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Wednesday, December 9, 2015

The Wonder of Vitamin D

I'm a sunshine girl. That's why God put me in Kansas. I don't care if the sun is "up there somewhere" behind a mile of clouds. If I don't see it, it may as well not exist.

Three years ago I learned about vitamin D - the sunshine vitamin -, but the lesson didn't stick because 2 years ago I forgot about it and turned into one of the non-Reavers by January. You know, the ones who stopped. I scared a few co-workers and one boss before Mom reminded me about vitamin D again.

That's what life with no sun does to the Turtle. It qualifies as "depression" if you use the dictionary meaning of being squashed or flattened, in this case by never-ending cloud cover. It doesn't qualify for the mental health definition because, while I quickly pass through irritable and weepy, I always land at an emotional dead zone of zero energy. I'm not actively suicidal, but I'm also not actively alive. Life without sun is pointless.

TT: There is a DSM-IV diagnosis for such a state, but the DSM books are coding manuals for how to bill insurance while treating a client, so I don't take them seriously most of the time. I don't take much seriously anymore.

Vitamin D doesn't cause euphoria. It doesn't replace the sun, or make me want to see it less. It does allow me to continue living. I get up and move around when I take it. That's a miracle.

The recommended dose is 5000 IUs a day. It is possible to overdose and cause liver damage, but you really have to try. I started in October, and I haven't lost the will to live yet, even through that seven day ice/rain storm at Thanksgiving.

Kansas winters have been gloomy and snowy in the past years. I believe this is a cyclical occurrence, not global climate change, because I remember winters of my childhood being gloomy and snowy, but not winters of my twenties and thirties. What goes around comes around. Of course, I'm also willing to believe it is the birth pains of a world nearing the end, and that works, too. I'm tired of living in a Cursed world, as tired as Rand when drawing on a tainted Source (Wheel of Time reference there).

Good thing I have that vitamin D.

Push button. Receive bacon.

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