How to cope with seasonal depression through another pandemic winter

Every winter is a bit of a struggle for Chris van Ouwerkerk. It has been that way for a long time.

The 35-year-old lawyer and one-time candidate to the provincial legislature says he's suffered from bouts of depression during the season for most of his adult life.

But he did not realize how serious the issue was until tragedy struck his family on November 2009.

"I could tell that every winter season, I'd start to get a little bit down. Things would feel different," said van Ouwerkerk.

"But it never really was a struggle until probably about 12 years ago, when I lost my older brother, and the floodgates kind of opened."

Van Ouwerkerk's brother, Tyler, also struggled with his own mental health issues. Chris van Ouwerkerk said some of them were related to difficulties he went through after he came out as gay.

Tyler van Ouwerkerk's death due to an accidental opioid overdose affected his brother immensely.

"The next five to seven years were really rough," Chris van Ouwerkerk said. "I definitely wasn't in a great headspace for most winters during that time."

Though the pain from his brother's death was a big part of his depression, van Ouwekerk slowly began to realize there was something else to it besides pure grief.

"I was able to look back before I had lost my brother and realize that, you know, I did have those feelings. I did have those kind of thoughts and symptoms that that would be associated with seasonal affectiveness," he said.

"I was suffering from depression, from the situation of losing my brother. But it also opened up this kind of awareness."

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), formally known as major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern, is a type of depressive disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of depression in late fall or winter.

Van Ouwerkerk said he was first diagnosed with situational depression around 2010, and that it was heavily suggested it was either SAD or made worse by SAD.

SAD is only one type of mental health issue that presents itself as the year winds down. With COVID-19, mental health experts say some of these issues could be much worse this holiday season.