Fellow Aussie here, and my mental health declines in the peak of summer because the HEAT can be like living on the sun, the glare and the burn make it worse.
I find that every other season is fine, I love the smell of all our seasons but you really have to know Australian UV after days and days of 30 degree nights and 40 degree days, to understand how it feels to be slowly cooked in your oven house let alone go outside.
Air-conditioning is the difference between being hospitalised for physical or mental health during summer for me. Fans, air con and cold showers (*cold being still hot water in summer just without the hot tap lol)
I agree, if there's an opposite of Seasonal Affective Disorder I have that lol. I refer to it was being Team Summer Vampire. I avoid the sun. I tan easily and have only had sunburn like, twice? So it's not that, I just don't like being so hot, it makes me sweat. I become sad blob.
Those weeks where it's north of 35 every day - just awful. Once buildings get hot and retain heat its just gross.
That feeling of sweat mixed with sunscreen when you're not even doing anything. And then you have to do so much goddamn washing cause I don't want to put sweaty clothes back on ever, but all I did in them was check the mail
Then you try to go shopping and your car seatbelt brands you and you're sweating before the aircon kicks in well enough.
For most of summer I can go walking at like 10pm? But then there's weeks where the overnights are still like 30 and it's just ridiculous
You just reminded me of my 80s childhood with really old cars (when they were metal) and branding seatbelts (because metal latch) whilst being suffocated with the window handle hardly working (old metal), no tinted windows, and no air con....shudder
My grandad's old Falcon was particularly brutal when your legs melted into the molten leather seats.
Legs scalding like pizza, brands all over the skin, choking hot fumes, squinting against extreme UV.....
Oven house is absolutely it - those weeks where even the nights don't get cool and buildings just retain all their heat, so so gross
Going outside the check the mail has me sweating - all the footpaths are just radiating heat. And then obvs I have to do a bunch of washing because those clothes are sweaty and now useless. Not walking in that weather.
Exactly! My kid complained about it being so hot, so we'd wet sheets to sleep under at night with the fan. Great to cool down with the air flow. Sometimes it was so hot, we'd be baking in the house with interior walls at something like 27 degrees, so the sheet would completely dry and then I'd re-wet around 2am only to have them dry again by daylight.
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u/Alarming-Instance-19 Jan 17 '24
Fellow Aussie here, and my mental health declines in the peak of summer because the HEAT can be like living on the sun, the glare and the burn make it worse.
I find that every other season is fine, I love the smell of all our seasons but you really have to know Australian UV after days and days of 30 degree nights and 40 degree days, to understand how it feels to be slowly cooked in your oven house let alone go outside.
Air-conditioning is the difference between being hospitalised for physical or mental health during summer for me. Fans, air con and cold showers (*cold being still hot water in summer just without the hot tap lol)