There ain't no cure for the summertime blues
Clare Allan
Wednesday June 06 2007
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jun/06/socialcare.comment
This is the time of year when people start raising their expectations. Weekend
picnics are planned in the park, and tables appear outside cafes. Bare legs,
flip-flops, strappy tops, music blaring from open windows, "Hey, you! Smile!
It's summer!" This is the time of year I brace myself.
In the UK, of course, experience has taught us not to expect too much. Just as
we weren't supposed to get the Olympics or a decent millennium firework display,
we fully expect our summers to be rained off. When they're not - and, let's face
it, they're increasingly not - the pressure to "make the most of it" becomes
almost a moral imperative. "Sitting inside on a day like today? You must be mad!
What a waste!"
The temperature charts in newspapers receive the sort of scrutiny normally
employed by investors scouring the FTSE 100. "We were hotter than Malaga
yesterday! That's where the neighbours have gone. Imagine! Wouldn't you be
gutted!" You present an alternative view at your peril; dissent is a threat to
us all. Like favoured children, we live in fear that, should we not show
ourselves suitably grateful, the sun will desert us and head off to Spain or the
south of France or Sicily, or some place where they'll appreciate it properly.
Oh, I don't doubt summer is all very well in its way. I suppose it must save on
the heating bills, you get a good dose of vitamin D, and the winter depressives
sigh with relief - again and again and again and again, loudly.
"But what about summer depressives?" you scream - or I do. "What about me?" I'll
admit that until five minutes ago I didn't know I existed. Such is the
self-absorbed nature of depression that it never once occurred to me there might
be another being on the planet who struggles through summer as I do. But,
according to an article in the New York Times, summer depression is, in America
at least, a recognised disorder. Of course, this doesn't actually mean much more
than that somebody somewhere is marketing something that claims to cure you of
it, but none the less I find the knowledge oddly reassuring.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is well recognised, at least in terms of
winter depression. Lamps are widely available, and "winter blues", though
varying greatly in degree, are an accepted fact of life. But one of the worst
things with summer depression is that sense of being out of sync. Not liking
summer is like crying at a party - it simply isn't done. Depression is almost a
criminal offence, and I don't doubt it will soon become one, with police
afforded special powers to stop you and check if you're looking happy enough.
According to the New York Times, around 5% of adult Americans suffer from winter
SAD and less than 1% its summer variant. Of course, much of the US is hotter
than here - if that makes any difference, which it seems to - but even if levels
in the UK are just a quarter of those across the Atlantic, that still leaves
12,500 people enduring their various levels of summer hell. So where are they
all? If they're like me, they're hiding indoors.It is generally thought that winter depression is linked to levels of melatonin
and brought on by absence of light - hence the sun lamps. But summer depression
is less well understood. The question of whether it's too much heat or too much
light has yet to be resolved. A study conducted by Thomas Wehr, of the National
Institute for Mental Health in the US, involved cooling patients down by using a
sort of reverse thermal blanket. When they went back outside into the sun, the
symptoms of their depression returned.
I don't have much to contribute to the heat versus light debate. For me, it's
more a question of surviving the symptoms. Come spring, I'm already starting to
panic, and I never truly breathe easy until the autumn. It's a feeling of being
at once trapped and exposed, of having nowhere to hide.
My tips for making it through the summer are a sort of tragicomic reversal of
the strategies others employ in wintertime: take a break to somewhere cool.
Buenos Aires is good right now, only 4C, but if you can't manage that, at least
take a look through those temperature charts and dream.
· Clare Allan is a writer and novelist
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