I’m Giving Myself a Goldfish for Christmas

Using a low tech approach to the social isolation of COVID and depression

Photo by Cici Hung on Unsplash

I am the last person who deserves to have a pet, even a goldfish. The backyards of the houses my daughter has lived in are dotted with the remains of unfortunate little swimmers.

But this year is different.

I’m a clinical psychologist who has treated many, many depression sufferers. I’ve won awards. I’ve lectured and published extensively on affective disorder. But bouts with my own illness are simultaneously predictable and frightening.

The changes in seasons have never been welcome to me. When the light becomes stingy in the afternoons, I know to steel myself against another round of seasonal affective disorder. As if decades of wrestling with severe depression aren’t enough, the lethargy and lack of focus pile on when autumn is at its most beautiful. I pull out the light-box and add sitting in front of it to the beginning of each day. There’s no question that it helps. So does the occasional bump in meds when I get really low. In the best of times, I fight despair.

But we are in the midst of radical assault on depression sufferers, a perfect storm that conspires to ignite a worsening of symptoms. Even people with no depression histories are…