Finals season is in full swing…and seasonal depression is also in full swing. What does this mean for such demanding aspects of life?
Testing anxiety, losing sleep to study, being completely drained from studying and taking finals, this time of year is filled with all of the above. Seasonal depression presents itself in a lot of similar ways that taking finals does for thousands of students. Last year, I began experiencing seasonal depression as a freshman in college. I have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder since I was in middle school, so I was used to this lingering feeling of depression. I actually suffered from reverse SAD (seasonal affective disorder), which is when an individual gets depressed in the spring and summer rather than the winter and fall. Experiencing seasonal depression during the winter last year was very different for me. It felt similar, just a lot colder outside than when I usually find myself in pits of depression. I was losing sleep, anxious constantly, no motivation to do anything, always skipping my classes, and sleeping all day.
I confided often in my girlfriend and she was always so helpful with getting me to go to class, helping me sleep, and eventually, getting me to look into psychiatry and counseling. I was in the counseling center on campus and I was able to talk to a professional about what I was experiencing. I then looked into TimelyCare and got connected with a psychiatrist who worked with me to find a treatment plan that worked for me.
During all of these emotions, I was trying to balance my finals. As a freshman, finals season is such a stressful thing because it’s your first time doing finals and trying to find study methods that work for you. I was having to adjust my schedule because my finals weren’t scheduled at my normal class times, which meant even more change was occurring at that point in my life. I physically could not bring myself to study which made things even harder and gave me so much more anxiety about my grades. I had to reward myself for sitting down to study and to type my finals in classes that required a paper.
Through this time, I found that rewarding myself for accomplishments worked best for me. Whether that was watching a movie with my girlfriend that night or going to Target, I had to have something to look forward to. I also surrounded myself with people that were uplifting me during that time and the friends that could understand what I was going through. I voiced that I was struggling, and all of the right people made me feel safe in sharing my struggles. I pushed through finals week and I thought that maybe these emotions would simmer down because I had so much stress taken off my shoulders. This was actually not what happened, and I had to really dig deep to find what was going on.
I spent sleepless nights playing UNO with my girlfriend because it was the only thing that calmed me down. I would eat popsicles at 2am because I had just gotten done having a panic attack and sobbing in my girlfriend’s arms for an hour. I was terrified to go in public because I always felt like I was going to cry. Once, my girlfriend and I were in an Uber on the way back from Target, and she had told me that this feeling is temporary and it will go away, I just have to be patient with myself. As simple as those words are, it completely changed my outlook on what I was going through. The days became less miserable to get through, and I constantly reminded myself that the feeling was temporary.
Winter break came around and I decided to get the word “temporary” tattooed on my arm. That one word got me through one of the worst pits of depression and anxiety I had been in since getting diagnosed in middle school. Knowing and affirming yourself every day that those negative feelings are temporary as well as finals season being temporary goes such a long way. You just have to believe and trust that those things will make their way out just as they came in because that is how everything goes in life. Be patient with those feelings and take time to do self care during such a hard season. Good luck on finals, take care of yourself, grades are just grades, and you are capable of doing and feeling hard things!