For many years now, I’ve wondered why I felt so terribly depressed after my examinations. After all, I hate taking exams and I should be happy when they are over. But although I am always sort of relieved that they were done with, I also feel really really low.
Most people I know think this is really strange. “I think this is what postpartum depression would feel like,” I would try to explain to baffled friends. “Only in my case, I don’t have a baby.” As you can imagine, saying that has really gotten me some strange looks.
I tried figuring it out for myself. Maybe it was because I knew how to spend every moment of my time before and during my exams, and after them, I suddenly didn’t know what to do with my time (this reason was a possible explanation, but unlikely. After all, I had my friends and movies). Maybe I was actually unhappy that my exams were over because I secretly liked the challenge of taking papers (this seemed even more unlikely to me). Or maybe I was just plain weird (I went with this one most of the time).
In Dr. Rose’s last class, he mentioned he is usually extremely anxious about lecturing and after the lecture is over, he also goes into a sort of depressed state because of the drop in adrenalin from all the stress from before and during the class.
Bingo! Now I know why my mood plummets and I must say, this has personally been a real revelation to me.
Now, I think I am a little less nuts than I thought I was. Phew! 
