Something A Little Bit Different

As some of you likely know, shortly before I left for Japan I began having some semi-serious issues with depression-like sadness. It began right before Christmas last year, built up until probably around mid-February, and then slowly started to get more tolerable (I'm not going to say "better" because it wasn't showing any sign of actually leaving, I was mostly just getting better at dealing with it). We aren't really sure what triggered it, although the cessation of birth control medication is a key suspect (I didn't stop for any real reason, I just ran out). What we think may have happened is that the hormones in the birth control leveled out my natural hormone system, which has always been a bit funky. So, when I stopped taking it, my body got a little wonky and could no longer deal with anything remotely sad in any way. It was no fun.

[I was going to put a picture of birth control here, but then looking at pictures of birth control made me feel a little wonky, so I decided not to do that. I think I may have associated them with the sadness in my head. It was odd.]

I knew I had to do something, even if it wasn't a guaranteed fix, just to keep my spirits up. I refused to entertain the idea of antidepressants, partially because I did not feel that my case was serious enough, and partially because I did not want to become dependent on them as I had apparently been with the birth control. The latter of these reasons is also why I didn't just immediately get back on the pill.

Instead, I decided to try some other methods. And by "some" I mean "literally everything I could think of that didn't involve hormones." I focused more on eating healthy and getting exercise. I started taking vitamin D. I became acutely aware of the time, and refused to watch any sort of media that was more than G rated after 7:00pm. I avoided anything scary, disturbing, troubling, or the like, as I knew they would send me into a saddened state. I talked to friends, family, the school counselor, and anyone who seemed like they might have another solution I could try. I became strong acquaintances with the folks working at the Student Health Center when I made daily visits to their office to do homework under a giant artificial sun (I eventually bought my own- they're called SAD lamps, for Seasonal Affective Disorder, and they were actually quite useful.)

His name is Steve.

The point to all of this, or why I'm bringing it up now, is that I have somewhat happy, albeit inconclusive, news. Since my arrival to Japan, I have not experienced even once the sort of sadness I'd become accustomed to facing. It has now been almost a month since I've arrived. This is definitely a positive thing, as I for one am delighted to not be continuously plagued by the creeping fingers of origin-less sadness, but at the same time, I don't know what to think of it. There are two parts to my doubts. First off, coming here was a big change, and this could still be the culture shock/honeymoon period/what have you sticking around and making me feel okay. In that case, we'll know in another month or so whether or not I have cause to be worried.

The other concern is that maybe it won't start again, maybe I'll be safe, maybe I won't get sad and cry every night for no reason at all- until I get home. What if, when I return, its like reversing a spell? What if it was just on hold, in stasis, waiting for me to step off my plane so it could embrace me once again? I don't think there is anything I can do about this worry, nor any way to test it short of coming home early (which is definitely not happening) so I suppose I will merely do my best to ignore it until the time comes to leave. At least that's exponentially easier to do when I'm not stuck focusing on everything bad in the world. It really is a lovely change of pace.