Rainy, cloudy spring in the Valley brings uptick in SAD cases

By ROBERT GUTTERSOHN

rguttersohn@vindy.com

Andy Santor and Frank Marsco lived in Florida this winter and returned to the Valley in April just in time for several days of darkness and rain.

“You don’t see sunshine for a week; it’s terrible,” Marsco said while leaning against the door frame in the Mill Creek Golf Course clubhouse in Canfield. Outside, only a couple of golfers were on the course.

“Our last sunny day was Saturday evening. We’re at Thursday,” he said before this weekend’s return of sunny skies.

Santor, the pro golfer on staff at the public course, said he’s had fewer clients, and he’s swinging the golf club considerably less than usual himself.

“Since I’ve been back April 6, I’ve seen a handful of good days,” Santor said, while the two with tanned skin sat inside Santor’s office.

They shrugged off the weather and felt most northern Ohioans do the same.

“Everybody seems to be taking the attitude of, what choice do you have?” Santor said. “You either go out and play in this stuff, or you don’t play at all.”

But for others in the Valley, the gloomy days of April and May are harder to just shrug off.

“These cloudy days are holding us hostage,” said Cathy Grizinski, associate director of Help Hotline Crisis Center.

Grizinski said the center, which serves the four-county region with 24-hour mental-health support, has seen an increase of 7 percent in people calling with mental health issues since the winter, and an increase of 19 percent compared to this time last year. She said normally the numbers fall after the winter months.

The increase could be due to Seasonal Affective Disorder. The National Institutes of Health defines it as “episodes of depression that occur every year during fall or winter.”

Read the full story with complete details on Seasonal Affective Disorder on Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.