I hate summer and from now on refuse to apologise for it. Who’s with me?

I’m sorry to say this, but if you have ever invited me to a barbecue on a hot day between the months of May and September, I probably hated it.

I have loathed almost every barbecue I’ve attended. Any visit to the beach in high summer has been an exercise in extreme discomfort, and to invite me to a picnic when it’s “T-shirt weather” is to watch me sweat and labour my way through it, as though I’m enduring actual physical torture – and not what basically amounts to the al fresco consumption of a communal tube of Pringles.

Because I hate summer, and always have.

Of course I wouldn’t have said so at the time. I would have gritted my teeth, agreed with any and all statements that it was, indeed, “a glorious day”, and generally got on with things. It’s only later, in the darkest, coolest corner of my house, that I’d nurse my patchy sunburn and heatstroke, and take my migraine pills.

I hate summer for all the classical reasons – I get quite bad hay fever, so for me summer is three months of tears, congestion headaches and nosebleeds. I am abundant in the thigh department (I haven’t had a thigh gap since 1993) so chub rub is very much a seasonal concern. And, despite being a brown person, I can easily develop heatstroke simply by glancing at a lightbulb (it doesn’t even have to be on).

I resent the fact that, during hot nights, I have the choice of either slowly roasting in my own bed or cracking open a window and admitting entrance to a capering parade of crane flies. In fact, I’m a total unreconstructed wimp when it comes to creepy-crawlies. If you ever see me running between May and September, know it’s probably less to do with fitness, and more that I think there’s a wasp trapped in my hair.

There are other reasons I dislike summer, but until recently I haven’t been able to articulate them beyond “it makes me uncomfortable”.

The thing is, I’d still go to the picnics and the parks and the beaches – because that’s what people do in the summer. When I was a child, my family would basically mix up a jug of Pimms and decamp to the garden the minute the sun made an appearance. I’d prefer to linger in the shade but was always being cajoled to “come outside and join in”; then inevitably – as I stood squinting uncomfortably in the blinding sunshine – I’d then be asked why I was “being a misery”.

All my life, everyone else has seemed to enjoy the hot weather; their moods lift when the temperatures rise (whereas I grow sleepy and more sluggish), and they plan all these social activities I haven’t wanted to be excluded from. I have never to date worked up the courage to say “hey guys, instead of lazing by the river this afternoon, how about we all sit in my house with the curtains drawn?”, because who’s going to say yes?

People like summer. On blazing hot days when I can’t see properly and the heat makes my skin feel weird, someone else will invariably breeze by in a floaty dress, and sigh, “Isn’t it a lovely day?”. So I’ve just accepted the fact that, somehow, I’m in the wrong here.

Recently, a psychologist friend of mine asked why I dislike summer so much. I told her about the hay fever, headaches, chub rub and the systematic terrorism by wasps; but she kept asking “Why else? Why else?”

Which is when I admitted – for the first time out loud – that being too hot makes me feel panicky and claustrophobic. And being directly in bright, hot sunshine for even short amounts of time exhausts me, and leaves me irritable, nauseous and headachey. Plus: “This will sound weird,” I added. “But it’s almost as if direct sunlight is too loud. Trying to focus on anything is like trying to hear a quiet conversation in a crowded, echoey room.”

“Sounds like sensory overload,” my psychologist friend told me. Last year I was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) – a neurological development disorder it turns out I’ve had since childhood – and sensory overload can come hand in hand with its symptoms. Some people can be so bothered by sensory input – noise, or even the feeling of a clothes label scratching against their skin – they are literally driven to distraction.

For me, it looks like it’s heat and light. Even on a cold day, the glare from car windshields can worsen my mood and sense of wellbeing, so this makes sense. When you add sensory overload to the fact that summer gives me three months of sinusitis and throws insects at my face, no wonder I’m having a rubbish time.

“Even if it wasn’t a sensory thing, why is there shame in disliking summer?”, my friend added – and it’s wisdom like this that delineates why she is a psychologist and I’m just a fool who shares her opinions on the internet.

“People aren’t shy about saying they hate winter. You don’t have to go to the beach, and you don’t have to apologise.”

So here I am, hating summer and not apologising. Now I accept the fact that I hate it. Obviously I will still go to barbecues because my love of sausages outweighs my hatred of summer (see: thigh gap), but I’ll go there slathered in factor 50, with a massive wide-brimmed hat and dramatic, oversized sunglasses (polarised). Otherwise where possible I’ll limit my summer exposure to the early morning and late afternoon, when the temperature and long shadows are kinder to my senses.

And if you’re reading this and you’re a fellow summer hater, let us make our stand now. Let’s shout it from the shadiest rooftops. Let’s whisper it from behind our curtains, with our air-conditioning units on. This summer, let’s stay in, and feel no shame.