Spring Blues

Spring blues. Does anyone else get it?

I love the spring. I love that it’s daylight when I leave home (and I’m one of those who love leaving home in darkness during the cold months) and I love listening to the birds that have returned home after their time in the South. I love wearing sneakers and contemplating if I truly need to wear a coat.

But, I get a terrible case of spring blues. In Sweden we call it spring depression or seasonal depression. I want to point out that I am not clinically depressed, and while I am diagnosed with anxiety I could not begin to understand what it’s like to be depressed.

What I’m talking about is feeling blue. I feel overwhelmed with everything that’s going on. I want to do everything and nothing. Every event I get invited to or sign up for I look forwards too, yet I break down in anxiety and panic when it’s time to attend.

I want to write, study, work out, eat well, knit and read, but feel like all I really want and need is a good nap. I’m not talking about a twenty minute nap. I’m talking about a week-long nap.

April and May feel like the most exciting months of the year, yet it’s the time when I feel the worst. And it’s been like this for years.

The first true case for me was spring 2017. Mum had to bring me home from University and allowed me to attend one of all the events I wanted to go to. I stopped driving and when I finally sat down in a car again I was terrified of traffic. My one goal was to get out of bed at 8 am every day and even that was a struggle. I didn’t have energy or want to do anything.

The next year I got such bad spring blues that I went home from Uni even earlier. I brought home my project (I was creating a model of a castle from a fantasy novel), but couldn’t even enter the room in which my project stood. I had to go back to Uni just to ask for an extension.

The year after that I was on autopilot. I had no choice but to push forward for the sake of my final projects, but the whole time I stood next to my little stand in London showing off my latest models (a ship and a hot air balloon) I was filled with panic and anxiety and close to tears the entire time.

Corona actually allowed me to escape the fretted spring blues, but this year, as I’ve returned to studying and life is slowly getting back to normal, they’ve returned. And on top of that I’ve got the worst cold that has me lying in bed in the middle of the day.

All I want to do is write. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can see my revisions paying off and the story taking shape and becoming the book it was always meant to be. I sit down most mornings with SWN and write, but there is so much buzzing in my head. Work, the book I’m reading, the new knitting pattern I want to try, a new story idea, my upcoming exams, that essay that needs to be handed in tomorrow. I feel overwhelmed. And I always do this time of year.

I’m actually a bit unsure as to why I’m writing this. I don’t have a final uplifting message for you guys. Maybe it was just some journaling I had to do that just so happened to be written as a blog post. I was originally going to write an insta caption and then it got too long. It’s just me rambling about feeling blue during the time of year where everything around me becomes more cheerful and fun.

This blog post may not have brought you any new information or been enjoyable in the least, but perhaps it opens the conversation and allows people to know they’re not alone. Even if everyone around you is relishing in the spring sunshine and living their best lives it’s okay to feel overwhelmed, anxious, low or sad. I’ve come to terms with it now. I know what to expect. Now I just need to find the right tools to deal with this since I think I can expect it to happen pretty much every spring.