Winter Depression

Regenerative Culture Health, Healing & Movement
#1

So im suffering from winters depression, this is not just me feeling off or anything, i have this every year, also i probably have some form of add. What i need right now are friends that take a walk with me, but at the moment im not living very near to my friends. I know it will pass and i will smile when the sun rises but it just really fucking sucks you know?

theres just so much going on everywhere and i cant ever seem to stop thinking about all this shit. My head seems filled with all these stupid notions that we are filled with and sometimes it feels so fucking fragmented and distorted and it makes me feel very very lost and alone. I feel as one cast out of his tribe, do we all feel like this? Lost in this fucking maze? Why they fuck are we running around like crazy ? i need a fucking BREAK!

so eeehmmm, any advice? anything is appreciated you know… just a little hi would do !

take care

#2

well, it’s much for advice, but have you tried getting up well before dawn to make a ritual of watching the sun rise?

#3

Go camping! Or at least take some day hikes or bike rides at nice parks or wild places near you. I get winter depression but it goes away really fast when I go to the right places…

Yesterday morning was nice. Slept in the woods, got up early and took my sleeping bag down to the beach. Watched the sun come up over the Atlantic, miles from civilization. I watched the sea birds and saw a fox wandering around the dune fields, saw some deer a while later. Course I’ll go back to work tomorrow. :frowning:

As far as friends go, can’t help you there. I don’t have many close friends where I currently live either. Definitely sucks sometimes. Good luck, hope you feel better soon.

#4

timeless–hi! :wink:

yeah, I hear you. loneliness kills! i read about this study once (and who really needs a study to tell us this, anyway) that linked depression to the number of human faces you see within a short period of rising in the morning–smaller number (what happens to you on the days you see zero???), greater depression.

for me, movement helps a lot. (some little bird told me the other day that all movement = distraction. . .? maybe)

also, i got an idea from an art class about showing up regularly to work on your art, even when you feel crapppy–on the crappier days, you can curiously observe yourself to make it more interesting. like hey, i get to find out what art made by the grumpy (hopeless, lonely, uncomfortable, miserable, scared, abandoned, whatever) me looks like.

good luck finding your way off the hamster wheel.

#5

I find winter in the city quite depressing as well, as it appears to be more gloomy than usual. Yet if you got a place to stay out in the country, it’s often more enjoyable than depressing. You can go out hunting in the winter silence, practice your marksmanship, cozy up by the fire and play some musical instruments and cook soups and stews to warm your bones…One of the best things about winter is the tracking! It’s just like in the desert, you can spend a whole day reading the book of nature, reading the signs of what fox went where and what rabbit went there and what birds were there, what deer went into that patch of trees…Even if you are not hunting you increase your tracking skills.

Sometimes I will spend the whole afternoon tracking a fox and not even finding it and eventually losing the trail, but it’s like following a maze and figuring out the plot, you think more like the fox, where are the tracks going - there are 3 sets of tracks here, which is my fox? Maybe I need to back up and pay more attention to the imprint of my fox, The fox stopped here to urinate, is the scat over there hardened or more fresh and what does it tell me about what time the fox was here? What do those feathers and fur in the scat tell me about his last meal? There he started chasing a hare over here, here is where the wind covered the tracks, is the paw imprint in the snow more hard or more soft and how long ago was it made according to the level of snow that drifted inside and how hardened the wind has made it?, etc…There is much you can learn from animals in the winter.

#6

Ever since I’ve stopped living on a lake in the country, I started getting depressed in the winter… No ice fishing. :frowning:

I think that living with the seasons and changing your activity throughout the year can help you feel more at home in your environment, more responsive, more connected, happier.

#7

“I think that living with the seasons and changing your activity throughout the year can help you feel more at home in your environment, more responsive, more connected, happier.”

That is sooo right on! It gives a purpose to all the different times of year rather than there being the ones you get to enjoy and the ones you just have to survive.

#8

I, too, have been feeling, well, not depressed, but a little frustrated. I feel like I’ve got a growing bundle of energy ready to burst, but I have to wait for spring. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a seed.

#9

same way,
very interesting thought.

#10

[i][“I think that living with the seasons and changing your activity throughout the year can help you feel more at home in your environment, more responsive, more connected, happier.”]

"That is sooo right on! It gives a purpose to all the different times of year rather than there being the ones you get to enjoy and the ones you just have to survive. "[/i]

HAH, here I am responding to my own thoughts. Actually no matter what we do, WE don’t give any purpose to the seasons. The seasons offer their trials and there gifts and we can recognize them and enjoy them or not. I still think SilverArrows thought was right on.

PS. Having said that, when we get a long cloudy stretch in January, I definitely notice a feeling that I hesitate to call depression, it’s more like melancholy, that starts to take over. But I can get into that too and embrace the gifts that feeling brings.

Many cultures have winter ceremonies that help lift the spirits of the people.

#11

:smiley: me too.

the last couple of springs, I’ve experienced the overwhelming sensation of chaotic, rising tide of disorganized energy in myself, kinda like you say. kind of angry, impatient, turbulent, excited, untapped urge to burst, or create something. I called it the “sap rising” feeling.

oddly enough, i think i’ve felt the beginnings of that this week, although i hadn’t really thought about it til now. . .

#12

Hey, thanks for all the replies. Im gonna spend another day inside today, because it is storming as hell outside here in the netherlands. But im doing somewhat better because i went outside a lot that last couple of days searching for nice pieces of wood and branches to cut stuff out from. Thanks again ! take care…

#13

During the winter months we tend to retreat into our artificial Civ worlds… once we become aware of it’s artificiality we don’t cope with it as well as when we were ignorant of it.

They are right… get up early… get out… even for a day…

Wild is a drug… and once we experience it… it’s hard to quit… especially when it is the moral experience… unlike the civ world…

Winters are long, and time away from the wild wears at our souls.

I cant wait till I’m away full time …