I’m not a huge fan of Halloween, but I thought I would point y’all over to pretty funny retrospective of those cheap 70’s costumes that some of us were forced to wear.

I remember dressing up as Dracula one time and my mom bought me this cheap vinyl-like cape. After running around in that thing for a few hours, the fumes began to work their funny magic on my brain and I became drunk on petrochemical offgas. And there was the time when I was 13 and a bunch of us simply roamed the neighborhood sipping the one hot beer we managed to steal while wreaking havoc on the houses in construction and doing more than a little damage to some mailboxes. Ahh, the sweet memories of Halloween.

Man, it’s been a bad week here at the House that Llama built. Apparently, I have SADS, which is Seasonal Affective Disorder Syndrome. I haven’t been fully diagnosed but my doc says that’s most likely the case.

For me, it’s characterized by constantly interrupted sleep, if not insomnia, overall fatigue, and manic depression. The upshot of the syndrome is that the body does not receive enough light because the winter days are so short. They believe that this has something to do with the irregular production of the melatonin and seratonin in the brain. These chemicals help to regulate your sleep and are increased as your body is exposed to increased amounts of light. Clearly, the overcast dreary days that attend most winters along with the shorter number of hours of daylight could very logically lead to this disorder. The real test here is the severity. Sure, probably everyone feels a little “blah” in the winter. However, when it begins to seriously affect your work and your relationships, it becomes a serious problem that needs treatment. Another problem is that all the treatments are things that the disease “tells” your body not to do. Treatments include: Outdoor walks on sunny days. Winter vacations in sunny locales. Regular exercise. Try to sleep less. Because you are tired and depressed, you don’t want to do any of these things. It’s a great little catch-22.

The strange part for me is that my creativity skyrockets during this time, though that may not be evidenced by my writing on this site. All the little short stories I have laying around get added to and songs and ideas just seem to pop out of my head. It’s strange that the body could seem so “down” while the brain begins to seem more active. It may very well be the brain’s own attempt to try to make the body feel better.

There’s tons of info about this disorder on the net, of course. But one of the funnier things I found was this Scottish description of the disease. I also found this neat light, the Soleil Sun Alarm, which simulates a sunrise to wake you in the morning.

All in all, SADS is not that big of a deal as long as you do a few little things to make yourself feel better. The hardest part is probably realizing that you don’t have to feel bad. In truth, I kind of enjoy the fact that my body is so tied to the Earth and Nature. As Jetteva pointed out in a recent post, it puts a little perspective on the world to know that you are not in total control. I think a lot of us have probably been feeling that way lately.