Overcoming Seasonal Depression and Rediscovering My Love of Fall

For many of us, fall symbolizes a time of change and letting go. For me, however, fall has historically conjured up intense feelings of sadness and stuckness. Every year for the last decade, when the days began to get shorter and the first hint of color appeared on the leaves, I’d feel a drastic dip in my mood and energy level. Getting out of bed in the morning would become increasingly difficult, and I’d have to rely on my lightbox and antidepressants simply to muddle through each monotonous day.

I also experienced quite a few unsettling memories from past falls, whether I was in eighth grade, spiraling into the unforgiving clutches of anorexia, in ninth grade, deeply depressed and on suicide watch in the psych ward, or in tenth grade, locked up in my seventh hospital, wondering if I was destined to cycle in and out of these stony, sterile wards for the rest of my life. As summer slipped away, these harrowing flashbacks would inundate my mind, and I’d suddenly be right back in that dark, lonesome place. I never really thought of this as a manifestation of PTSD, but reflecting on it now, it certainly seems like that’s what it was, and it made an already challenging time of the year that much more of a grind.

I often wished I could simply sleep through fall and winter and wake up when it was sunny and warm outside, and I didn’t feel so low all the time. This was a large part of the reason why, up until a few months ago, I was hell-bent on moving to Southern California as soon as I could. Unlike the majority of people in my circle who fawn over the four seasons, I wanted nothing to do with them. Fall, to me, wasn’t pretty or fun; it was dark and difficult, a time when I was forced to mentally relive some of the most painful moments of my life. I honestly never thought I’d be able to appreciate the beauty of autumn in its entirety again because of how much baggage this time of the year carried for me.

And then, this year, something changed. I first noticed this unexpected shift when, towards the middle of September, I was still waking up in the morning full of energy and excitement for the day ahead of me. I hadn’t even thought of taking out my lightbox because my mood wasn’t any different than it had been over the summer. Really, the only difference I noticed was that I was a little colder, and that was nothing a cozy sweater and a good pair of slippers couldn’t remedy!

And as for the memories? Well, those too, it seems, are a thing of the past. Sure, I still think about the traumas I endured in my early teenhood—how could I not?—but it’s now with a healthy distance, as if I’m looking back on another life altogether. In a way, I am, because the half-life I led then is drastically different than the enriched one I’m currently leading; a life of freedom and independence and hope and gratitude and self-acceptance. A life that’s no longer dictated by my disorder because I’ve finally taken back that control.

It’s difficult to say, point-blank, what caused this transformation because it’s really been a culmination of a number of things: being in a solid place in my recovery, feeling more grounded in life and fulfilled by how I’m spending my time, my writing career starting to take shape, exploring new creative pursuits such as making videos, cooking, and photography, getting back into sports for the first time since middle school, and being finished with school, among others.

I also believe the lifestyle changes I’ve made over the last several months have had a significant positive impact on my mental health. Giving up animal products and adopting a whole-food plant-based diet has been an absolute game changer as far as my mood and energy are concerned. I’m out in nature more and on social media less. I’m living with less and no longer feeling tied down by material possessions as a result. I have a mostly consistent yoga routine that keeps my body strong and my mind sharp and present. Above all, I’ve stopped caring about what other people and society, as a whole, expect of me. My life might be untraditional, but I’ve never felt healthier or happier, and if that means living with my parents for another few years while I grow my writing career and find new ways to practice kindness towards myself and this beautiful, precious world around me, you’d better bet that’s what I’m going to do. And if anyone believes that’s wrong or shameful, then I don’t really give a damn.

Fall is a time of many changes, and the biggest one for me this year has been reclaiming a joy I thought I’d lost forever. The joy of watching the leaves change colors and feeling the air get crisper and inhaling the aromatic flavors of autumn—and enjoying the mouthwatering foods those flavors create. The joy of realizing that I’ve moved on; that I’ve relinquished the sullen little girl who felt safer in hospitals than outside in the real world and embraced the independent young woman I am today. The joy of looking towards the future, not with fear and apprehension but with hope and excitement for everything still to come. The way I see it; if I, someone who’d once felt so dispirited by the cold and dark that I’d dreamt of moving someplace warm, could grow to tolerate and even thrive in it, then anything is possible.