Every year, it sneaks up like it’s something new. The days become shorter. Mornings feel
heavier than they should, like gravity has quietly been turned up overnight. The idea of leaving
the house feels like wading through wet cement. And even though I know what’s happening,
even though this is familiar, a part of me still whispers, What’s wrong with you?
I don’t wake up one day feeling sad. It’s subtler than that. I wake up feeling muted and numb.
The world loses contrast. Things I usually love; music, conversations, and small routines all start
to feel far away and take too much effort, like I’m watching my own life through a dirty window.
I’m still functioning. I continue to show up. I reply to messages. I am trying to do more than the
bare minimum required to be fine. But inside, everything feels slower, dimmer, and harder.
What makes seasonal depression especially tricky is how easy it is to dismiss it. I tell myself I’m
being dramatic. That everyone hates winter. That I just need more discipline, more positivity,
more gratitude. I bargain with myself: If you just get up earlier. If you just work out more. If you
just stop being so sensitive. But depression doesn’t respond to scolding. It just gets quieter and
heavier.
For a long time, I felt confused because of how much the seasons affected me. I live in a world
that glorifies productivity and hustle, where slowing down is seen as a moral failure. Watching
my energy dip every winter felt like falling behind in a race I never agreed to run. I compared my
insides to other people’s outsides and decided I was defective.
Now, instead of fighting the dark months with sheer willpower, I try to meet them with honesty.
I lower my expectations. I let myself rest without narrating it as laziness. I plan fewer things and
forgive myself when I cancel. I stop pretending I can live the same life in January that I do in
June.
Some days, taking care of myself looks impressive: therapy, walking outside, warm meals,
asking for help. Other days, it looks like surviving. Like letting the dishes sit. Like wearing the
same sweater three days in a row because it feels safe. Like admitting that today is not a day for
transformation, it’s a day for endurance. And that has to be enough.
I wish there were a better ending here or I had an answer. A sentence where I say I’ve figured it
out, cracked the code, beaten seasonal depression once and for all. I haven’t. I still dread the shift
in seasons. I still have days where everything feels pointless and heavy and gray, but I also have
days where I find joy in the hard and soft moments as well as having compassion for myself.
If you’re in the middle of your own dark season, I want you to know this: you are not weak for
struggling when the light disappears. You are not broken for needing more care than usual. And
you are not alone, even when depression tells you that you are.
Spring will come back. It always does. Until then, it’s okay to live gently. It’s okay to survive
instead of shine. You’re allowed to be here.