Understanding and Combating S.A.D.

Know the signs.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), commonly called ‘Winter Blues’, is a type of depression which most commonly manifests itself during the fall and winter months. Understanding the causes and signs of SAD is important to avoiding falling into depression during the cold winter months ahead.

Mental Health at NU

This wasn’t supposed to be a “reaction article.”

This was supposed to be encouragement to those suffering to get help, an attempt at reviewing resources, a guide for friends of sufferers and a plea to take care of each other. It’s been drafted and re-edited by countless sources for months now. It wasn’t supposed to be immediately relevant.

A Reflection On Loss And Community

This is not an article I would ever want to write. It is not an article anyone would want to read. It’s not an article this blog would ever want to publish.

Northwestern, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down

There’s something wrong with me. My stomach has been knotted up like a garden hose and I don’t know why. Why isn’t my brother jumping out from behind the bushes and letting the hose go and spraying me. Why is it still in knots. I’m only five years old.

It’s 9:37 pm on a Friday night. I just got out of the shower and am sitting on my bed, half dressed, for a party I don’t know if I am going to. I check my phone. Nothing. I text my friend, “When are you coming over?” Nothing. No worry, no worry, I’m sure she’s just busy. I watch an episode of The Office. I think about ordering pizza. Check the time, it’s now 10:40. Getting late. She is obviously blowing me off, right? I try to make other plans, send a few trepidatious texts out into the chummy water. Do I want to meet someone at a frat party of course not. It’s October, and cold, and at least a 25 minute walk, and I will hate all of the people there. Do I want to come over and watch a movie and drink wine of course not. It’s a Friday night, I’m 21, I should be out at a party. Crawl into bed, still wearing a skirt and no shirt for the maybe party that I’m maybe going to. My hair is drying into a frizz ball, I don’t notice. My friends don’t notice me. They hate me. Everyone hates me. It’s 11:25 pm before I hear from my friend. “Sorry I was downtown I’m on my way what’s the address meet you there” end text message. By this point I’m already halfway through my Sarpinos order. I finish and curl up inside myself on my bed, feeling atrocious. I deserve this, I had it coming, it’s all my fault. Do I want to be at home alone on a friday night of course not. But I can’t make myself go outside either and there is no one here to push me out the door and hold my hand. I am alone.

In Defense of Self-Medication: An Attempt to Cure Winter Quarter Depression

Then again, I’d be depressed if I had to wear that cardigan.

Seasonal affect disorder is a thing. A REAL thing. I mean, the acronym is literally SAD so the shrinks who came up with it were either fucking with us or spent a half hour with a Northwestern student (read: me) and realized Googling “teach me how to be happy” and “people having a worse day than me” on a semi-regular basis are grounds to be concerned about mental stability. And this SADdness infiltrates your life in every way until the only thing saving you from full-blown depression is the knowledge that a repeat of House Hunters might be on later and that maybe the couple will be beautiful and loaded.

The Summer After Graduation: The Five Stages of Real-Life Grief

Porn: No longer acceptable on the same computer you use for work.

College is a wonderful time. In fact, you will never ever have as much fun for the rest of your life. Ever. And the moment that you arrive home after commencement, this realization hits you harder than Anthony Battle hits offensive linemen. But fear not current seniors (and everyone else, because it all ends so quickly!), for I have emerged from the other side of post-college mourning, and am here to share my experiences, so that when the time comes YOU will be prepared!

Super Tuesday Predictions

Wolf Blitzer can't stop trimming his beard in anticipation.

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The closest thing we’ve got to a national primary. The kind of day Karl Rove and George Stephanopoulos have wet dreams about. The moment we finally find out just how ambivalent Americans feel about Mitt Romney. It’s Super Tuesday! Follow our state-by-state guide for a comprehensive examination of how these 10 states will select their 2012 Republican nominee.

OHIO
I’ll be honest. Most of my knowledge regarding the state of Ohio comes from either Bristol Bacchus or Cleveland jokes. But if this state thought that it would be a good idea to induct the Beastie Boys and Neil Diamond into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, then I’m not sure how well I can trust the judgment of its citizens. The race between Santorum and Romney might be more unpredictable than a LeBron James televised announcement, but I think Romney pulls ahead after he is quoted at a campaign stop admitting that, like LeBron, he’s working on an autobiography but just can’t come up with a title.

GEORGIA
At the time of me writing this post, the New York Times has already called Georgia in favor of Gingrich with less than 1% of the polls reporting. Which is a relief, as it saves me the time of having to come up with jokes about Sherman’s March to the Sea, Coca-Cola, peaches, or how the 76 delegates up for grabs seems like a remarkably similar figure to what I assume the ex-Congressman’s BMI looks like.

OMG guyzzz y doesnt nybody lyke me??!?

TENNESSEE
Just once I want to see Mitt down a fifth of Jack, stumble through the electric slide at a Nashville honky tonk, drunk dial Tipper Gore, and finish the night sobbing outside of Graceland. I think if he can pull all four off before the polls close, he might have a fighting chance is stealing this Southern state from Gingrich. At least as much of a fighting chance as Johnston and Beauregard had at the Battle of Shiloh.

ALASKA
After ringing endorsements from Balto and Jewel, Ron Paul carries the Alaska primary by appealing to voters’ enthusiasm for legalized weed to help get through the winter and increase appreciation for the Northern Lights. Rumors abound that Gingrich promised to “drill baby drill” Sarah Palin if he was victorious, but are dismissed by Newt as a smear campaign invented by the devious liberal media hell-bent on distracting the American people from the real issues at stake in this election.

MASSACHUSETTS
In a surprise upset, Governor Romney arrives in a time machine from 2003 to defeat the current conservative incarnation of Mitt. The 2003 Romney also extols on the virtues of comprehensive health care, the success of the invasion of Iraq, and the musical brilliance of Evanescence.

IDAHO
What’s bland, white, and favored by many Irish Catholics? The Republican Party! Also, potatoes. Seeing that Idaho has a lot of both, I predict that a bland white Republican will win the Idaho caucus. Or maybe just a really fat potato dressed in a suit that many voters mistake for Newt Gingrich.

NORTH DAKOTA
North Dakota sucks so much, it’s developed an inferiority complex towards its neighbor to the South whose main claims to fame include a palace made of corn and a brief cameo appearance in North by Northwest. The state’s main exports are natural gas, lonesome prairie wind, tumbleweed, and depression. Even the nuclear missile silos left as soon as humanly possible. Like my seventh-grade self at the middle school dance, North Dakota’s willing to devote itself entirely to the first poor soul who shows it a shred of interest. All Romney has to do is show up and call North Dakota within the next three days to seal the deal.*

Pyrotechnics would really bolster his campaign stops

OKLAHOMA
The official rock song of Oklahoma is “Do You Realize??” by The Flaming Lips, which is pretty awesome until you imagine every citizen in the state singing “Everyone you know one day will die!,” and that the closest competition to The Flaming Lips for this prestigious title was the All-American Rejects’ “Move Along.” This, along with the fact that Oklahomans couldn’t come up with anything more original for their actual state song than fucking Rodgers and Hammerstein means that this state is bound to go for Ron Paul.

VERMONT
So long as the citizens of Vermont can find enough time to vote in between their busy schedule of wearing flannel, tapping for maple syrup, and not showering, I bet they go with the pride and joy of the Northeast, Scott Brown.

VIRGINIA
Considering Rick Santorum’s penchant for desperately holding on to socially conservative values that went out of vogue in the 1960s, the former Senator’s statement that Chief Justice Warren’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia “makes me want to spew some sort of vile amalgamation of vomit, semen, feces, and bile out of every orifice possible,” provides the essential vitriol necessary to win this key swing state despite not even making it on the ballot.

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*Imagine, if you will, the charming Mitt Romney sauntering up to North Dakota, standing in the corner looking forlornly at all the cool kids being courted by swarthy Super PACs, and asking it to slow dance with him while Jessica Simpson’s “Take My Breath Away” plays in the background. I bet North Dakota would immediately take Romney home to Fargo and let him frack her all night.