The Truth About Seasonal Affective Disorder

By Alex San Diego

July 24, 2025

DepressionMental HealthMental Health MukbangMy Asian Mental HealthResourcesSupportTherapists

The days between Thanksgiving and the New Year can be a dizzying haze. Outside your window, you see lights wrap around decorated houses, their brightness compensating for an early setting sun. It reminds you of home, where savoury and sweet scents saturate the air from early afternoon until late in the night—hot chocolate, fresh rice, aunty’s curry, and whatever everyone is bringing for the family party. Any other time of the year you would jump at the opportunity to visit family, but you feel a weight press against your chest. You feel dread as you stare at the gifts and money packets you prepared for all your nieces and nephews. An uninviting winter chill penetrates your bones. You can’t get out of bed. Everything feels like an attack to your senses. You ignore your parents’ calls.

As an Asian living in the US, it can be difficult to take the impact of these experiences seriously. If you were brought up in a culture that stigmatizes mental health and prioritizes stoicism, it might seem silly to not be able to get over things so inconsequential. You think: it’s probably the winter blues or stress. But it might be something else you’ve heard others talk about: Seasonal Affective Disorder.

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