When Darkness Falls

The leaves start to fall. The last of the summer heat that lingered into autumn wanes and the cool, brisk snap to the air sets in. Coats are pulled out of the cupboard; dust and season-old mud are brushed off boots. The days grow shorter with an alarming speed until, before you so much as have time to get the curtains open, you realise it is dark when you awake and dark before you get home each day.

The cold is never the thing that’s bothered me about the winter. My family, in particular, brought this up a lot when I was preparing to move to Canada last year. They were well equipped with jokes about the cold or, if you’re my mother, a simple, pointed: “do you really enjoy the cold that much?”

The cold can be tiring, on my immune system more than anything, but I’m better built for it and cope far better with it than I do with excessive heat. My bloodline runs very much viking on both sides of my family; my body is built through centuries of enduring the northern cold. I will complain as much as the next person as the days of snow and ice drag on and on but I will still layer on another sweater and go on about my day in a perfectly pleasant mood.

The winter cold has never been my struggle, but the lack of daylight, is. That’s unavoidable – I could live here, in Canada, or still be in Europe, and so I would have to endure the same difficulty of barely seeing the sun, day in, day out. It’s nearing the end of November, now. It is light, just about, when I awake, although rarely anything but grey and overcast. By the time I leave the office after five o’clock, it is near pitch-dark outside, my route home illuminated by the bright lights of the Financial District rather than from natural sources.

Seasonal affective disorder (or, SAD, which has to be one of the most comically apt acronyms to date) is hardly uncommon for this time of the year, although, as with anything, I find that knowing what it is that makes me feel the way I do doesn’t do a whole lot to help me feel better about it. When my anxiety had an alarmingly intense medication-related flare-up at the start of the year causing me to have three solid days of heart palpitations and chest constrictions, knowing it was anxiety didn’t make me feel any less like I was about to die at any second.

But here we are, winter again, and so it comes, a weighty, unwelcome blanket around my shoulders for the next several months. I find myself irritable, irked by the smallest of things that I might otherwise brush off.  I’m tired all the time, no matter how much sleep I get. The dark circles under my eyes seem to only worsen with every full eight hours of rest. The everyday mundane tasks of life – grocery shopping, laundry, even the morning commute – become more difficult than they have any right to be. To-do lists that I breeze through in the summer months drag on for weeks until they’re tacked full of addendums and reminders to really get that thing done, now.

I suppose my real problem is that I’m not very good at taking the time to care for myself when I feel this way. My default reaction is to make myself as busy as I possibly can so as to have as little time as possible available left to dwell on how I might be feeling. This isn’t an uncommon approach to take, in regards to many mental health issues. I remember having a conversation about mental health with an actor during a festival in Edinburgh a few years ago, and he asked how I was feeling about having some time off after that intensive work period.

“Honestly? Terrified,” I answered. “I like being busy. It keeps my mind occupied. If I have nothing to do, I have too much time to think.”

He agreed immediately, saying he was feeling much the same with his play coming to an end. We parted with a firm assurance to each other to take care of ourselves. I hope he has been – I’m not sure I’ve done so well.

That’s not to say that being busy is always a bad thing. I’ve spent a lot of time with friends over the past few weeks, this wonderful group of people I surround myself with, who are incredibly good at responding to almost every one of my “do you want to go here and do this thing?”s with an enthusiastic yes. 

But I’ve also been absolutely drowning myself in work. I can’t quite tell whether I’m working more or whether I’m just working proportionately more than I should be for this time of the year. This workload in the middle of June might feel very different to how it feels now, dashing from here to there with a loaded backpack at a far more sluggish pace.

Something I’ve learned over the years is that coping mechanisms, no matter what you’re facing, differ so massively from person to person. The number one recommendation for those suffering from SAD is daylight lamps. I could buy one, but I haven’t. Frankly, I know myself, and I know I wouldn’t have the time or the patience to sit under a light for half an hour a day. I’m not a plant. For the record, I can barely keep my plants alive. (Do my plants need their own daylight lamp? Perhaps a conversation for another day.)

But, the other night, when my evening plans changed last minute, I spent a peaceful few hours sat by myself at home. I lit a candle, put on a ridiculous film that I’ve seen a hundred times over, and opened up a sketchbook for the first time in almost two years. By the time the end credits rolled, I felt infinitely better than I had that morning. 

Exercise, too, does wonders for my mental state – something that I have really only ever done with the focus of endorphins (although, after a couple of weeks in Finland eating far too much bread, as always seems to be the case, I suppose the gym didn’t hurt, either). I’d been in a good Sunday-morning routine which I skipped for the first time last week. This week, I’ve been feeling far more down than I have for a while, and I have to wonder whether the two are related. 

For me, the promise of what’s to come can do wonders, if I keep myself reminded of them. This year, I’m actually going home for Christmas to see my family, and that is a huge lift for me right now. But then I think to January, and coming back, and the solid few months of dark and cold with little to look forward to. A South American adventure in June is certainly a good place to start, although it is quite far off.

Then, to new projects, or new challenges. Last January, I started tap dancing, something I’d always wanted to do. This January, I plan to start writing my first film script. Between that and a new book idea I’m toying with, my brain might just be bouncing back and forth between 1920s New York and 1960s London enough to keep me preoccupied without becoming overwhelmed.

Sometimes, it’s just a day at a time. Today, it’s some nice soup for lunch and seeing friends this evening. It’s a lie-in tomorrow morning and calling my mum on Sunday. And just for writing all of that, I feel a little bit better.

To those of you who might be feeling a little of what I’m feeling at the moment, or to those who are just a bit tired. Hang in there. It’ll be spring before we know it.