by Tim Ryan n Wolf River Media

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When the topic was chosen several months ago fro this week’s annual women’s retreat at Zion Lutheran Church in Shawano organizers had no idea just how appropriate the subject would be.

“I asked them what they would like me to speak on,” said parish nurse Patsey Robertson, who had been asked to give a presentation as part of her wellness education duties.

The subject they chose was beating the winter blues.

“This was a couple of moths ago,” Robertson said. “This was several inches of snow back. They didn’t realize it was going to be the winter of our discontent.”

Since then, the area has seen near record amounts of snow. But it isn’t just the amount of snowfall that’s above average this year. So too is the number of people seeking help in dealing with winter’s emotional fallout.

“We’ve definitely had higher numbers for emergency mental health services, more crisis calls, more people feeling depressed and having a difficult time coping,” said Kelly Bueschel, short-term mental health services manager at Shawano County’s Department of Community Programs.

The same thing is being seen elsewhere in the state.

“We’ve had more admissions in our psychiatric unit, as well as more psychiatric consults in our general psychiatric units with things being as dark and dreary as they have been,” said Jerry Halverson, UW-Madison Health Psychiatrist and medical director of one of the inpatient units at the university’s psychiatry department.

“This has been a really bad couple of moths as far as the level of psychiatric stuff that we’re seeing,” Halverson said.

Mental health professionals see this type of thing every year.

Shorter days and less sunlight trigger an affliction in many people known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). But this winter season, with consistently icy temperatures and chronic snowfall seems to be worse than normal.

“We had more inpatient days in January then we has last year,” Bueschel said. “It was a really high month for us. Usually January peaks pretty high up through April when we start to have sprint time again.

The winter season also tends to exacerbate problems for those in need of AODA (Alcohol or Drug Abuse) treatment. “It goes pretty hang in hang,” Bueschel said. “We see a spike in both this time of year, more people needing detox services, more people looking for out-patient services for AODA counseling. “The winter season can also worsen some of the health problems people experience the rest of the year.

“We’re also seeing a lot of the general medical conditions that are exacerbated by the depression and the anxiety that this can cause,” Halverson said.

“Oftentimes people express their depression in different ways; chest pain, abdominal pain. Most common is worsening of chronic pain or abdominal pain.”

Not everyone who gets depressed this time of year can be clinically diagnosed with SAD.

“There’s a difference between being just sick of the snow and actually having depressive disorder,” Halverson said.

For some, it’s just the bleak monotony of the post Christmas, winter blues.

“We typically see this when the holidays are done and you just have winter,” Bueschel said. “And this year has been a very hard winter.”

“It’s very cold. And people who are economically strapped may have difficulties with their heating bills. You have to get out there to shovel every day and not all of us have a snow blower.”

Halverson said winter stress seems to be as prevalent this year as clinical depression.

“I think everyone is just sick of it,” he said. “We all live here so we all have a tolerance for it, but this has gone so far over. And then things that normally wouldn’t bother you n when you’ve already kind of had enough n start to bother you. People have had enough and they’re kind of irritable.”

Adding to the problem, many people aren’t getting enough sleep.

“They’re sleeping less because they’ve got to get up extra early to shovel before they go, and it’s tiring,” Halverson said. “It’s tiring and it just feels like you’re not getting ahead.”

One consequence of such feelings is sometimes displays of anger, which Halverson said is often seen as more socially acceptable than admitting to depression.

“Anger is another way to express depression or irritability,” he said. “People are more likely to say, ‘I’m mad at you,’ than, ‘I’m depressed.’ It’s more acceptable to say that. When people do not deal with their depression, it comes out in ways oftentimes they don’t want or don’t expect. Being irritable, snapping at people is certainly an example of that.”

One of the things Robertson plans to talk about at the retreat this week is recognizing the signs and symptoms of whether someone is suffering from garden-variety cabin fever or actually ahs a winter-related clinical depression.

Robertson said many people don’t seek treatment for depression because there is still a stigma attached to it in our society.

“It’s as real an illness as a heart condition and as treatable an illness as a heart condition,” she said.

Whether it is clinical depression or cabin fever, professionals say one of the best treatments is simply getting out in the sunlight and being as active as possible.

Robertson also suggests cutting back on behavior that will only worsen our winter blues.

“In the winter time our body seems to naturally crave carbohydrates,” she said. “We eat a lot of those and combine that with sort of sitting and that’s not healthy for us either.”

It also helps to have a sense of humor.

“There’s not much we can do about the snow machine,” she said.

Robertson also noted some of her older clients in the congregation have a little different perspective on what seems to most people to be a particularly rough winter.

“They tell me this is just a more normal winter for what they remember growing up,” she said. “We have been maybe a little spoiled in the last few years that we haven’t gotten as much snow.”

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