I have to start this blog with the only thing that keeps me going. I've always struggled with dark thoughts. I'm beyond pessimistic. I've never been diagnosed with severe anxiety, depression or even bipolar disorders. It might have done a difference if I had, back in the days, when things could still have been "corrected" somehow. After an extreme loss of weight when I was 18 I spent a year going in and out of hospitals, with what they thought back then was anorexia. It was a much, much bigger picture unfortunately, and the food issue was nothing but the tip of the iceberg. I saw a psychiatrist a couple of times but it didn't help whatsoever. I eventually got back to a normal weight, by my own means, when I moved down to the sunny South, by myself.
And it's the sunny South that offered me most of my happy days. Being in the sun, in the garden, walking for hours through the hills... And a few years later, I started to take pictures of nature. And I've ended up growing my own food. The ultimate relief.
Life is quite bearable in summer. I need the long days and the warm temperatures. I need the light, more than anything. I sometimes say that I'm solar powered. I just can't function without high doses of sunlight.
When "the dark cloud" takes over my mind, the only fix that works is to spend time outside, in the sun, with the birds and the trees.
A rainy day might end up in a panic attack. Snow makes me claustrophobic and also gives me panic attacks. Cold weather makes me shut down at 4 PM and petrifies me literally. Winter is nothing but misery. Even here, in Southern France. I sometimes look at the map wondering if it would be better in Sicily. Italy has always been home, after all...
Some could say it's a detail, it's luxury. Well, I can lend you my body, see how it feels, then we'll talk. The thing is, we don't have the same physiology. Not the same needs. Would you grow pineapples in Norway? Rhubarb in Andalucia? Not if you have a brain and a rough idea of what Nature is. And we're part of the natural world, want it or not.
I always wonder how you, people, can survive in those horrendous cities, surrounded by grey concrete, under black skies. Commuting, sitting in offices all day until the WE and then doing it again, week after week...
I definitely could not.