The September Slide

Every September, darkness descends on me. I’m generally not a person who suffers from depression (anxiety tends to be my mental health issue of choice), but for as long as I can remember, I notice the world looks a lot more somber when fall begins. This September has been no different. Limited social contact for the past six months, navigating full-day virtual teaching, and the fact that the world is literally and figuratively burning down around us have been weighing heavily on me. Actually, I’ve been feeling much of this every calendar month — especially the issues connected to the pandemic — and I’d be surprised to find many adults who have not found themselves overwhelmed at some point.

But September is special, and I find myself swimming in a daily dysphoria that I seem to save only for this month. It feels wholly biological, starting with a sense of dread before my feet hit the floor in the a.m. Even the recognition that many of the issues I struggle with are first-world problems doesn’t seem to lessen a physical sensation that things are not good. It is well documented that the diminishing light in the fall affects some people more than others, and I count myself among those who really feel the impact of the increasingly shorter, darker days. 

To offset all of this, I’ve been following a self-care routine that any mental health professional would likely encourage. I meditate. I write. I exercise outside. I eat lots of vegetables and fruits. I maintain contact with friends and family. I play my musical instruments. 

What’s left, you ask? Well, this fall, I’ve turned to a tactic that lacks any professional endorsements but is nonetheless wildly popular: old school binge eating.  

I’ve become a frequent visitor to a pizza shop in a section of Arlington just a stone’s throw from the parking garage where Deep Throat revealed the secrets that brought down a president. It’s called Wiseguy Pizza, and it’s the closest thing I’ve found to New York pizza in the D.C. area. In my opinion, the mark of a legit pizza joint is whether it sells pizza by the slice. It’s a bonus if you can find customers inside employing “the fold,” the proper, one-handed way to eat pizza – the antithesis of using a knife and fork. Wiseguy passes both tests.

Wendy’s has offered me quite a bit of solace this month as well. I had always planned to detour off my new vegan diet on occasion, but I’ve surprised myself at how often I’ve turned to a Dave’s Single with Cheese and a Frosty to pull me up out of the dungeon lately.

And let’s just say the cashiers at The Sev (aka 7-Eleven) and my local Sunoco are familiar with my fondness for double Snickers bars. Where were double Snickers when I had a faster metabolism? Who cares? They’re here now!

Some level of shame is obviously involved with this gluttony because I tend to do most of my binge eating in my car, by myself. Am I embarrassed to eat a couple of candy bars in front of my 18-year-old son, who can literally eat two or three meals in one sitting? Hard to say.

I’m often speeding down the road at 70 mph on one of my gtf out of the house drives with one hand clenching a fast food product, so keep your distance if you see me on Route 267 headed west. When I want to be more dedicated to my meal, I park somewhere. I still walk near Iwo Jima from time to time but have also discovered that it serves as an excellent place to discretely consume high-calorie fare. The trees provide privacy. I worry that I am probably on a U.S. Park Police watch list because of my frequent comings and goings there. I do throw my trash away neatly in the garbage bins, so they really should delete my license plate number from their database.

I eat some homemade creations on my own property as well. A new item on the fall menu (for one) at my house is something I have dubbed “Pizza Toast Tartare.” No, you won’t find expensive undercooked meat on this pizza. It’s simply Trader Joe’s Rustico bread, a dash of Prego, and shredded mozzarella that I am sometimes too lazy to put in the toaster oven, so I eat it uncooked. Delicious!

(This is not to be confused with another delicacy I used to make regularly when I was in my twenties, Frankfurter on a Bed of Shredded Mozzarella. That’s mozzarella melted into a hot dog bun and topped with a Ball Park frank. Again, delightful!)  

The good news is that all this disordered eating is not an unknowing reaction to sunken moods; it’s a conscious choice. There is ample research showing the connection between sugar, salt, fat, and feelings of happiness. My field study work can confirm that connection. A friend suggested recently that my two years of meditating have helped me to “witness” my moods these days instead of blindly reacting to them. As such, I’ve “witnessed” myself feeling a whole lot better immediately following a trip to Wendy’s. 

Sometimes I worry about how much weight I will gain during this September Slide. This worry is usually followed by the delusion that my exercise regimen is counteracting my binge eating. Then the My Fitness Pal app sets me straight, classifying my trips to Gravelly Point as “Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace, walking dog.” I don’t own a dog, but if I did I imagine it would register as middle-aged on My Fitness Pal. And a 34-minute walk at 3.0 miles per hour isn’t going to offset much.

Last week I started mowing my own lawn again after a four-year hiatus (long story) and figured that this chore would at least be decent exercise. Then I got behind my self-propelled lawnmower and realized I was really just supervising the machine instead of burning a ton of calories pushing heavy equipment around. However, by some miracle, my weight gain has been pretty mild.

Mercifully, in previous years, at least, my body seems to adjust to the waning light and to accept the fact that winter is coming sometime around November. I have never loved winter, but I at least feel back to myself by Thanksgiving or sooner. In the meantime, I thank the man upstairs for Wiseguys.