SAD

There is SAD and there is sad. One is a relatively newly discovered disorder, the other is an emotion. SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, and sad, feeling blue, lost, without happiness or joy. They can be the same, they can be related, with SAD you are sad.

I was recently diagnosed with SAD, I now have a sun light that helps, but I do have to turn it on for it to help. I live in a dark building, when there is no sun it is even darker. That makes me sad, unhappy, and lost feeling. SAD does too. A conundrum indeed. One causes the other, but the sadness can be there without SAD.

OK, now here's the thing, there are heaps of people out in the world who feel sad, they function daily with feelings that are not fun, because who can define why they feel sad on a daily basis? Few, of course there are those who feel sad because a relationship has gone sour, or those who have a medical problem that isn't being resolved, or others who are sad because they don't have all the things they think they need to live a good life (those I don't count too much, but then I'm not sympathetic to those who want lots of "things", me included), there are all kinds of reasons to feel sad, most sadness is transient, it goes away, or it comes and goes.

SAD should come and go, mostly go with sunny weather, which it does, if you live in a sunny place, a bright well light house or apartment, but I don't. Being something of a recluse, yes I am, I don't go out a whole lot, and because of this, I tend to have SAD problems year round.

I live in a 132 year old building, it is a commercial building, it has windows in the front, and one in the back, the rest of the building, none. There is a wall between the front windows and where I live, it is only 10 feet tall, the ceilings are 14 feet, so sun light does penetrate the rest of the building somewhat, but not enough. There are lights, but they aren't very bright, so the artificial SUN light is next to the bed, it helps me get out of bed in the mornings, if there is enough light penetrating the building to make the house light enough to wake me up.

Why am I ranting, writing or telling all about this and me and my experiences with SAD and sadness? Because today has been a sad day. Not a particularly unhappy one, just sad, no sun, lots of rain and clouds, which unfortunately we have had a lot of this past couple of weeks. So I've been up and down, mostly down. I would love to pinpoint the root of my sadness, but unfortunately I can't. It is so easy to blame it on the weather and lack of sunlight, but not all of sadness is caused by weather.

I live in a world that is constantly changing and the same, my life changes, I change, but at the same time they remain the same. I believe that my life is caught in a loop, I go around to the same places time and again because the program has a bug in it and can't move on to the next routine (excuse the computerese, but that's easiest for me to use today), so I keep repeating the same parts of my life. SAD has just added another factor to the routine, did this make a change in the loop? I'm not sure, and I don't know if my life will loop again, or if it will move to a new routine. Only time will tell, and of course, me.

This is enough for now... Remember, I rant, I rave, and I'm unsane at times, but never crazy.

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