Free Essays

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Continued from: Seasonal Affective Disorder: Syndromes (2)

SAD Case Study

Selena is a twenty-three-year-old University student, who had moved to Vancouver about two years ago. She got her first strong SAD "attack" in her first winter in Vancouver. The condition that has possibly triggered the problem was both the lack of snow that used to reflect and almost double the sunlight in the geographical area where she used to live before. The description of her condition during that winter follows.

As the sun stopped shining bright, Selena gradually became very lethargic, sad and withdrawn. She felt like she had to kick and drag herself from one place to another Any kind of communication became a major burden. She officially refused to pick up the phone in her house, explaining this by the fact that her friends never called her home number anyway. In truth, her reason was that it was extremely hard for her to answer to her parents' friends, to be chatted up by relatives. She would shudder every time her own cell phone rang. Calling friends was a major effort, a totally impossible thing sometimes. Setting up time for socializing was a burden and, even more so, keeping the times set. In case if she actually managed to make it to the appointment with her friend, she would be sitting there both waiting for the person and hoping that he/she would not show up, and thus she would have this time left for herself. She left relieved when an appointment got cancelled.

Even when she used an online chat service she would hide under the "Invisible" status, so that none of her online friends could see whether she was really available until she chose to contact them. This is how burdensome the idea of communicating became.

Selena became very forgetful. After a certain point that year, she stopped being able to keep track of dates, which created even more problems in her school. After forgetting about an exam for the first time in her life, she realized that the situation was getting serious.

She had no drive to do anything. "Every morning I wish that I could sleep all day long. Sleep for the rest of my life, if I could..."

The girl would usually sleep anywhere from 7 to 9 hours during the "warm" part of the year, but in the late fall she would start needing more sleep - anywhere from 10 to 12 hours a night on the weekdays, and up to 14 hours on her days off. She would also feel tired during the day and would have no problem taking a one or two hour naps during the day forgetting about all the sleep she got at night.

Selena would eat more in the winter and gain more weight, go on a diet in the summer, get the drive to exercize and would lose some of the weight gained during the "dark" months. As the years went by, though, it became harder and harder for her to lose the pounds gained, which added to her diminutive view of herself. As a result, she would feel very heavy, every pound of her body counted as ten. At this time, the weight problem, she has always been suffering with, became even more burdening, as it seemed to her that the heaviness of her body came from the extra weight she had.

The girl used to be very selective about candy, but this seemed to be something that made her feel better. Sad? Chocolate seemed to be the key!

However, certain details in Selena's life were obvious to have been showing her potential for suffering from SAD years before this happened.

Not knowing about SAD, she knew that she was in her best mood when during the sunniest days of summer. Her dream was to live in a country where it was really hot, very sunny and rained only once in a while, pouring for five minutes. "We get my ideal weather for as little as one week a year... Should I consider moving?.." She would start panicking when thinking about the grey fall coming or even of a cloudy grey day in the middle of the summer. "My mood completely depends on the weather... Isn't this scary?"

Tanning would raise her mood during the "dark" periods. She would tan during the summer as much as she could, feeling that she had to use every single moment she had to "absorb" as much sun as it was possible. She could hardly resist dropping whatever she was doing in order to spend time under the sun.

The patient became almost paranoid regarding any kind of darkness in her own room. She hated the window blinds and removed all the furniture that was blocking the sunlight from her by as little as one centimeter. She enjoyed table lamp shining right in her eyes while all of her friends would hide from it.

Selena would dream of having an apartment on the top floor (so that the sun would not be blocked by anything around the windows), on the East side of the building (so that the sun could wake her up each morning), with large windows from floor to the ceiling (so that maximum amount of sun could enter through them). Yellow became her favourite colour just because it reminded her of the sun and felt like an "energy-boosting" colour.

She would usually be excited about school in September, but got weighed down with it closer to November, December, or January, depending on the location she was living in at that time. While she was living in the Eastern Europe where the winter started around November each year, her "dark" periods would come around the end of October and end by the middle or end of April. She would get excited about the coming of the white snow, but get depressed again when the shininess of it would be covered with dirt. These were the only "light" periods during the winter. She would fear the rain and cloudy days.

New Year's resolutions would routinely come in July and August and never in December. "How can anyone be inspired to make any kinds of decisions in the winter?..", she would always wonder.

Selena noticed that she would often get about two weeks every term when she just would not be able to get up in the morning to go to school. She also noticed that this period would come quite late in the Fall term and relatively early in the Spring term and usually not happen at all in the Summer term. This would add to her problems at school and hurt her self-esteem even more.

Finally, the girl kept repeating to her friends: "Bears are so lucky. I wish I was allowed to hibernate."

She would feel a little happier on the sunny-snowy days, even though not as good as during the summer, when it was both sunny and hot. But the sunny-snowy days did not make it to Vancouver for more than one week a year, and so winters became even more unbearable. She was surprized that she really missed snow during the winters in Vancouver. Because of the light reflection/doubling it would provide.

As the spring came, the situation would ease...

Continued here: Seasonal Affective Disorder: Treatment