Rebecca Nappi: Not alone with SAD this summer

When the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon July 20, 1969, I was 14 and spending the week at the Kenney family cabin on Newman Lake. I loved the space program, but the minute Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, I asked, “Is the world going to end now?”

I was feeling a little anxious. Summer does that to me, and it always has. About 1 percent of us suffer the opposite of the winter blues. The sun and the heat escort into our lives each summer the emotions captured well by the acronym SAD, which stands for seasonal affective disorder.

This summer, I don’t feel so alone. I see SAD symptoms – anxiety, irritability and melancholy – everywhere.

Anxiety: U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff believes we’re under increased risk this summer for a terrorist attack. He bases this on a “gut feeling.” Though almost six years have passed since Sept. 11, fear of the next big one hides just below the surface of people’s busy, back-to-normal lives.

On Wednesday, a steam pipe burst in downtown Manhattan, sending steam and debris 27 stories high. It was not a terrorist attack, but one witness, interviewed on the “Today” show Thursday morning, said he and others immediately thought: “This is 9/11 all over again.”

We cannot shake the memory of those planes flying into those tall buildings. Like losing the innocence of childhood summers, we’ve forever lost the naiveté that something that horrible could happen in the United States. It did. It may again.

Irritability: Members of Congress have shown their irritable side as they debate the war in Iraq. Their voices sounded frayed as the Senate held an all-nighter to discuss our involvement. Many Democrats have long expressed irritation about sending any more of our young people into the “meat grinder” that is Iraq.

A month ago, Sen. Richard Lugar – a Republican – reached the end of his patience with the policy in Iraq. He believes President Bush’s surge strategy in Iraq is failing, and he said so on the Senate floor.

In what looked like genuine irritation, MSNBC journalist Mika Brzezinski recently shredded her news script while she was on the air. She was protesting her producer’s decision to lead the news with a Paris Hilton update rather than with a story about the war in Iraq.

Melancholy: How can we feel anything but sadness when reading the bios of the men and women who have died in Iraq? Or see photos of Iraqi children crying? Iraq, torn apart by bomb blasts, reminds me of the movie “War of the Worlds,” in which aliens chew up humans in their mechanical “meat grinders” and litter the land with their remains.

Fortunately, I have a mild version of the summer blues. Some people require medication or withdraw into air-conditioned spaces all summer long. One woman found relief by swimming each day in the English Channel. Self-help books seem to offer only Posh Spice-shallow advice. Don’t worry, be happy. Think only positive thoughts.

I find solace in weightier tomes, such as Thomas Moore’s 2004 book “Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals.”

Moore believes that societies experience dark nights, too. They can become times of powerful transformation, but if the dark times are denied or diminished, societies disintegrate into chaos.

It’s summer. My usual optimism has taken a vacation. So chaos appears to be trumping transformation. Be worried.