To feel depressed by it getting dark so early

[Poetrypatty]

... And only going to get worse. I think that Boris press conference today didn't help. Feel miserable going into another winter of all this crap and the effort of keep trying to keep mine and dcs mood up.

Honestly if I had the money I would set up anti SAD holiday parks across the UK. Like center parks but the huts would be spacious and look like beach huts outside. So if there's any rich investors on MN I'm your gal.

@Delatron

The only time I want to be cosy/snuggling is if I’m actually ill. I want to be outside preferably in shorts and flip flops on a balmy summer evening.

If you enjoy the cold and damp then you can get your fill for about 9 months in this country.

Hate the dark evenings and mornings. So restrictive. I don’t like running in the dark. I don’t like taking the dog for a walk in the dark. Driving kids to evening clubs in the dark. Can’t do my evening lake swim in the bloody dark! Don’t get the love on here for dark. I guess if you are lazy and basically lie on your sofa under a blanket from
4pm with your hot chocolate.
So boring.

I may not swim in lakes but I'm totally with you. I find it so boring.

YANBU. My mood always takes a nose dive around the end of August. I'm not too bad once Autumn gets properly started, but then start to dread that last Sunday in October when the clocks go back and it's dark from the middle of the afternoon. If it wasn't for having DC who love Halloween and Christmas, I think I'd just hibernate.

@Bookaholic73

I think a lot of it can be changed by our mindset. Instead of focusing on all the things you don’t like about Autumn/Winter, think of the things you do like.

For example, things I love about Autumn and Winter are:
Cosy evenings in watching movies
Snuggling on the couch with a good book
Comforting stews with dumplings
Chilly and muddy dog walks, all bundled up
Soft lighting
Halloween, Bonfire night & Christmas
Root veg soups

If it’s actual depression, please do go and seek help though. No amount of positive thinking will help a chemical imbalance.

I'll be honest, I'm feeling 10 times worse after reading that. It sounds fucking horrific bar the chicken stew.

Yes. I guess it’s a personality thing but snuggling on the sofa for 6 months? Just sounds lazy and dull. Even a walk on a summer’s evening with the dog is so much more preferable

Soft lighting really doesn’t cut it. None of those things help me.

What does help take some of the edge of is getting outside in the day as much as possible.
A sunlight clock. Lots of vitamin D.

It’s still endless and quite miserable though. The above just makes it slightly more tolerable.

Halloween is one night. And it’s shit. As if one crap night makes up for the dreariness of 6 months..

@Delatron

Halloween is one night. And it’s shit. As if one crap night makes up for the dreariness of 6 months..

Exactly! I never got the whole ‘love Halloween/Bonfire Night’ thing as a reason why some people love this time of year. Once your kids are a bit older and not out guising/trick or treating/whatever you call it then it’s basically just standing at the door for a couple of hours handing out sweets. Even when they’re involved in the whole thing it’s a couple of hours decorating the house and perhaps a couple of Halloween parties at Brownies and Cubs - literally a day’s worth at most. Bonfire Night is a case of standing in a frozen wet park somewhere for an hour watching fireworks and paying through the nose for a hot dog or heading home for hot chocolate and dealing with freezing cold children and muddy boots. One evening - in months of dreary, cold, dank weather and endless darkness.

Yep @SirChenjins my thoughts exactly. Even when my kids were young enough to go trick or treating I can’t say traipsing around with them knocking on doors was a highlight of my year.

No I'm loving it. I do enjoy the summer weather but I am so over having to listen to neighbouts loud conversations/music/screaming kids every time I open a window or attempt to sit in the garden. I really haven't been able to enjoy my garden at all this summer due to the above and worse, bored retired DIY fanatics with their axel grinders . Bring on the rain and dark I say, keep all those noisy f**s inside.

@SirChenjins I'm the complete opposite. Bonfire night has a real nostalgic emotional resonance with me. When I was a little girl my m would host the family bonfire night party. She would make a huge pan of bonfire stew with jacket potatoes. Big fire in the rubbish side garden and family would bring either more food or a box of fireworks. My grandad would be there every hear without fail. I have so many happy memories that I sit at the window on 5th November waiting for that smell in the air and the first firework going off.

Unfortunately my beloved granddad passed away on bonfire night so I always see it as a tribute to him now.

Totally agree about Halloween though. We are closing the curtains and turning the lights off this heat 😂😂

*year not heat! Stupid fat fingers

[quote cricketmum84]@SirChenjins I'm the complete opposite. Bonfire night has a real nostalgic emotional resonance with me. When I was a little girl my m would host the family bonfire night party. She would make a huge pan of bonfire stew with jacket potatoes. Big fire in the rubbish side garden and family would bring either more food or a box of fireworks. My grandad would be there every hear without fail. I have so many happy memories that I sit at the window on 5th November waiting for that smell in the air and the first firework going off.

Unfortunately my beloved granddad passed away on bonfire night so I always see it as a tribute to him now.

Totally agree about Halloween though. We are closing the curtains and turning the lights off this heat 😂😂[/quote]
I completely understand the emotional resonance of an event, esp when family and childhood memories are involved, but it's one night - out of months and months of horrible, cold weather and endless darkness!!

We still have young children in our street and their parents were very kind and opened their doors to our DC when they were little, so I have to hand out the sweets again this year sadly. DH always manages to get 'caught up in a client meeting' on evening of the 31st Oct - funny that

Some of the comments on here are really unhelpful. The OP asked if she’s unreasonable to feel low and she isn’t but coming on here to tell people how much you love winter doesn’t really help her.

I’ve been thinking of setting up a SAD support thread for a while so I’ve gone ahead and set one up in Mental Health if anyone would like to join and try to support each other through this winter, whether you have a diagnosis or not.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feeling_depressed/4349708-SAD-feeling-low-in-winter-support-thread?watched=1&msgid=110817713#110817713

We still have young children in our street and their parents were very kind and opened their doors to our DC when they were little, so I have to hand out the sweets again this year sadly. DH always manages to get 'caught up in a client meeting' on evening of the 31st Oct - funny that

You don’t have to do it though, it was your choice to let your kids do it when they were small. I don’t blame your DH - it sounds like a pain in the ass!

@Bookaholic73

I think a lot of it can be changed by our mindset. Instead of focusing on all the things you don’t like about Autumn/Winter, think of the things you do like.

For example, things I love about Autumn and Winter are:
Cosy evenings in watching movies
Snuggling on the couch with a good book
Comforting stews with dumplings
Chilly and muddy dog walks, all bundled up
Soft lighting
Halloween, Bonfire night & Christmas
Root veg soups

If it’s actual depression, please do go and seek help though. No amount of positive thinking will help a chemical imbalance.

There is pretty much nothing I like about winter.

I hate winter clothes. I hate having to wear socks. I hate jumpers because they make me feel too restricted even though I wear loose baggy ones. I don't really like wearing clothes with long sleeves. They are not really conductive to doing anything like cooking, housework etc.

I am happy watching movies any time of the year but certainly don't think watching them in the winter is "cosy" and I hate that word being used for cold, dark, grey, miserable days

I prefer my dog walks on dry days. Nothing nice about walking 2 very hairy dogs in the cold or wet or, particularly, mud. The hours then spent getting them clean is far from fun.

I love Christmas but you can stick Halloween and as for Bonfire night with idiots letting off fireworks for endless weeks and frightening pets and wildlife!

I eat soup and stew pretty much year round unless it is very hot which it hardly ever is.

Stop listening to Boris.

And me. I close curtains a lot in summer.. And love being able to watch the dawn at a later hour.

Firelight and candlelight... Looking forward to winter

I've tried to think of the positives of summer ending. I really struggle in winter but I made a list of things I like.

They include:

Christmas, Bonfire Night, a lack of flies in the house, cold water straight out of the tap, less sweating at work (hospital so covered in plastic for 12 hrs a day), magic mushroom season, slow cooker meals, fire in the living room fireplace.

An evening lake swim is my next new year's resolution. I've been meaning to start doing this for ages!

@LukeEvansWife

We still have young children in our street and their parents were very kind and opened their doors to our DC when they were little, so I have to hand out the sweets again this year sadly. DH always manages to get 'caught up in a client meeting' on evening of the 31st Oct - funny that

You don’t have to do it though, it was your choice to let your kids do it when they were small. I don’t blame your DH - it sounds like a pain in the ass!

Ha! We live in Scotland where guising is something that the vast, vast majority of children do and have done for generations. Not letting your child go guising is like not letting them do Christmas or Easter eggs.

[quote LadyCatStark]Some of the comments on here are really unhelpful. The OP asked if she’s unreasonable to feel low and she isn’t but coming on here to tell people how much you love winter doesn’t really help her.

I’ve been thinking of setting up a SAD support thread for a while so I’ve gone ahead and set one up in Mental Health if anyone would like to join and try to support each other through this winter, whether you have a diagnosis or not.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feeling_depressed/4349708-SAD-feeling-low-in-winter-support-thread?watched=1&msgid=110817713#110817713[/quote]
Thanks for starting that thread - have already posted my winter woes on it

[quote LadyCatStark]Some of the comments on here are really unhelpful. The OP asked if she’s unreasonable to feel low and she isn’t but coming on here to tell people how much you love winter doesn’t really help her.

I’ve been thinking of setting up a SAD support thread for a while so I’ve gone ahead and set one up in Mental Health if anyone would like to join and try to support each other through this winter, whether you have a diagnosis or not.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feeling_depressed/4349708-SAD-feeling-low-in-winter-support-thread?watched=1&msgid=110817713#110817713[/quote]
It is natural and normal to feel less energetic in winter but true SAD is a clinical term and care is needed to differentiate.

I used to get real SAD. Now with age I has eased and is just a bearable and natural state. We are after all connected to nature even though we try to ignore it and carry on as usual, Llived years in Orkney; as little as four hours daylight in winter and light twenty four seven and it showed in how I felt. Much easier now I am in Ireland

I absolute loathe and detest the dark mornings and evenings (well afternoons eventually).

I would love to live somewhere it is light all year round. If it never got dark I would be happy.

If we had decent summers it might be a bit easier to deal with but, yet again, we have had a shit summer.

Endless grey miserable days with dark mornings and evenings is just horrible. It's not cosy in the slightest. Damp yes but never cosy.

The cold doesn't bother me that much although I hate the clothes you have to wear because of it. I dislike wearing socks and as for jumpers! Coats I am also not keen on and hate boots

Agree. I struggle through November and December in a fog. Christmas brings not joy, never has. 1st January on the other hand - new beginnings and the return of the light.

Hate cosy, snuggling and fecking hot chocolate.

Yanbu and I hope everyone who suffers with these dark months are ok.

Personally I like it but I can understand why others don't.