S.A.D.

Kalie talks about seasonal depression (also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder or S.A.D.) and what she does to beat the blues. Also, why you should never trust a man with blackout curtains.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, I'm Kaylie Short and this is too much
to say asking questions now turn it out you If
you can hear things in the background of this podcast,

(00:21):
I'm very sorry. I'm still recording from home and for
some reason, my neighborhood has gotten so noisy, whether it's
my neighbors or the fact that I live near the airport,
which I feel like a reason notice or construction. Um, yeah,
very very very annoying. So um, hopefully we'll be in
studio coming up because I it's like, what a what

(00:44):
a dumb bit right like moves to l A. Oh
my god, it's so loud, but for real. So anyways,
Hello guys, how are you hope you've had a wonderful week. Um,
I've actually had a really wonderful week, and I wanted
to talk about something today that is applicable to me
having a good week, um, and are unapplicable to living
in l A. So l A is one of those

(01:06):
beautiful places. What is with what is scientifically called a
Mediterranean climate, and that basically just means that it's the
same here all year round, and it's always sunny, and
it's always warm gets cool at night. So you can
still wear your cute jackets. But it's like it's just
you know what it's going to be. I personally fucking
love that I don't have to put away my clothes
for the Season's like my whole closet is out. I

(01:28):
feel like I have less ship because of that, and
I can just dress the same every day. But um,
it never rains here except for apparently the entirety of
so far, And I did not realize how quickly one
can get a vitamin D deficiency from it being rainy.

(01:50):
And I feel like I've gotten really used to the
sunshine when I'm in Nashville, or especially when I was
in Maine, Like I knew what to do to kind
of keep myself feeling good during those really like you know,
as the days get shorter and it's just very dark,
especially in Maine. I mean like it's almost to the
point where you can see the northern lights, so the
days are really short. Um, but yeah, I got it here.

(02:12):
So what we're talking about is this lovely little thing
called seasonal effective disorder. It affects many, many many people. Um.
One of my my only favorite thing about it is
that seasonal effective disorder is abbreviated as sad l O
l um. But it is it's just like this, like
when people say, like, oh, I have a winter blues,

(02:32):
like it's actually like a real thing and it happens
to pro vitamin D deficiency, and like I think that
little things like cold shitty weather definitely don't help. Um.
But I'm gonna tell you guys some things that I
do to manage that, because in addition to like regular depression,
your girl has seasonal depression too, And just I mean god,

(02:55):
I saw Peach PRC, who's one of my favorite artists
on TikTok post is something about how she's been diagnosed
with the whole alphabet, and like girls saying same, I
have been diagnosed with so much of the alphabet at
some point it's just like a d H D B
P D L g B t Q and I could

(03:17):
keep going um. But anyways, so I O N S
A d UM. But like it's just it's interesting because
I felt like I've I've dealt with it so much
more living other places and living in l A, I
forgot that it can still happen. So I had to
dig out the old um little tool kit for how

(03:37):
to manage this. And we had our first like real
sunny day today. It stopped flooding, so that's nice. But um, yeah,
we're going to dive into this. I'm assuming that it
affects a lot of you guys that you might know about.
There's probably quite a few people listening who it doesn't affect.
But if any of this resonates with you, you now
know what to call it. It's not a scary thing.
It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. It just

(03:57):
straight up just that you're not getting sunlight. And yeah,
so we'll be with that, okay, and we are back.
So on this episode, we're talking about seasonal depression and

(04:19):
I'm going to give you the like actual Mayo Clinic
medical definition of this, but this is from Mayo Clinic
dot com dot com um. Seasonal effective disorder, or s
a D, is a type of depression that's related to
changes in seasons. S a D begins and ends at
about the same times every year. If you're like most
evil with s a D, your symptoms start in the
fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy

(04:41):
and making feel moody. These symptoms often resolved during the
spring and summer. Months, um it is. That's why they
have these little thing called depression lamps, which I'm going
to dive into in a while because that's like my
favorite way to deal with this. But it's just like
you're not getting sunlight, and we need some light. We're
like little plants, you know, we need water, we need food,

(05:01):
we need sunlight, we need you know, a stable environment.
We need some rain for sure. But just like it's
just been too much. L A has just been doing
the most and I'm not about it. Um So. The
signs and symptoms of a s A D may include
feeling listless, sad, or down most of the day, nearly
every day check check, losing interest and activities you once enjoyed,

(05:25):
having low energy and feeling sluggish, having problems with sleeping
too much, experienced carbohydrate cravings, over eating and weight gain,
having difficulty concentrating, feeling hopeless, worthless, or guilty, and having
thoughts of not wanting to live like that's not badly
we need the sunlight. Is it's like constrained up make
you like I want to unlive yourself, like really and

(05:49):
it's like I don't know, it's just it's been so
like just out of character for l A and it
just caught me completely off guard and I was just
like sleeping, like and it makes you feel lazy, And
I think that's the hardest thing about any sort of
mental like issue that involves being like sad and getting depressed.

(06:13):
It is like you feel fucking lazy. That's also something
that I feel like with my a d h D.
And it's like just you don't want to make excuses
for yourself, but it's like, I'm not I don't know
that I have a d h D, so that I
can be like, oh, I'm not lazy. I have a
d h D. It's like, okay, I have a d
h D. This is how I'm going to do things
that don't make me feel lazy and make me feel productive. Okay,

(06:34):
I'm not lazy. I'm dealing with seasonal effective disorder. So
I know that that's why it's happening, and I can
take these steps to fix it. So it's about getting
to a solution, not getting an excuse. But it is
like enough that if you didn't know you had this,
or you're like didn't realize that's what it was, you
should give yourself a little bit of a break. Right now, um,

(06:55):
because it's just your little plant and the plant isn't
getting what it needs, so the plant goes to sleep.
The plants little leaves, they wilt, and it's just an
unhappy little plant. And I like being a happy little plant.
That's my that's my favorite thing to be honestly, And
speaking of plants, my basil plant is not having any
of this bullshit either, so UM, I'm gonna have to

(07:17):
get my basil plant and depression loop. Um. But depression
lamps are something that the mid daylight. Uh. I actually
use them just when it's like dark in general, and
like I need to wake up, I'll do my makeup
in front of one. Um. Because it's like your circadian
rhythm is controlled so much by like sunlight and all

(07:38):
of these things, and your circadian rhythm is like your
body bodily cues. I'm not a doctor. I'm giving this definition.
Feel for to challenge me on this, but I'm like sure,
I'm going to describe it correctly. But it's like when
you get hungry, when you get sleepy, how long you
sleep for when you naturally wake up, like when you
have bursts of energy, when you have like hills and

(07:59):
valley is of energy and it's just like the little
clock that your body runs on for all the little things.
It needs to be a little plant, and mine got
fucked like so fucked up. And so this lamp helps
you wake up that if it's early and the sun
isn't out, Like, I personally do not know how people

(08:23):
use blackout curtains. If you use blackout curtains, I don't
understand you, because like, if I use them, I will
sleep until five PM. I will wake up completely disoriented. Actually,
I'm going to tell you guys a story that if
my mother happens to be listening, Mom, please pass forward. Um.
But one time back in my cowboy days, I I

(08:47):
was at a bar with Lauren Elena and she is
such a fun person to go out with. And I
had been going through this little breakup, not the big one,
but like another one that was like affecting me and
like I was just feeling bad. And I met this
guy at a bar. I was drinking Makers on the Rocks,
which is like my depression drink, like shout out to Makers.
I love Makers, but that's my depression drink. If you

(09:10):
see me chasing shots of Makers with Makers on the rocks, like,
call my therapist right now, I need to go home. Um,
And that's what I was doing when I met this
guy and he was like from Kentucky and he was like, oh,
it's like super hot. They're drinking whiskey and I was
like I know, right, And anyways, ended up going home

(09:32):
with him, mostly despite my ex boyfriend. Turns out he
lived like across the street from him, so faml about that. Um,
but this man had blackout curtains and I did not
mean to spend the night after whatever canudie took place
that evening. Okay, if you'll hear that noise, that is
the kind of noise I'm talking about. There's like an

(09:53):
ice cream truck that comes around at exactly every single
day and I'm just like I can't that's okay. Anyways,
losing my train of that. Um. But anyway, so this guy,
like after dinner, I wasn't gonna stay over. I meant
to call an uber and then my phone dies and

(10:16):
I didn't really notice, and I was like definitely tipsy.
I mean like I was there because I wanted to
be there for better for worse, but like I was not.
I was not a sober co owl that evening. Um,
and I wake up the next morning thinking it's like
you know, I was like, oh my god, it's probably
like six am. It's normally like you know, I just

(10:37):
want to dip, like when I'm not in my own bed.
I wake up really early because I'm like, I just
I want to be home. And then, um, I plug
in my phone, find a charger digging through this man's room.
He's still down asleep and I turned on it's eleven am.
I straight up slept in a stranger to home until

(10:59):
eleven am because he had blackout curtains. And aside from
that really nice guy. Actually, the bizarrest thing is I
found out way after the fact that he went to
all twelve years of school with my current boyfriend. So anyways,
that was awkward, but I was like, why would you

(11:20):
have blackout curtains? And honestly, that's not the reason I
never talked to him again. The reason I never talked
to him again is because I was well. I was
telling him his blackout curtain stucked because he did end
up waking up as I was trying to sneak out,
and I was like, wow, you know, like I have
a house and he was like, oh, like, do you
have any cats? And I was like yeah, and he's like,
I'm allergic and I was like, well, it seems like
this one isn't going to work out, but I'll see

(11:41):
you on the flip side. And that was that. And
then he talked to Lauren Elena a while later and
was like, oh my god, I really hope like Kaylee
doesn't think I'm like that kind of guy. And Lauren
laughs and he's like, no, no, she's that kind of girl.
Oh my god, cowboy is yea. So now that we've

(12:10):
had of the fact that I hate blackout curtains. Um,
another really good thing aside from not having blackout curtains
and having a little depression lamp, which you can get
on Amazon for like next to nothing, um, maybe twenty dollars.
It's so worth it. You can also use it as
a ring light if you really feel inclined. It's a
really nice, like soft datelight. Look. So I'll use my

(12:30):
depression lamp on making tiktoks, which is just so chaotic
and so on brand um, but I'll make like little
things where I'll reward myself. And this has a lot
to do with like a d h D and all
that too, But I'll make like a list of really
small things I can accomplish, because I think sometimes all
come up with like these big, grandiose things I need
to do, like I need to like film a really

(12:53):
big TikTok and do all these edits and blah blah
blah blah, when really I just kind of need to
like repost an old TikTok just to get something up.
Like ideally I make some new content, but I'm not
going to do that if I'm not feeling great, and
so I need to have these small things that I
can do that don't take a long time and don't
like feel insurmountable, and then I'll reward myself. So I

(13:16):
created like this little list, and um, I think I'll
dive into this more on another episode because it also
does pertain to a d h D. But each like
task has a little um like point system, and so
when I reach a certain amount of points, like I
get a treat. So if I do um three or more,

(13:36):
I get three or more points, I get a little snack,
and that those snacks are fruit by the foot fruit
roll ups and um gusher's I get the Variety pack,
and I have to do three things before I get them,
and I if I do five or more, I get
to play fifteen minutes timed of one of my stupid
little iPhone games that I love so much and I

(13:59):
have a problem with. So I'm like trying to curb back,
and I feel like that was a great way to
do it. It's like it's a little reward. And then
if I do ten or more, I get to book
a yoga class, and I love booking yoga classes. They
get to be kind of expensive, so I can't just
do them all the time. But I feel like if
I accomplish things like that's a really nice little treat
and that makes me like get out of bed. And

(14:19):
also like I'll buy the more expensive coffee stuff because
having something that makes me want to get out of
bed is really great. That's why dogs are awesome, because
you have to wake up. UM. But little things like that,
and then also just like you know, journaling and remembering
that it is called seasonal effective disorder because it only
lasts first season and you can figure out ways to

(14:41):
handle it. UM depression lamps, I mean, I think are
the biggest one. Not everyone needs to get on antidepressants
during that time, but it might be severe enough that
you might need to do that. That's between you and
your doctor. But you can read about this, UM. You
can treat yourself for it with like like you know,
behavior modification and the lamps and whatnot, UM without getting

(15:03):
officially diagnosed. I mean, it's just a very common thing
that a lot of people have, so I feel free
to go read more about it. But me finding out
that this is something I dealt with was really helpful,
and I just constantly need to remind myself, Like every
winter when I start to feel like this, I'm like, Okay,
you don't hate everything, everyone and everything about yourself. You
just haven't seen the sun in several days. And that's

(15:24):
a really nice grounding thing to remember. UM. But thank
you guys so much for tuning in. I'm Kaylie shure.
This is too much to say, and I will see
you next week. Don't ask me questions now, turn it
out you