In this month’s scripted episode, I attempt to explain my struggles during the long dark, and what I actively try to do about it.
To read along:
Media Pod Smash Episode #117:
Surviving The Long Dark
By: Jeremy Jordan
Section 1 – Introduction
The air outside stings. Just the thought of stepping one foot out there makes me want to just crawl underneath the floorboards and curl up into an extended hibernation. Besides, even if I wanted to step out there, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Someone just emptied a bag of bowling balls out onto my chest. I’m trapped on the mattress. Oh, wait a second. Upon closer inspection, it would appear that’s actually not the case. Why is it so hard to get up then?
“I’ll tell you why. It’s because deep down you know you’re just a failure and a fraud. That was a nice little experiment you had going there though. The quitting of the substances, trying to be a quote, unquote, better person. Why don’t you write your next essay about how you stayed up watching garbage YouTube Top 10 videos while eating a whole box of Better Cheddars? That sounds like a good one. Really man, who wants your inspirational pep talks? Where’s your credentials? I’ve got an idea; let’s just open the bottle and forget all this nonsense. The long dark is real simple to get through if you don’t feel much of any of it.”
Whoa. Haven’t heard that voice in a while. Hello old friend; winter approaching already?
I believe that most of us have a negative voice like this inside of our heads from time to time that can really get out of control if you allow it to. If you aren’t careful, you can even start to believe some really shitty things about yourself. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to just gain control and some people can have a difficult time turning the voice off or reconditioning it to be positive.
I’ve recently had a pretty good handle on mine. In early Spring of this year, I concocted a plan for 31 days of Halloween content. Once I finalized my list, it was just go, go, go! Nearly every weekend from Spring to October was filled with either recording, editing, or writing. I had a concrete goal to aim for and I was on a fucking roll. When Halloween finally arrived and the last video was uploaded, I leaned back in my chair to bask in it for a bit. It seemed overly ambitious at the start, but there I sat, the glow of the computer screen attacking my sleep deprived raccoon eyes and a list with 31 little check marks.
I had no idea what my next challenge would be. I figured I’d take a couple weeks to chill, then come up with some thoughts. Much to my surprise, it wouldn’t be a creative challenge that I’d be facing next. No, it was a much different battle.
If you’ve ever played Roller Coaster Tycoon games, odds are that somewhere along the line you said to yourself, “let’s see what happens if I launch a coaster without finishing the track”. You hit the test coaster button via the options menu, the coaster builds momentum, and wouldn’t you know it, the thing flies off the track and plummets into a fiery oblivion. The coaster is how this most recent and many other fall to winter transitions feel for me. Slow build of momentum, a pause at the top, a dive, and then suddenly, no more track. Perhaps this feels familiar to you as well.
When I start to feel really different, it’s often around the time change. It can vary from year to year but generally that’s the time I know I need to strap in. Luckily for you and I, we can get back on the track unlike those poor pixelated passengers. It won’t always be the easiest thing to do, but we can definitely survive the long dark. It doesn’t just have to be a matter of survival either. If we play our cards right, we can even thrive during it too.
When I was a child, I had no idea what seasonal depression was. Heck, I don’t think I really knew what everyday depression was either. Life was mostly just laughing, scoops of ice cream, sleepovers, and seasons just changing. I was extremely fortunate to have had a normal childhood free from significant trauma.
As I grew older and experienced more of life, things changed a bit. I finally understood what it felt like to enter into a valley. Some of the valleys that I entered were really easy to climb out of, while some seemed like there was no end in sight. At their deepest, it was most likely that winter was either approaching soon, or had already arrived.
With the combination of shitty weather for days and so much darkness, it is really no surprise that many people experience some pretty deep pits during this season. So what’s the solution? How can we take on the long dark head on and come out victorious? Well, you may not like this next bit as it’ll sound over simplistic at first, but you will win another season by simply embracing it. Diving right in.
To demonstrate what I mean, allow me to tell you a quick story about a sidewalk. A fun fact about me: I have a favorite sidewalk. Okay, that’s maybe not so much fun as it is weird and maybe even a little bit sad, but I digress. For the past six months or so, the sidewalk and street underwent some major work. Much of it was inaccessible throughout the spring and summer, forcing me to find a new walking route. It’s not like I wasn’t able to adapt or anything like that, but I just like that damn sidewalk. It was a big part of my routine and was an old familiar, comforting, constant force in my life.
The construction on the roads and sidewalk finally wrapped up toward the end of November, just in time for the annual visit from Santa at our town square. For me, the timing was perfect. The high from my Halloween project was long gone and I found myself entering into one of those valleys again. I remained consistent with putting podcast episodes up, but otherwise, things were kinda just blah. Though time off for Thanksgiving had helped, I still found myself starting to fall back into some old habits and losing focus. I knew that I needed to get my coaster back on the tracks. I mean, damn, we hadn’t even gotten into the real bad winter months yet.
The day of our town’s Santa visit and tree lighting festivities was a Saturday. That whole afternoon I had been rather inactive and it would have appeared that I’d be losing yet another weekend to the long dark, but I remembered the event. More importantly, I remembered the sidewalk. Almost as if a switch had been hit, I peeled myself out of my chair, bundled my ass up, and walked the full length of that glorious sidewalk.
The festivities were mostly wrapping up as I arrived, but the lights were a beautiful sight and an instant mood changer. After a bit of appreciation, I continued my route to the very end, where I grabbed a coffee from the local gas station and started to plot my journey back home. I dove right in and turned another run of the mill evening into something else.
You may be rolling your eyes at this point and thinking to yourself, “wow Jeremy, you went on a walk, what an accomplishment”. I understand that it’s not a big thing, but that’s the point. Sometimes all it takes to get back on track is a little thing. The difference between a day where you did absolute jack-shit and a day where you didn’t, is a little thing. If you find yourself in a slump, figure out what your version of the sidewalk is and dive in. Feel the cold air slap you across the face and keep walking anyway. You’re alive, damn it, and you’re not about to go down without a fight.
So that’s it. No need for more sections, essay over. Alright, not really though. For those of you who aren’t satisfied with just a simple tale about a sidewalk, I’ve got some other practical advice. Before we can go into that though, I think it’s important to look back at the past to learn what didn’t work.
Section 2 – How Not To Survive The Long Dark
Some of the worst seasonal valleys that I ever experienced in my life were in my early 20’s. For a little bit during that era, I thought that I had died and gone to an icy hell. Every morning in the winter was mental torture. I needed to get to work by five in the morning, so I’d set my alarm for four. I can count on one hand the number of times that I was actually out of bed at that first alarm. Most days I would just lay in disbelief. Had morning really come already, and do I really have to do this again? It’s so brutally cold outside and everything fucking sucks.
On my drives to work, I thought of nothing. I was just awake enough to get to work and clock in. Honestly, the work itself wasn’t bad. Not many customers were around at that point to bother me, and I always stayed busy unloading pallets. I wouldn’t have minded it so much if it weren’t for the fact that I never had any energy and my mental health was not doing so great.
Looking back on this now, I want to shake that past version of myself and scream, “dude, you don’t have to do this. Just do something else. It’s really that simple.” I knew I hated mornings and was totally unfulfilled from this job, but I suppose I didn’t yet have the tools I needed to realize that I could just walk away and find a different path.
My plan to survive the long dark back in those days was to have no plan at all. Well that and numbing myself. I drank and partied a lot. I was rarely foolish enough to drink the night before an early work day, but it did happen a couple times. As previously mentioned in one of my other essays, I didn’t believe that my drinking was ever out of control back then because that was just what people our age did. Live it up and get blasted. I won’t lie to you either, some of those weekends were a lot of fun. I have many cherished memories from the glory days of partying in college, but that doesn’t change the fact that it played a large role in sabotaging what could have been actual productive days.
The thing that brought me down the most was that even though I was trapped in a loop of negative patterns and feeling pity for myself, I actually did have dreams. The fact that I kept dreaming, but could never muster up the energy to start running after them would make me feel even more hopeless. It’s not like I didn’t try things either. I remember buying a lamp online that was supposed to simulate the sun rising and play subtle nature noises upon wake-up. It was a total bust that later became a running joke with one of my friends at the time. I tried sleep tracking apps, but without much discipline, those were a bust too.
As I think about it, I actually tried many different bizarre solutions and schemes. Anything but just looking at my situation a fixing some core things that were in desperate need of repair. Winter still would’ve been tough, but it didn’t have to be icy hell.
Eventually, I would go on to fix things. There was this quote I used to hear during motivational compilations that basically said, if you’ve got air in your lungs, you have the ability to change your circumstances. It meant nothing to me at the time, it was just another fluffy feel good quote. Now, that quote means everything to me. I know with all of my heart and soul that it’s 100% true. If you’re still here, it’s not too late. I learned what not to do from reflecting on my previous poor decision making. I’m at a point now where the winter months look nothing like they did back then. It’s almost as if that was a completely different person’s life whose memories where just uploaded to my brain via weird futuristic device. Don’t get me wrong, the bad days are still bad and the deep valleys sill exist, but now I have a set of skills and positive habits. I can battle through the long dark like never before.
In the next section I’m going to share some strategies that have really helped me. Every one of us is very different and there’s many things that work for some that don’t work for others. I’m never going to claim that any of these strategies I’m about to talk about are a cure all. I’m just some guy who has been on the really dark side of things and manged to find his way into the light somehow.
Section 3 – The Long Dark Survival Guide
Prior to my sidewalk stroll earlier in the month, I had found myself falling back into some nasty old habits. Going down insane internet rabbit holes until four in the morning, eating shitty food, and worst of all, skipping work-outs. When these things start to pile up and I let too many things go, the negative inner voice comes back. It sounds crazy, but taking the walk that evening really did help. I was able to build off of that and I have been doing much better so far. I was able to get back on track rather quickly. As for staying on the track, that brings us to the first tip.
Tip One: Forgive Yourself and Keep Moving Forward
You are inevitably going to hit some walls in life. Even if you’ve been killing it. Eating TB12 approved snacks, checking goals off the list, staying positive, you know, all that good shit. Some days you’ll wake up and just be in a pit for no good reason. Or maybe something terrible does happen so you have very good reason to suddenly fall into a pit. On these shitty days, you may think shitty things that certainly aren’t true. You may eat some shitty food while sticking to a piece of furniture, watching the same episode of your favorite comfort show. You may even say some shitty things that you don’t mean.
I did all of these things while I experienced the beginning of my seasonal funk but I will never dwell on them. It’s okay to stray from the path. It’s okay to fuck up sometimes. It doesn’t make you a bad person. I’ve found that sometimes I just need to tell myself, “dude, chill. It’s going to be alright.” You’ll never be able to climb out of the hole if you continue to make yourself feel worse for the things you did. That’s a bottomless pit with walls that are insanely hard to grip. Once you’ve forgiven yourself, it’s time to move forward. The past is the past and you’ve got breath in your lungs and shit to accomplish.
Tip Two: Find a Healthy Balance
A couple years ago, I created a new ritual for Saturday afternoons. Get ready for the day, collect my thoughts while listening to some ESPN background noise, and maybe play a couple rounds of a game. It’s hard to imagine a Saturday without those things now unless of course I have plans and need to be out of the house quickly. Sitting on your ass to start out your day can be a dangerous activity, but I’ve been able to find a healthy balance. I’ve made negotiations with myself. Your day doesn’t have to start out like you’ve been shot out of a cannon, but at a certain time you’re going to start running and then check some items off your list. The balance can be difficult to maintain at times, especially during the long dark. It’s so easy to sit there and veg out when it’s miserable out. For me it often helps to remind myself of the deal I’ve made and how good it feels to follow through with things. Not just that, but how good it feels to actually get up and move.
Tip Three: Get Up And Move!
Ever since I started to become more active in life, I feel like I’ve stumbled upon a secret weapon. One of the things that has helped me the most during the crappy winter months, is just simple exercise. One of the reasons I’m able to maintain a healthy balance is that I usually look forward to working out so it’s not very difficult to pull myself away from my morning ritual. A day with activity just feels like a day that’s easier to take on. Even on days when I really don’t feel like it, I’ve conditioned myself to at least just put the shoes on and try doing something. Odds are, the something turns into a lot more than I imagined. I’m already up and moving at this point, might as well keep going. For example, I may not feel like running on the treadmill on one particularly awful winter morning, but I can say to myself, “alright, you don’t have to run, just get on it at least and see what happens. Sometimes there are days when I don’t feel like it and I do give into those feelings. When that happens, it’s okay. I just consult Tip #1.
Tip Four: Find Fulfilling Activities
When I started getting my podcast back in order and getting on a regular posting schedule, I realized how much I missed doing creative things. Having hobbies, creative or otherwise, that bring you joy are super important. Having an outlet for some of the things that are on my mind and just generally expressing myself through various forms of media make me incredibly happy. Sometimes I can dive so deep into a project, I’ll forget that the winter is even happening. I don’t know what your fulfilling activity looks like. Maybe you like to draw, or write, or paint, I don’t know. Maybe you aren’t into the artsy stuff and just like to put data onto spreadsheets. I’d probably rather just let the long dark consume me if I had to do that, but everyone’s different. Just working on your “thing” for a small window of time during the day can make a large difference in how you may feel. And who knows, maybe your hobby can even turn into something more. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Tip Five: Appreciate The Little Things
I had some rather large struggles during the winter of 2020. Aside from the challenges that came with the pandemic, I faced the challenge of a first Christmas without my mother that year. It was very difficult to get into the holiday spirit when someone who had always been there, lighting up the room, ensuring that each year was magical, no matter what, would no longer be there. I guess that one of the things that helped me to cope was to make the 2020 Media Pod Smash Christmas Special. It was a nice distraction and a good excuse to do fun segments with my friends. For the uninformed, that project was a half-assed retelling of A Christmas Carol. At the end of the story, I come to realize an important lesson and wouldn’t you know it, that was based on something that I had actually come to realize in real life that year. I learned to appreciate the little things much greater than I had ever before. My awesome family and friends, my comfort shows, the sun on my face on a still day, my favorite sidewalk. It’s the little things that can save us and get us back on track. When you find yourself really struggling, try to remember the little things.
Tip Six: Do Practical Things
People don’t often want to hear this because most of the time we all already know. We know exactly what practical things we can do to make our lives easier and we know how to do them as well. So when someone like me writes stuff like remember to take Vitamin D, stay hydrated, keep a positive mindset, maybe get a sun lap, reach out to friends, and so on, people generally aren’t all that thrilled. I’m sorry if you are not thrilled about this tip, but it doesn’t make it any less important to remember.
Tip Seven: Hang On Tight
When nothing seems to be going right and it would appear that the day has been a complete wash, sometimes all you can do is just hang on tight. Know that tomorrow will come and you can try again. It may seem like it isn’t coming, but it is. Hold on and know that you will be okay.
And that takes us to the end of my mini survival guide. There’s much more than that, however, I feel those tips are a great start. This may shock you, but I am not a medical professional. If you are really experiencing a mental struggle, there is no shame is seeking out a professional for help. Life throws a lot of shit at us and it’s okay to ask for help.
Section 4 – The Wrap Up
Today’s inspirational person of the month is Marty Rogers. Marty, who has lived in the Bronx his whole life, helped start a Thanksgiving dinner at his local church. The event has been running strong for 44 years and throughout that time Marty has involved his family and gotten to interact with some wonderful people. He also started a food delivery program called “Hope Walks”. Marty is a great example of what it means to give selflessly and support a community.
The homework last month was all about gratitude. With some of the not so great things that have gone down recently, it’s more important than ever to practice gratitude. It may not always seem like it, but there is plenty to be thankful for.
This month the homework is all about the long dark of course. If you struggle with the season, dive right in. Try to implement one of the tips or come up with some strategies on your own if you aren’t so crazy about mine. Just remember, the cold wind will more than likely slap us across the face this season, but if we remember to stick to the plan and not go down without a fight, we may just survive.
Media Pod Smash off!
-Jeremy
Media Pod Smash! 