5 Ways To Cope With Winter SAD

It’s 3:30 PM and what little sunlight managed to push through the seemingly ever present rain clouds today is now dissipating. Soon it will be as dark as it would be around 7:30 PM back home in Florida. I admit that I knew even before moving to Norway that the lack of sunlight had an immense effect on my mental health. Working a sunrise-to-sunset job back then gave me an inkling as to how both autumn and winter greatly influenced my motivation, mood, and general sense of worth. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is categorized as depression associated with seasonal changes. The symptoms and severity can vary from person to person, but the condition is usually accompanied by lack of interest in hobbies, feelings of sadness and hopelessness, appetite changes, and problems with sleep. It wasn’t until I moved to this beautiful Scandinavian country that I would come to realize all these symptoms, among others, would hit me full force. Thankfully, this is my second year experiencing the tough Norwegian winter and I have come up with a few ways to cope with SAD.

Please remember that these are just ways I personally try to cope with symptoms of SAD. This is not meant to be used in place of speaking to a medical professional or seeking mental health aid.

1) Take advantage of whatever bit of sunlight you can get!

Alright, this one might seem like common sense but you would be surprised to know that SAD saps away your motivation to do much of anything, even when there is a bit of light outside. If I manage to get out of bed that morning (if you don’t, that is OK! Tomorrow is another day!) and the forecast is looking promising, I take advantage to get outside and soak up as much sun as possible. Go for a spontaneous hike or simply go for a walk around your neighborhood. If you’re at work, skip eating lunch in that dark break room and opt for a meal out on your workplace patio or outdoor seating at a restaurant. If the weather is too chilly, spending a little break in your car will let you stay indoors but you can catch all those rays coming in through your windows.

2) Get excited for winter holidays.

No matter what you celebrate during the holiday season, get excited for it! Go all out and cover your house in seasonal decor. Adorn your space with fall leaves, pumpkins, and spiced candles. Plan a delicious dish you want to make for your traditional holiday dinners and perfect it! Maybe you really like those cute pine cones covered in fake snow you saw at the craft store and want to bring a winter wonderland feeling into your home. If you celebrate religious holidays, look forward to sharing those spiritually fulfilling experiences with friends or family. I used to be that grump that ranted about how much I HATED (oh yea, H-A-T-E-D) Christmas music or decoration going up too early. Although I do still think anytime before Halloween is way too early, I have gained a newfound appreciation for that holly jolly spirit everyone around here seems so incredibly obsessed with. Personally, it gives me a reason to deck my house in cute sparkling Christmas decor and reminds me that the sooner Christmas is here the sooner winter will be over.

3) Plan a lolita meetup.

I know its hard to let the summery floral print JSKs migrate to the back of your closet, but dust off those velvet pieces you keep saying you’ll wear when the weather gets cooler. Plan a lolita meetup with your comm to air out your winter wardrobe. The meet up can be seasonally themed or just any meet will do. The key is to get excited about something especially if you feel comfort in spending time your community or group of lolita friends. If you do not live near an active lolita community (as I do at the moment), you can plan a themed coordinate around autumn or winter and wear it out to a special event. Last year, I had a blast wandering around the local Christmas market in full lolita. Just make sure to keep warm and wear proper shoes if it’s snowing! You don’t want to fall and possibly ruin your precious dress (yes, this comes from experience!).

4) Retail therapy.

Yikes! This is a tricky one because it can get out of hand for some people, including me. In moderation, retail therapy can provide some motivation and excitement even when all you want to do is lay around all day bingeing on potato chips and old episodes of Drag Race. Buy yourself that adorable sweater dress you’ve been eyeing online or splurge on that eye shadow palette you’ve been dying to try out. Getting excited for winter garb doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to your lolita wardrobe. I personally find it much easier to muster motivation to go out if I want to wear a new and warm outfit that I had been saving up for. As I stated previously: everything in moderation. It can become a whole new problem if you overspend or have an addiction to shopping. Budget yourself, but also remember to treat yourself once in a while.

5) Plan a trip to sunnier places.

I get that this tip might be a bit hard to accomplish for those that work or do not have the means to travel. If you are able to, plan a nice trip to a warmer climate. Like a bird migrating south for the winter, I have been lucky enough to be able to travel to much sunnier places during this season. It gives me something to look forward to and helps me push through another dark and cold day. If you are unable to travel, plan a stay-cation or a relaxing spa day! Again, the key is to have something to look forward to so the days don’t feel endless.

What are some tips you have for coping with SAD or simply overcoming the winter blues? If you experience SAD during the spring and summer months, how do you cope with the feelings of depression? Leave a comment below and let me know!

The Importance of Loving The Things You Love

“These are a few of my favorite things.”

“Love the things you love.” This seemingly redundant statement has become somewhat of a personal mantra. I have injected these words into my daily life so fully that I sometimes find myself obliviously muttering them under my breath. Although this habit might have garnered several side-eyed looks from perplexed strangers at the local home goods store, it has allowed me to be kinder to myself about my preferences and hobbies.

Throughout most of my teenage years I was constantly criticized for the things I loved. A lot of us remember our high school days and if you were anything like me you were what most people called an “anime nerd”. Yes, I was that kid that wore anime merchandise to school like it was the latest trend to hit the catwalks of fashion capitals around the world. My table at lunch was invisible under the array of manga and sketch pads illustrating cute anime girls with eyeballs two-thirds the size of their faces. You could hear our group shrieking from a mile away and goodness forbid you were the target of the infamous “glomp”. To this day I still shudder at my unabashed displays of cringe, but once I push past my sudden desire to wash my memories with industrial strength bleach I realize how integral those days were to the framework of my identity. I found out who I was and what I loved through those moments and, not unlike most teenagers, my passions would shape who I was to become as an adult. Sadly, I lived in quite an abusive household where I had to keep those passions and even my own personality stifled in order to survive. After finally removing myself from that environment at eighteen years old, I vowed to never let anyone make me feel ashamed of who I was and the things I loved. In hindsight, that was much easier said than done.

During college I held steadfast to my vow. My poor walls barely saw the light of day under a continuous layer of posters displaying all my nerdy interests. I remember my roommate drew an invisible line with her finger to mark the point in between our beds were my “Asian guys”, as she called them, could not cross into her space as if my love for K-Pop was comparable to a dangerous and highly contagious disease. Even then, I didn’t mind and you could usually find me quietly curled in bed with my laptop or locked in my bathroom closet where no one could hear me screech out the songs to my favorite musicals (it sounded good in my head, I promise). After college, my desire to really embrace myself for my hobbies skyrocketed with the introduction of J-Fashion into my life. Lolita gave me a sense of belonging. I felt like I looked good and I loved it. No one could tell me otherwise. (Psssst! Past Izzy, some of those outfits were not the best of choices but you do you, girl.)

Let’s fast forward to the past year. My husband and I made a huge decision that would very swiftly roundhouse kick that confidence right in it’s figurative face. Upon moving to Norway, I felt elated at the chance to use up my free time as a newly unemployed housewife to pursue my hobbies: fashion, cooking, writing, sewing, and generally living my best and cutest life. I went into IKEA with one thought in mind: “Does this come in pink?”. I had a full room with which to do what I pleased and you bet I was going to cram as much *~kawaii~* into it as physically possible. It began with a new acquaintance stepping into my home for the first time and peering into my room. Upon seeing the copious amount of pink, she squealed with delight and asked if I had a daughter. The fall of her face from an expectant smile to an incredulous sneer after I said it was all mine was the first nudge at the latch that caged the insecurities I was all too familiar with. I had already been struggling with the stress of the move and making new friends, so this encounter only made my anxiety laser-focus on one tangible aspect about my personality.

In the coming months and after never-ending stares from locals even while wearing “normie” clothes (I get it. I’m new and I don’t look like everyone else. Get over it!), my confidence was pitifully puddled on the floor. Not only was I anxious about acclimating to a new culture and language, but I couldn’t even bring myself to turn to the things that had once made me so happy in fear of being permanently labeled as an outsider by the small-town, neutral-colored sportswear clad people of my new home. I knew most of the fear was not justified. I’m sure now most people do not care, but in the blur of social anxiety logic is commonly distorted. Thankfully, I found a good group of friends that enjoyed me for the things I loved and encouraged me to find my confidence in them. With their help along with that of my husband, my therapist, and my newfound obsession with the K-Pop boyband BTS (Yeah yeah. Fight me!) with their message of loving oneself, I started to feel the spark of enthusiasm for lolita and my other hobbies once more. I stepped out into town in a full coordinate and through what felt like sprinting a marathon surrounded by stares and whispers I made it with my friends and husband waiting at the finish line cheering encouraging compliments. I felt myself smiling more often and caring less often about what others thought of me. “Yes, I am the girl that wears pink frilly dresses to go grocery shopping.” “No, I don’t want the children’s menu, thanks.” I also started to open my ears to compliments from strangers. “Thank you, I do feel like I stepped out of a fairy tale.” “Yes, I really do promise my legs are not cold wearing just tights. I’m from Florida. This is a relief!”. Slowly, but surely, my personal mantra was making a comeback and I began to love the things I love.

This time last year, I found myself at another turning point in my life where I was wondering who I was and how much my identity meant to me. The things I loved, all my pink frills and delicate lace, my Sanrio plushes and figurines of pink-haired anime girls with disproportionately large chests, my music tastes and disdain for anything other than dresses or skirts, would become the bullet points of my life-long battle with low self-esteem and social anxiety. Thanks to this coupled with Seasonal Affective Disorder, I was left in a depressive state and questioning my decisions to uproot from my life back in the U.S. Today, as I stare at the darkening skies of Autumn anticipating the dreaded sun-less days of Winter (insert Game of Thrones reference here), I am determined to ground myself in my passions and make it through another season. Growing up, I guarded my identity through my hobbies with all of my might in order to survive a life that tried to rip it from my grasp. Now, when I mumble those words under my breath while admiring a cute pink and gold coffee mug at the local home goods store, I know I am mentally adding another layer to the armor that will help me through the rest of my time abroad and away from everything I have ever known. For me, there is true importance to loving the things you love.

Mental Health: Breaking the Stigma

As I type out the title to my very first blog post my mind begins to do what it does best. Just the words “mental health” send my thoughts into a frenzy and my poor brain tries to keep up with the countless sensory inputs it is receiving from the rest of my body.  Are you seriously going to make your first post about mental health? I can feel my heart’s pace quicken. People are going to get scared away and never want to read your posts again. I notice myself biting my lower lip, a nervous habit, and my palms get sweaty to the point that rubbing them continuously against my pajama shorts seems futile.

This internal dialogue is not uncommon. It happens every minute of every day. There are two voices and they have names. One is very shy yet persistent. She is always looming in the background of my consciousness, ready to point out flaws and fears. The other is vastly more outgoing. She is optimistic about the world and uses reasoning as her main weapon. This is an ongoing and invisible battle. At this moment, while my fingers glide over the keyboard, the latter is winning. If our story can inspire even one person then it will be worth it.

 I have received plenty of diagnoses from an array of mental health professionals. At first, it was social phobia and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Then it was Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), PTSD, and a dissociation spectrum disorder. After that I got slapped with GAD, PTSD, and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID. Formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder). As a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, I knew exactly what each of these diagnoses meant. As much as I had studied the symptoms of each I was not prepared for them to be attached to me. I guess there was a part of me that knew there was something more lying beneath the surface of typical everyday worries, but I was not ready to hear it.

Fast-forward two years after intensive weekly therapy. I feel like there is still much work to be done while simultaneously rethinking the validity of those diagnoses. The thing about therapy is that it really does get worse before it gets better. Diving into past experiences broke down walls that were built a long time ago and the burst of emotions that followed were difficult to process. I began experiencing  depersonalization, the feeling of being detached from one’s body, at an increasing frequency. The flashbacks got worse and the panic attacks were constant. The shy voice in my head got louder and angrier.

(Enter Japanese fashion)

It sounds so silly. The thought that Japanese street fashion brought a ray of hope in the darkness of my mental health seems almost ridiculous. How can a cute dress with its bell-shaped skirt and images of cakes and teacups push back thoughts of self-loathing? How can a collection of plastic hair clips arranged carefully on a pastel wig help quiet a nagging voice that threatens to remind me of all the painful memories bubbling somewhere in my consciousness? How can posting a picture of delicate finger sandwiches and pastries on Instagram dull the stinging edge of social anxiety? Many of us in the j-fashion community find ourselves pondering these questions without an answer. Finding those answers may be a journey and I am OK with that.

These past two years have seen desperation and darkness and they have seen self-love and self-care. The ebb and flow of opposing emotions is one with which many are familiar. In a society where mental health issues are demonized, I will not let my story become a deep pit that keeps me from doing what I love. I will not let my past be a thing of shame. Transparency is the key word. As I continue with this blog I hope to share my story. I hope to share the good days and the bad ones. I hope to incorporate j-fashion as a means to cope into my posts with plenty of event reviews and coordinate posts. Happy things will come of this blog and in the process I hope to break down the stigmatization of mental health within the world of j-fashion and maybe even beyond the community.

Stay strong and remember things can get better.

❤