One of my favourite things to do on social media is to create reels on Instagram. For me, it is the perfect way to recap an event. I always start by picking music/audio that means something to me and then I select the footage I want to share and put all of it together. Afterwards, I spend many hours watching it back, basking in the memories and my creative efforts.
I made one of my reels recently to recap the time I spent with my friends over Christmas, and it is definitely one of my cutest reels so far. If you watch it, you will see all the fun things I got up to with my friends, including our annual matching pyjama photos.
What you will not see is the buckets of tears I’d cried in between. The hours I spent lying in bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. The morning that I crawled into my friends bed bawling uncontrollably for no apparent reason. The pictures I refused to post because the sadness in my eyes was not cute.
Depression is generally not cute.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that's related to changes in seasons — seasonal affective disorder (SAD) begins and ends at about the same times every year. If you're like most people with SAD, your symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody. These symptoms often resolve during the spring and summer months. Less often, SAD causes depression in the spring or early summer and resolves during the fall or winter months.
I first learned about Seasonal Affective Disorder in medical school and to be honest, it sounded …. a little ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine how the change in season could have such a significant impact on one ones mood/mental health until I experienced it myself the first winter I spent in England. I remember bursting into tears at the most random times and generally feeling very low but I chalked it up to missing my detty December in Lagos and I pushed through till the weather improved and I started to feel better.
I eventually recognized and acknowledged that I tend to struggle a little more in the winter months but I wouldn’t quite call it depression. Until now.
The past few weeks have been weird in very non-specific ways. I know that I have been more tired than usual, going to bed later than usual and even needing help to fall asleep. I’ve also been very irritable and I only recognised this after I had a little back-and-forth with my supervisor in front of my colleagues.
When the crying started, I put it down to my period which I was expecting soon. Then the period came and went but the tears didn’t. That’s when I started to acknowledge that something was wrong and this time it was probably more severe than just being homesick.
It wasn’t until I got to my friend’s house that I finally acknowledged that I was not okay. My sleeping had become much worse, and the crying still hadn’t stopped. Thankfully, I have the type of friends who will not allow me to dismiss my feelings, talk through them with me and allow me to cry while delivering my diagnosis.
It’s easy to dismiss mental health problems because they don’t always present as clearly as physical health problems do, but it doesn’t make them any less real or important. Thanks to science, we now know that there are hormones that impact our mood and these hormones can be out of whack for any number of reasons, leading to poor mental health.
Certain activities have been shown to help with mood, including journaling, exercising, yoga, meditation and so on. Thankfully I have most of these as part of my well-established habits and I think I would probably have crashed sooner without my routines. Ultimately, these might not be enough and other measures such as therapy and medication may also be required and that is okay too.
I was a little hesitant to write this post because it does feel like a downer and nobody wants to start the year feeling down but this is real life and one of the themes of this newsletter is sharing my experience of living and this is part of living.
I believe that having more open conversations about mental health is how we can reduce the stigma around mental health. I also hope that it helps somebody recognize and acknowledge that their own weird symptoms might be related to their mental health and take the necessary steps to address things and get better.
Thanks to my friends and the conversations I’ve had with them over the past week, I have been able to figure out my own triggers and what steps I can take to start feeling better. And I do feel better already. I’m being loved on and looked after and reminded how much good there is in my life.
A few morals of this story and my charge for you as we start the new year:
There will be downs. They’re not pleasant, but such is life.
Everyone’s life always looks better on Instagram.
Make the time to check in with your people.
It’s okay to give the long answer when you’re asked “How are you” (by your people)
Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
Love on your people and allow your people to love on you.
This week I am reading
Mastery by Robert Greene. Ya, the 48 Laws of Power guy.
This one was recommended by one of my unofficial mentors while we were discussing some of my plans for next year. A few pages in, I was reminded why I have so much side-eye for most of the self-help books written by men. The advice is usually very selfish and one-dimensional. I saw a video recently where a woman articulated how I feel about advice from men. It generally doesn’t apply to people who have full lives i.e women.
Having said all of that, I would still recommend the book because it contains some very important lessons. The main take away so far is that in order to achieve expertise in any field, you must put in the work over a long period of time.
The List by Yomi Adegoke
I happen to follow the author and so I’d been looking forward to this one for some time and it did not disappoint. This book is a story about the internet. How we use social media, the inherent dangers in the anonymity of it all and how cancel culture can impact the real lives of people. I really liked the fact that the characters were all flawed and had real life personal battles. There was no absolute villain or saint. Made the story even more relatable.
I also think it is a very timely book and should probably be in school curriculums today (minus the spicy language) because this is the world we currently live in and the kids might be able to learn some valuable lessons through well written fiction.
2023 wasn’t my favorite year to be honest but there was a lot of good that I am grateful for.
I’m quite excited for 2024. I hope you are as well.
Here’s wishing you a year of paying attention to the things that can impact your mental health, for better or for worse.
Happy New Year.
Chioma.
As someone who was also diagnosed late for SAD in Canada, I felt all of this. Thank you for starting the year so strong by being this vulnerable with us. Sending lots of love your way for the remainder of the Winter, and I am so happy that you got to spend some beautiful time with your friends, in spite of it all. Love you!
According to my Instagram, I had the best year in 2023 - doing all the things. What wasn’t shown however was the 3 mental breakdowns I had in November, the curveball I was thrown in October and the countless number of times I cried myself to sleep overwhelmed by it all. Thank you for highlighting what we are becoming more and more aware of..social media is a highlight reel and behind every handle is a silent struggle.
Thankful for friends who love you. Full stop. Not love you only when you check on them or do things for them but love you as you. May those friendships thrive in 2024.
And for those other types of friendships..well I did with them what I do with all other past by due date things 😉