Baby It's Cold Outside

Back in Nov my therapist implied (over text message) that I have seasonal aspects to my mood. As in I get more depressed when it gets darker. Not something I thought about at all until last fall. Right about the time the clocks changed. Although I don't think you can conclude anything looking just at the last two years (which is what she did) because there was another stimulus that occurred both years that spurred these episodes, that is independent of darkness.

Then Friday the thought popped in my head that it's not so much the darkness for me as it is the temperature change and my sensitivity to it. I've been very depressed this past week, for a variety of reasons, and I realized it got worse when the temperature got below 40 degrees. So there probably is a direct seasonal connection independent of that other stimulus, but not for the typical reason she might be thinking. It's not SAD or any incarnation of it (I don't think).

If my idea of freedom is the wind blowing through my hair, you could basically say, in a sense, mother nature snatches my freedom away each winter. This coming Tuesday it's supposed to be 25 degrees (that's -4c), accuweather says. That's certainly not a day I'm going to the grocery store, not that I was planning on it.

The cold weather takes all the spontaneity out of my life. It calls for too much advance planning, too much relying on paratransit, added frustration, not just from paratransit, but from sidewalks and curb cuts that don't get shoveled and from streets that get plowed into the rare previously shoveled curb cuts. Even when it doesn't snow, I'd rather not be caught outside in any temperature under 50 degrees as cold causes pain. It's a CP thing.

It snowed Friday, for the first time this season. Not enough to stick to the roads, but enough to put a dusting on some bushes. I thought, here we go again... ARGH!!!!! I HATE COLD AND I HATE SNOW!!!!!!!!!! Please pray that my holiday party that is next weekend doesn't get canceled again this year. We can't possibly have a blizzard on the same exact day two years in a row, can we?