Is The Weather Weighing Me Down?
By: Bonnie Johnson
Tags: Vaccines, Sad, Pandemic, Weather, Depression

Low pressure days feel heavier, yes, but could I also be SAD?

Image by the author

Whenever the clouds are really low like this, I feel the weight of them pushing down on me. Am I imagining this or is it an actual phenomenon?

I read an article once that claimed lower pressure means less oxygen in the atmosphere, which means less oxygen in the body, and that can make us feel sluggish. I don’t know if there is a valid science behind that, but it feels possible. Or maybe it’s just an excuse to be lazy on a grey day.

I took the above photo on my walk this morning. A walk I did not want to go on, but my husband insisted. We do this walk every day. Rain or shine or snow. But today I really, really didn’t feel like going. He almost had to push me out the door.

Usually once I get going, I perk up, but today my legs felt like lead. Every step seemed like more effort than it was worth.

I kept glancing over at the clouds. Not up. Over. They were not so much above me as they were all around me. Get off my back, I kept thinking.

I’ve experienced “mountain sickness” or altitude sickness before, and this was not that. When I visited Breckenridge, Colorado, at 9,600 ft above sea level, I was sick with nausea and headaches for the first two days of my stay. I don’t feel any of that.

No, today’s weather just feels heavy on my shoulders.

After poking around the internet in search of answers to my heavy weather questions, I found no evidence of the weather actually pushing its weight down on top of me.

What I found was a lot of reference to S.A.D or Seasonal Affective Disorder. According to the Mayo Clinic, “seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that’s related to changes in seasons — SAD begins and ends at about the same times every year. If you’re like most people with SAD, your symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody.”

Interesting. Me? Depressed? What could I be depressed about?

Well, let’s see. I rarely look for the negatives in my life but to understand how I’m feeling, well, just this once.

At this point I wrote out a list of things that make me sad and/or anxious that I won’t bore you with, but here are some highlights just to give you an idea:

The pandemic.

This year ripped us away from our family in Florida months before we would normally have had to go back to Canada. My baby grandson will not know who we are when we can finally travel back to him. Worse is not knowing when that might be.

The pandemic.

They diagnosed my husband with a serious, life altering disease this year. Meanwhile, my mother sinks deeper and deeper into the mucky, tangled confusion of Alzheimer’s. My once strong and very robust father withers and literally shrinks, while struggling to deal with my mother’s dementia. All of this brought me to a sudden realization that there is an end to their story, to our story, and it’s near.

The pandemic.

There are little things that when piled on top of each other amount to a heavier load. My shoulder that won’t work properly anymore and aches constantly, preventing me from working out like I used to and leading to an extra 12 pounds. Ugh.

The pandemic.

An early, colder than usual, winter. We haven’t stayed in Canada during the winter for the last 10, and this is the year it starts early. Great.

The pandemic.

These things suck, of course, but I found other things to look forward to instead of wallowing. We’d be spending Christmas with our Canadian family for the first time in 10 years. We were all excited for that. Until…

“By order and direction of the Provincial Health Officer (PHO), all events and social gatherings are suspended to significantly reduce COVID-19 transmission related to social interactions and travel. The order is in effect from November 19, 2020 at midnight to January 8, 2021 at midnight. No social gatherings of any size at your residence with anyone other than your household or core bubble. For example: Do not invite friends or extended family to your household Do not host gathering outdoors Do not gather in your backyard Do not have playdates for children”

And just like that, Christmas is cancelled. That one bright light at the end of the tunnel was just snuffed out.

If you’re wondering if we’ll ignore the ruling and break the rules. No. They’re in place for a reason. To save lives and get the spread of this virus down to a more containable number. I’m not a rule breaker anyway, but especially when it’s for something as important as this.

And to drive home the point — there is a $2,300 fine for households that break the rules. Ouch!

Bleak days smothered in low grey cloud that end in complete darkness by 4pm definitely don’t help my mood, but there is more to my funk than just the weather. Maybe a little light therapy could help, but I suspect it will take more than that.

There is a new light just barely visible on the horizon. A vaccine. That’s where I’ll focus my attention. It’s coming.

This won’t be forever. I can do this. We can do this. I mean, my God, we’re not hiding in cellars praying that a bomb won’t drop on our heads. We’re just isolated. We can do this. Hang in there. We can all do this.