A lot of us take issue with winter for a host of reasons. The cold, the smog, the snow on the ground and the nasty, bitter commutes to work where the heat doesn’t work until the car is parked all tend to lead to ominous and grim assumptions. And then one hears the phrase “seasonal depression” and thinks that gloomy introspection suddenly has a cause.
Rachel Crane, an adviser at Student Health Services, said, “We tend to see more students come in reporting depression,” during winter months, but, she said, “it doesn’t mean they’re diagnosed for it.”
Students at the U, according to a 2006 study by the National College Health Assessment, report a 15.2 percent rate of depressive tendencies, about the national average for students. Depression, which is notoriously difficult to define, is a mental disorder characterized by a prolonged lack of energy and interest as well as a low mood. The age of onset for most depressive disorders is 15 to 19, and coupled with the often roller coaster-esque lives of college students, there is little wonder that the confluence of all these factors leads many people to feel down. Winter, for some, seems to be adding another weight.
Aaron Garner, a representative of the Depression and Bipolar Alliance Support Group in Salt Lake City, said depression is a relatively constant phenomenon and that any concerns of winter making it more manifest are wrong.
“Dreary weather affects people with depression the same as normal people,” Garner said. All the same, many people think otherwise.
If more people are reporting depression during the winter but the weather is typically not a cause, what’s going on? Maybe people are blaming the weather for other reasons. Undoubtedly depression has it causes, but the world we live in bleeding into our consciousness isn’t one of them. The symptoms of depression, such as a desire to be alone, a lack of concentration and a sense of hopelessness, become more pronounced when we’re forced to spend our time indoors, often by ourselves. If innovation is the son of necessity, introspection is the spawn of loneliness.
To students experiencing depression: by all means seek help. Student Health Services is as good as any place to start. But this winter, if you start to think the cold and the snow have caused how you feel, consider that there could be other options. After all, it’s easy to blame the weather.
Aaron Shaddy