Light Therapy is a Cure for Depression?!
To be determined, but I'm crossing my fingies
One of the toughest questions I come up against as a Sensitive Person™️ is, “Am I normal sad or am I depressed?”
Unfortunately, the answer always seems to come from outside myself. Depression is like a vampire looking at himself in the mirror: I don’t see it myself until someone else screams, “Watch out! It’s a blood-sucking demon mental illness!” Yesterday, that someone was my therapist.
She gently pointed out the symptoms: I’ve been prone to major mood swings, sleeping way more, buying random shoes at Target, losing motivation, and making grand statements like, “I don’t belong here,” and “I peaked in high school,” and “nO oNe UnDeRsTaNdS mE.” My apartment is a mess, making plans sends me into panic, and my usual self care rituals — like yoga, lighting candles, cooking, showering — don’t feel that great. Sometimes I don’t feel like I even wake up until the sun is setting, probably because it’s the sign I let a whole day pass without doing anything meaningful.
That’s dramatic, but that’s depression.
ANYWAY.
My sweet sweet therapist suggested I am being walloped by seasonal depression, which rang true deep into my bones. It certainly explains why I check my weather app for updates from California and recently sobbed to my boyfriend that everything would be ok if I could, “just open a window.”
In the old days, British doctors combatted the population’s inevitable winter blues by prescribing weeks at seaside resorts, insisting that sun, sea, and air could cure depression and some types of tuberculosis.
My therapist told me to buy a sun lamp.
I ordered this one while we were still on Zoom, because the future is now. Apparently, you want to look for light 10,000 lux or over (don’t ask me what that means) and this model is powerful enough that you don’t have to put your face right near it. This article about SAD lamps helped me pick it out.
It’s weird how much I try to control my environment. My glasses are anti-blue-light and I wear SPF to ward off UV rays. And now I’m going to have a big ol’ sun lamp in my apartment. Hope it works!