The Face Behind Growing By Degrees

A woman wearing sunglasses and a hat to combat seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or winter blues.

About Me

I’m Cerian. It’s Welsh, and if you’re already trying to sound it out in your head, save yourself the trouble, it’s Ker-ee-an. I’m the face behind Growing By Degrees, and if you’ve landed here on a grey afternoon wondering why 10am felt impossible today, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.

Why Is It Called Growing By Degrees?

People ask about the name a lot. It comes from a simple idea: nothing big happens all at once. You don’t knit a dress without a cast on. You don’t build a house without a hole in the ground first. You climb a mountain one step at a time, you eat an elephant one bite at a time, and you don’t fix a lifetime of trying to be all things to all people overnight either. You do it by degrees. I spent years feeling like a square peg being pushed in a round hole, and in 2010 I stopped. I decided to just be me instead. This is me. Take it or leave it. The degrees part is also, not coincidentally, about temperature, which felt appropriate for a site about surviving winter.

I immigrated to Canada from the UK, which is why my spelling drifts between Canadian, English, and American depending on the day, I’m not going to apologise for that. I share my life with my husband of 26 years and a 2 year old furbaby who is known as Depression Dawg 2.

I got sick of how SAD gets talked about. It’s more than “just” the winter blues, or “everyone gets a bit low this time of year.” It affects you mentally, physically, emotionally, all three, whether you’ve given it permission or not.

I used to joke that I could tell if it was raining outside even from an interior room with no windows. That wasn’t really a joke. When I first moved to Canada, there was no twilight to ease you into it, one moment light, the next full dark, no warning. And when it went dark, I went to sleep, whether or not it was a sensible time to. Someone lent me a lightbox one winter and I never looked back. My husband can tell if I’ve skipped a day with it before I’ve said a word.

I’ve lived with SAD for more than 35 years. I’m not a doctor, I’m someone who’s done the trial and error so you don’t have to do it blind, and I keep half an eye on the research as it comes out, SAD and its lesser-known cousin RSAD, “summer SAD,” which surprises people every time I mention it exists.

I run the Seasonal Affective Disorder Community on Facebook, a place to share what’s working, ask a question, or just show up on a bad day without having to explain yourself first. I also send a weekly newsletter, sometimes with something useful in it, sometimes just a check in, like hearing from an old friend. My goal is simple: support the people who have this, and educate the people who don’t understand what it is. I’d also like to see the day SAD is recognised properly enough that a later start time on a dark, dreary morning isn’t too much to ask.

If any of that sounds like your vibe too, come on in and look around.

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