no friends, plans or really anything to look forward to.
In high school, mental health, such as seasonal depression, became popular on my social media pages. Living in Florida there wasn’t a lot of cold weather that would affect my mental health the way people would talk about as they lived in New York City or Boston. Even if it wasn’t the cold weather that affected them, the holidays were especially hard for them. I couldn’t relate to this dread of the holiday season because I was still consumed with school to let what the holidays bring get to me.
The summer was where I was forced to face my reality and confront the thoughts and emotions that I was ignoring with homework assignments and after school club meetings. For me, having free time means spending more time with myself. The truth is, I didn’t have a lot of friends in high school outside of school and when you are surrounded with social media and watching everyone else have that television summer, it was hard for me. I am also a person who needs structure in order to feel in control, too many options or opportunities cause me to feel anxious and hopeless.
“People with a history of depression can have an episode at any time; depression does not run like clockwork,” says Michelle Riba, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan and associate director of the U-M Depression Center.
I saw summer as a bad thing. With time and therapy, I found a way that I could take back control. I found opportunities like volunteering and getting a job to fill my time and give my summer structure. It isn’t perfect and neither am I, but it helps me try to take back my sense of purpose without school.
If you are experiencing something like this, you aren’t alone. The truth is we aren’t alone, even if we think we are. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 988 or go to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline website. There are also other resources that you can use such as the state of Florida’s mental health resource website.