sad survey says.....

Lately I've been completely drained of my normal energy level. I get home from work and I'm zapped for the rest of the evening. Then I read an article the other day about something called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder. Some doctors are recommending that their patients get "light therapy" to combat the malady. I did some research to learn more about the illness and to see if I've got it. My comments are in parentheses:

What is SAD? Seasonal Affective Disorder is a type of winter depression which affects millions of people every winter between September and April, in particular during December, January and February. SAD is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus due to the shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight in winter. For many people SAD is a seriously disabling illness, preventing them from functioning normally without continuous medical treatment. For others, it is a milder condition, causing discomfort, referred to as sub-syndromal SAD or winter blues. There is also a rare reverse form of SAD, known as summer SAD, where symptoms occur each summer and remit in winter.
Symptoms
a desire to oversleep and difficulty staying awake, but in some cases, disturbed sleep and early morning wakening; (yep, I want to sleep; as for early morning awakening, is there anything earlier than 5:25 a.m.?)
feeling fatigue and an inability to carry out normal routine; (fatigued, yes; normal routine? I live with three women, there's no such thing as "normal")
a craving for carbohydrates and sweet foods, usually resulting in weight gain; (that's a symptom of this? really?)
feelings of misery, guilt and loss of self-esteem, sometimes hopelessness and despair, sometimes apathy and loss of feelings; (could be, but I really don't care)
an irritability and desire to avoid social contact; (leave me alone, stop accusing me of this stuff!!!!)
a tension and inability to tolerate stress; (we're out of peanut butter again? great, just great!)
a decreased interest "physical contact"; (what am I, dead? please.....)
and in some sufferers, extremes of mood and short periods of hypomania (overactivity) in spring and autumn (just watching a UT game will do that to me).

So it turns out that I don't have SAD. I have no doubt that there are people who truly suffer from this illness, but I'm not one of them. I just need some more daylight time outside. Maybe I'll go get some light therapy, just in case. I wonder if my insurance will pay for that.....