Retail therapy (literally)

[geekchick]

Those of you who are tired of listening to me whine about my SAD-related brokenness will be pleased to hear that I found a decently-priced lightbox and it will be on my doorstep tomorrow, thanks to the magic of Amazon Prime. Now I just hope that it actually works.

Comments

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's a damn good price on that. *is tempted*

I really believe more people either suffer from SAD, or suffer from seasonal worsening of existing mood disorders (my friend phinnia linked me to this sad, but ultimately good, article re: the latter case), than are willing to admit it -- simply because of this cultural meme where the sufferer herself often sees a mood disorder as some sort of glaring personal failure. Well, no. If you take a look at US winners of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes for literature, just for example, during the 20th century, you get astounding rates of bipolar disorder, suicide, alcoholism, etc. -- in the cases of Anne Sexton and John Berryman, the trifecta.

Go look in the mirror. See that person? She deserves her RDA of light. Repeat, deserves. Light on, apply directly to retina... and enjoy.

[geekchick]

laurel posted today about a really good price ($76 and free shipping) on a handheld unit too; I think I saw it and thought it was one of the blue lights, so I skipped over it. (The product description I didn't read specifically says it's white LEDs.) It seems like it would be good for hauling back and forth between home and the office though.

Heh. I read phinnia's post and my first thought was "Oooh, I could make more cookies! Good idea!" Which, yeah, I don't think was what I was meant to take away from the article. XD

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe not 106 varieties in six weeks, no. (Now my OCD side wants to email the writer of that article, demanding to know which of the recipes she got through and which subset of those were just too much damn trouble, like the fudge-y ones she mentioned.)

I can't remember whether phinnia is using a lightbox for herself, or for her autistic son, or whether it's a completely different friend, kibbles, who is using one for her autism-spectrum son -- but that's apparently the new wave in using such boxen, and from what I hear, results are weirdly good.

Trivia: At one point, when I was still living in DC, my then-shrink, who tried to get me to buy a $300 model from some gang in Gaithersburg (from whom I'm fairly sure she got kickbacks), was Dr. Susan J. Fiester -- the same one whose testimony won the acquittal of Lorena Bobbitt. For some reason, when I tell men this, it makes them slightly nervous. :D