Are you one of the 10 million Americans struggling with SAD?

What’s SAD you ask?  Here’s the recipe for SAD...

5 pm Sunsets
+
Erratic temperatures
+
Lots of times indoors
=

SAD (Seasonal Affect Disorder)

SAD is a recurrent type of depression associated with the change in seasons ~ generally, it starts in the fall and goes through the winter months.

For some people, it can be debilitating.

Some of the signs of SAD are:

• Difficulty sleeping
• Feeling less social than usual
• Difficulty taking initiative
• Overeating
• Feeling down or depressed most of the day, nearly every day
• Loss of interest in things you usually enjoy
• Struggling to focus
• Feeling constantly fatigued and lethargic
• Feeling hopeless about the future
• Having suicidal thoughts

I don’t know about you but SAD impacts me EVERY year.

It’s a big reason why I moved out of the North East to the South…but it is still a thing with the gray, rainy weather during the winter months here in Charlotte, NC.

...

“I want to die”

These were the exact words I thought in December of 2005.

I recently quit my first job as a therapist at a group home for adolescent girls.

My lease was up on the house I was renting and since I quit my job and didn’t know what I was going to do, I moved back in with my parents (God bless them for letting me move back in!).

I had ZERO ideas about what I wanted to do with my life.AND, even though I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, I was eating every sugary thing in site ~ it was the holiday season after all, isn’t that what you are supposed to do???

I got to a point where I literally could not get out of bed ~ my body felt as if it had cement running slugging through it.

Each morning I woke up even more exhausted than I did when I went to bed.

To say that I felt pretty sh*tty would be an understatement.

Ok, I do know that this was a 1st world problem and others have had way sh*ttier experiences…And, this was my reality and wanting to die...