Welcome to episode 774 with my guest Anna Runkle.

If you're new, this podcast is a place for honesty about all the battles in our heads,

from medically diagnosed conditions, past traumas, and sexual dysfunction,

to everyday compulsive negative thinking.

And this show's not meant to be substitute for professional mental counseling.

I am not a therapist. You have been

warned. This is the week where the bulk of the surveys are going to be read on the $5 level

and above at patreon.com. But we will have a few this week.

This is from the Ask Paul Anything survey, and this is filled out by a woman who calls herself in search of healthy habits.

And she writes, Paul, I've heard you talk on the pod before about how you can get

depressed during the fall season.

I've never experienced it before and I've not

been diagnosed with seasonal effective disorder or anything, but I am definitely feeling strange this

year. Something about daylight savings time ending feels so disorienting this time around,

like the light was all wrong when I opened my blinds this

morning. It was too bright for the hour, and I felt like I had already wasted the day. I felt

pressure to use the extra hour I had gained productively, but instead I just went back to sleep

because I couldn't think of the right way to spend it. I hate that the sky has had a weird,

hazy tint to it in the afternoon, and the low sun streams into my apartment at odd angles,

highlighting the disturbing amount of dust particles floating through the air. I'm already starting

to use the shrinking days as an excuse to hunker down, but I don't have enough tasks to fill the long

nights, which is when some unhealthy distraction behaviors can take hold. I am sober, but since becoming

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