November makes me want to die. Every year, it sneaks up on me. One day, I’m soaking in the last bits of sun in late October courtesy of global warming. The next, it’s pitch black by 5 p.m., my mood is in the gutters and my motivation to be a functioning human disappears. Seasonal depression season! For a working student like myself, the effects are like if a punch to the face also inflicted sad whispers of exhaustion and apathy to the soul. It turns a rough semester into an absolute night terror.
Seasonal depression is a mix of lack of daylight, miserable weather and almost-break-induced stressed excitement that makes the simplest things feel impossible. It’s more than just feeling “down” because it’s cold outside; it’s like someone turned off the lights in your brain. There’s this constant weight on your shoulders, a fog that makes it hard to remember why you signed up for classes in the first place, much less why you should care about midterms, finals or, honestly, anything.
It gives you the biggest energy crash. All I want to do is sleep— not the cute “take a little nap” kind of sleep but the hibernation, coma-type sleep. The only thing keeping my attendance going is fear of academic probation and maybe the anxiety of being called on.
On top of that, seasonal depression plays some impressive mental gymnastics with motivation and focus. Good luck keeping track of assignments, deadlines or even what day it is when you’re mentally running on empty. Studying is now an epic war of willpower versus distraction where distraction usually wins. Maybe there’s a reason Netflix does a massive dump of content in winter— it’s prime distraction season for college students. Assignments pile up, your to-do list feels like a scroll from the Middle Ages while all you want to do is ignore it, sleep and watch movies.
Social life? Doesn’t really exist. Seasonal depression doesn’t just make it hard to do schoolwork; it also kills any desire to be around people (as if I had any already). I know I should get out and maybe set up a study group. But the idea of walking to Safeway in the freezing cold at night for Q-tips feels easier than leaving my room to socialize. So I end up isolating myself and making myself more depressed. It’s a vicious cycle: the less energy you have, the less you feel like reaching out to anyone, which then in turn makes you feel even more like the scum of the Earth.
On a practical level, the college schedule is just not designed for mental illness. Fall semester is exams, deadlines and projects while the days keep getting shorter and colder. Colleges love to advertise their talk about “self-care” and “mental health resources,” but seasonal depression doesn’t conveniently happen during winter break. It’s in full force during the final grind of the semester. For those of us in winter-wonderland Walla Walla, it’s not like you can just go for a therapeutic walk in the warm sunshine because even the sunshine is cold and the air bites your face.
Sure, I could take vitamin D, get a happy lamp, exercise, eat healthy and get plenty of sleep. You need energy to do all of these things. Exercising and getting up early to catch the little daylight we have to live a healthy life sounds easy enough in theory, but when I’m buried in classwork and just barely getting by writing this article, it’s not so easy.
There’s this unspoken pressure to “grind through” these tough parts of the semester. But grinding through seasonal depression isn’t hard; it’s downright painful. Even talking about it feels like an embarrassing excuse, which makes most people avoid bringing it up at all. Seasonal depression makes you feel like your struggles are somehow illegitimate or something you should just “get over.”
Here’s the reality. Seasonal depression in college doesn’t just feel like a case of the winter blues. It’s exhausting, it’s draining and it makes it feel like you’re not good enough to handle it all. Sometimes, surviving the day is enough. If seasonal depression means cutting yourself some slack, letting a couple of assignments slide or even locking in until finals are over— that’s okay.
Ultimately, the key to getting through this season is remembering that it’s just that— a season. It feels like forever, but spring will eventually come, and the sun will make an astonishing comeback. Until then, take it easy on yourself, prioritize rest over productivity and give yourself permission to admit that this time of year just sucks, or maybe you’re just a girl.
