{"id":3859,"date":"2010-02-19T22:31:40","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T20:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=3859"},"modified":"2010-02-20T15:19:04","modified_gmt":"2010-02-20T13:19:04","slug":"kicking-winters-ass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/3859","title":{"rendered":"Kicking Winter’s Ass"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"outsidedec04\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the years I\u2019ve had a lot of issues with seasonal depression<\/a>.\u00a0 Not something I\u2019ve ever suffered from in Canada, but it hit me quick and hard here in the Netherlands.\u00a0\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t expecting it but it happened, and it continued to happen for the past 10 years.\u00a0 Granted, for the first half of that time I was often quite depressed during the rest of the year as well, but it always got much worse during the winter.<\/p>\n

Each year I\u2019d fall head over heels in love with autumn<\/a> but at the same time I\u2019d be dreading the winter.\u00a0 Cold, dark, dreary, wet\u2026 those were the things that would come to mind.\u00a0 My desire to stay indoors would be stronger than ever.\u00a0 I\u2019d often lose touch with the people I made the attempts to be friends with over the summer, and no matter what strides I\u2019d made over the sunny months I\u2019d end up hating the Netherlands fiercely.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d look out the window and see what you see in the photo above.\u00a0 I took that in January of 1996 at lunch time.\u00a0 Weather like this can really take it\u2019s toll after a month or two.\u00a0 It\u2019s not bright enough to be a lovely daytime, not dark enough to be a cosy night time feel.\u00a0 Just dreary.<\/p>\n

There were also other things playing a role in how I felt.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t just feel bad about the weather and being away from my family, but I felt bad about myself too.\u00a0 I hated a lot of things about my personality, I hated that as each winter came around I was getting fatter and fatter, and I hated that I was one of those people who complained about all those things and did nothing about them.\u00a0 I was a victim.\u00a0 I allowed<\/em> myself to be a victim.<\/p>\n

Some years were better than others, but there always came a point where I crashed and when I did, I crashed hard.\u00a0 Each time it happened it chipped a little more away at me, making me feel like a failure and a loser who couldn\u2019t seem to cope. Which made it even more difficult the following year.<\/p>\n

This year I knew I had to do things differently.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t wait for it to magically change, and if anything was going to change it had to be within me.\u00a0 I decided I wasn\u2019t going to be a victim of myself anymore and created a different path for going into winter.\u00a0 I knew I was going to have to work hard to get through it<\/a> and for the first time realized that I do have some control over it.\u00a0 Even though I always thought I was trying, I wasn\u2019t really\u2026 and the winter always won.<\/p>\n

This year\u2026 I was determined to make winter my bitch.<\/p>\n

I had already started losing weight, something I\u2019ve attempted many other winters, but this time around I took steps to make sure I didn\u2019t quit.<\/p>\n