Comments on: Weather Report http://stayontop.org/2012/04/19/weather-report/ Independent and unbiased blog about a wide range of depression-related topics Sat, 18 May 2013 06:45:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Henk http://stayontop.org/2012/04/19/weather-report/#comment-668 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:57:33 +0000 http://stayontop.org/?p=6560#comment-668 Yes of course depression can have so many causes, both internal and external, that often the weather (gloomy or sunny) is simply irrelevant… The “beach isolation” effect you describe is more or less the same as the “birthday party isolation” effect I posted about in Nov. 2010 (see http://stayontop.org/2010/11/25/fleeing-the-party/). I particularly like your remark about change. Very true: seeing no possibility of change at the horizon = losing all hope!
As for Heathcliff, maybe I myself would like to temporarily be Sherlock Holmes, artfully hiding himself as a lone but watchful camper behind some Dartmoor boulders (in the Baskerville story). I think your “fictionalizing” advice is interesting (will need to think a little more about that) but don’t forget that for some people this also brings a danger of going way too far: fleeing into a kind of escapist fantasy world to the point of losing their own identity. I’ve seen some such people in psychiatry wards…

]]> By: prochoicemalta http://stayontop.org/2012/04/19/weather-report/#comment-664 Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:27:47 +0000 http://stayontop.org/?p=6560#comment-664 I live in Malta, statistically I believe we have the(or one of the) highest average number of sunny days per year in the world. Of course I still suffer from depression nonetheless, in fact I remember one particular depressive episode at the height of summer in July.(So non-gloomy weather certainly can lead to gloomy moods) I think weather is most oppressive when it does not change. I always associated the endless long days sun with what kept me distant from everyone else; everyone is perfectly happy going to beaches, partying, sipping cold drinks by the sea yet it’s extremely isolating for anyone who isn’t feeling happy.

Suffering from depression in a sunny, happy place can be bitch. The feeling is slightly like Christmas, you know you’re supposed to be happy but you are not.

However this year we had a longer, darker winter. Sometimes it was colder here than it was in England. Haha I felt rather depressed how the winter didn’t change either! But honestly the best advice I can give you is turning yourself into a character; fictionalise yourself almost. Turn yourself into Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights that blazes through the Scottish Highlands, you know it’s a fiction but it’s an incredibly useful fiction. I think the biggest problem with people like us is that a day or a week can feel like an eternity and we cannot see change in sight. Know that if there’s one constant thing about the universe, is inconstancy, change,upheaval. Weather always will change, go through its motions.

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