It’s October – many things are changing.

The light, the impending change back to Standard Time notwithstanding, is slowly getting less and less intense, and every day for less time. The world in North Texas is back to the pendulum between high pressure sun and low pressure cold fronts – and the steady presence of cold fronts interspersed with warmer days now becomes the predominant weather pattern, with all the barometric yo-yoing that comes with it.

The stress of back to school mixes with the stress of being a polytheist priest through the All Hallows season, followed rapidly by American Holiday Chaos. And wouldn’t you know, it’s flu season too, and COVID is definitely still making the rounds, along with every other upper respiratory creeping crud that wants to take hold of your lungs and make you miserable.

The world of chronic illness and disability calls this time the October Slide, as for a lot of us it has us slowly sliding into more symptoms, more fatigue, more day to day impacts of various illnesses (especially dysautonomic ones). But in my experience it kinda hits everyone, not just spoonies.

Sure, those of us whose central processing systems look and act more like Frankenstein’s Monster than a properly organized CPU are feeling it probably more pressingly, but that doesn’t change that with the change of seasons, a good number of regular humans also start to feel sluggish and slow, with more headaches, more stress, and more pressure.

(And yes, I know for some people this slide is in the Spring, when we slide into the heat of Summer – not every human is on the same cycle of the year, and Seasonal Depression absolutely can hit in Summer too.)

But if this is you this week, and the change of the seasons is leaving you a little under the weather (literally), do the little things to care for yourself, keep an eye on the weather to get ahead of the barometer, hydrate like crazy (and maybe humidify too), and don’t forget to take the time you need to manage stress.

(lol. does anyone have managed stress? I don’t. but I do meditate and like. it does help? I dunno. *anyway*)

If the October Slide is getting to you, you’re not alone.

With any luck, we can get through this together.