‘Summertime Sadness’ Is Real…And Valid.// October 254th, 2022

 A few days ago, I made a post on Instagram talking about how my summer depression made an event I had been looking forward to attending, difficult for me. (You can find the original post here.) The next morning, I started getting a barrage of direct messages from someone who was completely flabbergasted, and seemingly downright offended that a person could experience any sort of negative emotion during wonderful summer. This was, as you can imagine, a very irritating experience for me. I do not appreciate anyone invalidating anyone else, especially as it relates to mental health struggles. As a result, I started posting a little more about the summer strain of Seasonal Affective Disorder (also known as SAD) and have since been receiving very positive responses, particularly from people that have been feeling this way for years but were never able to put a name to it before. Raising this awareness has brought me a lot of joy over the past few days, and so I thought I’d take a little more in depth about it and about my own experiences.

Now, one thing I’ve learned as a spooky person is, there are many people out there who think that being a spooky person directly relates to every single negative thought you have, particularly when it comes to disliking something that is generally thought of as happy and cheerful, such as Christmas time, or, of course, summer. You express negativity toward something like summer, and the vast majority of people immediately think you’re doing it to uphold some sort of reputation, or doing it in some sort of ironic, Addams-family-esque way. Perhaps there are some people who dramatically play up a dislike of sunshine in order to appear vampiric or sullen or some particular spooky person stereotype, but for me, and most spooky people I’ve met who deal with Summer SAD, this has certainly never been the case.

Summer has felt weirdly oppressive to me since I was very young. Of course, like most children, I looked forward to summer due to the time off from school, but I absolutely did not look forward to it actually being summer. To me, I guess there were “two” summers in a way. Summer vacation, and the actual summer season, and I liked the former but hated the latter.

I never wanted to be outside for long intervals of time in summer. Sometimes just a few minutes out on a hot, humid day made me feel like some sort of wall was closing in on me. My family often took vacations down the Jersey Shore (this was long before the reality show existed), and some of my fondest memories of those vacations are actually of sitting in the hotel room listening to the comforting hum of the air conditioner. One year my childhood best friend even got banned from seeing me for a week because I just refused to play outside and her family was concerned that I was making her miss out on “fresh air”. I remember being so confused as to why being outside in stifling heat was so important to these people, how it could possibly be healthy, but I refused to budge on my “indoor kid” status. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we grew apart, but what was I supposed to do, when being outside in summer made me feel so crappy?

I can recall quite a few incidents of summer sun and heat making me physically ill in my childhood. The most serious was during one of those shore vacations, after we’d spent almost an entire day on the beach. We went to some Italian restaurant for dinner, and I started speaking similarly to the way most people do when they’re about to have a stroke. I don’t remember much of the incident but I remember feeling lightheaded and like my brain just wasn’t firing properly, and it was an absolutely terrifying experience, and probably the final straw for me as far as not wanting to be out in the summer sun too long.

I’m not sure when I started to notice a definite shift in my mood during summer time, but I can recall that I’ve always been about ten times more irritable when I feel hot. As I’ve gotten older, though, the irritability and exhaustion has mixed with both sadness and anxiety. When the hot, sunny weather hits, I feel every bit like the person being described in the commercials for different depression medications. This year, even though it’s still technically spring, I already feel complete apathy toward almost everything in my life; a complete loss of interest in everything I enjoy. Even things like writing this post, or taking pictures, feels like a struggle most of the time. Items I have purchased to add to my collection sit in their shipping boxes, piled on my bedroom floor because I don’t have the energy to figure out where I want to display them, let alone clear the space for them. I also get extremely anxious at the mere mention of Daylight Savings, and that anxiety doesn’t pass until the days start getting shorter again. The idea that the government wants to make Daylight Savings Time permanent is honestly one of the most terrifying things in the world to me. While the days would still at least get a little shorter, and it won’t be as hot once the actual summer months have passed, I’m not sure how my mind and body would respond to that much sunlight without a break in winter. Sunny days trigger my depression as much as the heat does. I can’t imagine having to feel this way all year round. 

Overall, I just feel like I can’t relax in summer. The heat and bright sun make it hard for me to get comfortable, whether to sleep or just settle down for a bit and watch a movie, read a book, write something, etc. And I never feel clean. I honestly shower and feel like I’m sweating again the moment I get out. It’s frustrating beyond belief. On the rare occasions that I do spend a significant amount of time outside, which is almost never by personal choice, it feels like walking through mud. That event I mentioned going to in the beginning of this post? It was a street fair in Sleepy Hollow followed by a visit to the cemetery, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more miserable in my life. That alone should tell you something.

I do wonder if there’s some weight to those memes that say people only like summer because it’s programmed into us at a young age. We grow up with summer being our big chunk of time off, so we can’t help but enjoy it for that reason, but once you’re grown up, really, what are the perks?! Feeling like you’re in a sauna 24/7? Sweating? Swamp ass? Temporary blindness? Poor body image in a bathing suit? I really haven’t been able to find a single positive thing to say about summer since I graduated, other than it’s the last stepping stone to fall and Halloween coming back around.

Could my summer depression actually have something to do with my love for Halloween? It’s actually quite possible. Perhaps seeing those early signs of Halloween coming around in July and August at the craft stores gave me a sense of relief, when I was younger. Not only was Halloween coming, but when it did, it would push out those last remnants of the miserable, hot, bright summer.

So, before you make a snarky comment about someone taking a selfie at the Michaels’ leaf wall display this July, consider the fact that, for some of us, autumn brings salvation. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder…Well, so is beautiful weather. And that most certainly doesn’t mean summer weather, for many of us.

Stay spooky, my friends. And stay cool in this pumpkin-gut-rotting weather! 

PS, definitely google “Summer SAD” or “Reverse Seasonal Depression” for more info on this topic. It’s very real, and very valid.