March Hare or Cruellest Month. Spring – Joy or Depression

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It’s Spring.  The chestnut sellers have gone and the world seems re-born.  Stuff’s growing.  Days are longer.  There’s real warmth in the air.  Even on the snowy days we’ve had the air was fresh and clear and sunny.  Birds are doing crazy dances and singing love songs to one another.  Callooh! Callay!  I hear you say.   Well – most of you.

For you Spring lovers, drink it up!  Take time every day to notice with each of your five senses.  LOOK at the emerging blossom and the blooming Camelias.  Listen to the birds – how DO such tiny things sing that loudly?  Feel the fresh warming air on your skin.  Smell and taste the newness.  Surely THIS is the time for goal setting and resolutions.  Be inspired.  Come and see me if you want some help.

But for others it’s not like that – at all

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers. *

For many, Spring’s hope and newness only serves to contrast with the darkness, apathy and lack of motivation of depression.  Low self-worth means that the skippyness and Easter Egg hunts and general uplift is for others.  Plus the gap between what Spring is for someone who’s depressed and what it seems to be for everyone else is even wider than the gap between depressed and non-depressed life seems usually.

Even for those with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) who, others may think would welcome longer lighter days and sunshine, Spring is a bully – a call from the cold but now familiar arms of Winter when energy just isn’t there and all courage to try something new is frozen.

Then, on another tack, the misery for some people of particular allergies returns with Spring.

If you find there’s no Spring in your or someone you know’s step, you or they are welcome to come and see me.  This can be a very difficult time of the year but also a time to see potential and realise new starts and beginnings

I wish you the best of Springs.

Suzanne

*From The Waste Land
By T>S> Elliot

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