Christmas depression is real and very painful for so many people. If you are coming onto the holiday period with depression, in grief due to a loss of a relationship, health, aloneness or other painful situations, then the symptoms can be quite magnified during the holidays.
Trust me, no one choses to be depressed, in grief and or alone during the holiday time or for that matter any other day of the year! I can’t tell you how many patients and friends have admitted to me that they hate the upcoming holidays.
Their reasons are varied to be sure, but most hinge on the ever-present expectations of joyousness that literally permeates the season. They are not going around announcing their discomfort and truth out of fear of being cast as Christmas Scrooges or downers, preferring instead to trust only their therapists or best friends with their real feelings.
The Christmas and holiday season weighs heaviest on those in grief who have experienced losses, especially deaths of loved ones in the preceding months. There can never really be any comfort for the intense pain felt during a time when family is so essentially associated with festivities.
Recently divorced persons or those who have experienced a painful breakup are also at risk for finding themselves drowning in their newly imposed solitude and heartbreak. I have had many a patient who cringes at the sight of couples out shopping together holding hands, that only serves as a stark reminder of their aloneness.
Losing a job can be catastrophic at any time of the year, but when these situations extend into the holidays, overwhelming fear and anxiety predominates about being able to afford any celebration, especially embarrassment around gift giving.
Then there is the childless person, who for whatever reason has never been able to fulfil a deeply desired wish of having a child. The holiday season is hard to swallow for them too seeing all the little ones clamoring about in joyful anticipation.
Some of my patients who suffered from childhood abuses and or neglect have painful memories of Christmases that haunt them. Seasons and events can be powerful triggers of past traumatic experiences that remain encoded in brain circuitry, which is always a part in PTSD.
There is no panacea really to remove the obvious reality of losses, grief, and trauma that will be experienced by these unfortunate persons. Most will bravely go through the motions of pretending to be in a holiday mood amongst their colleagues at work and acquaintances.
It requires a lot of psychic stress to put on a happy mask, which actually only serves to further deplete whatever fortitude and energy they actually do have. Friends and family, all well-meaning can be a lost too how to handle being around those who hurt at this time of the year.
Empathy and acceptance are called for, rather than cheerful holiday greetings and unrealistic expectations that the festivities can magically overcome their pain. Reaching out to those that hurt and giving them time to share with you their real feelings, is what is really needed, rather than mindless shovelling them into festivities, which can often intensify their pain.
Having realistic expectations for family members or friends going through a difficult time relieves them of having to perform and pretend in order to blend in. Let them know with words that you care and acknowledge the inherent burdens they face, such as simply saying ” I know the holidays are difficult for you”.
For those of you who are hurting right now because of a painful situation or depression, self empathy is absolutely essential. A lot people confuse empathy with pity, especially when applied to yourself. Seeing yourself with loving acceptance and understanding for the struggles you are enduring is not self pity or just feeling sorry for yourself.
Now is a time for self soothing with kind loving thoughts towards yourself. I like to tell patients to literally hold themselves by embracing their shoulders with their arms and repeating that; “I am going to take care of you and I love you”.
Giving yourself rightful permission, during the holidays, of not performing, of not pretending, of not wearing a mask all the time, allows you to be real with yourself and others. It also allows others to acknowledge your suffering so they can react with care and empathy.
Because of your pain, you might have a tendency to isolate and withdraw from others, which may seem protective, but will serve to intensify your suffering. Now, is not the time to withdraw into your cell of darkness.
For those with enough energy and determination to want to help themselves, a little advance planning is necessary . Make realistic plans around holiday festivities. Make sure the ones you do attend are with understanding friends or family members.
Having boundaries with others will allow you to have more energy for self-care or do the activities you might actually be able to enjoy, so be selective. Basically it comes down to you creating or designing the holiday activities you want to partake.
If you can or have any desire of being with fellow human beings who are also hurting, this act alone is healing and can bring joy you may not find otherwise. Taking cookies to distribute at hospitals, or being a volunteer at a soup kitchen during the holidays is extremely uplifting to your spirit.
I, like most professionals in health care have worked several Christmas eves or days during their career. I remember those times as being very special to me; being able to care for others unlucky enough to have been hospitalised at that time. For me, I felt tremendous spiritual nourishment involved in having the honour of serving those in need.
Your pain is the only pain you intimately feel, but knowing that you are not alone in your loneliness, grief, or depression is important. Having compassion for yourself allows you to have compassion for others who are suffering alone with you.
I personally have found tonglen, which comes from buddhist traditions to be a wonderful soothing exercise when you are suffering. Basically, in meditative thought and prayer you take onto yourself the sufferings and pain of others and then send out love and healing thoughts to all of those who suffer along with you.
By doing so, you will feel an unbelievable connection and compassion that is uplifting and seems to lessen whatever pain you too are experiencing. Life is constantly changing and this suffering too will past.
Christmas is about believing in the miracle of Light and Love incarnate, embodied in the Christ child. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, commemorates the victory over oppressors through the miracle of that one oil light that lit the temple for 8 nights.
We are all from time to time oppressed with human suffering in living this life. I am sure some of you, like myself, have had to endure the holidays troubled with sadness and loss.
How did you made it through, and what helped you survive intact? I hope you will light a candle in gratitude for what you do have this season and remember by doing so, you are helping bringing forth healing light to yourself and others, paving the way for untold miracles.
Healing Hugs to all!
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What a good message to send this time year when all around us is filled with “me” and only “me”, and how it affects “me”, and what’s in it for “me.”
Thank you Louis for your comment! Giving gifts of compassion to those who are hurting from losses are much more significant that any material offerings, especially this time of the year. Compassion for your own struggles opens one’s heart to having it for others.
Thank you Cherry for a beautiful message. Healing hugs to you, my dear and to
others. Will light a candle now for my personnel gratitude of Blessings and a healing light for all. Merry Christmas
What a beautiful heartfelt comment Anne! Thank you for your hugs and I send them to you too. It would be wonderful if all of us around the world could light our candles in gratitude like you pledge to do and coordinate it all! Christmas blessings!
Thank you for your lovely words. You have so much heart and feeling for others. I know this may sound cliche’ but when I feel down, I think about all the millions of people who are homeless living in boxes and less fortunate than I am. In other words, I count all my many blessings and think about how God has been so good to me. That always helps me. It might not work for everybody but it helps me. I hope you have Happy and Peaceful Holidays, Cherry. Love you.
Thank you Marilyn for your own beautiful inspiring message! Your remembrance of all the homeless as being a simple reminder of the blessings we enjoy is lovely and pertinent to today’s widespread poverty. I definitely agree that gratitude is the quickess and the most uplifting restorative prayer for us all. Love and Christmas blessing to you too!
Very uplifting, particularly the self hug.
Thank you for your appreciative comment! Hugging ourselves is an important gesture of self comfort and love. Very young children will often do this and other self soothing techniques naturally, yet we grownups have loss the ability to seek self comforting with words and touch.
Cherry, your efforts to help others is quite commendable, esp. with your experienced insight of having been a psychotherapist, attempting to help others with their emotional problems. It seems that the “Serenity prayer”:
“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. ”
is a basic truism for dealing with the challenges of life in a realistic manner. It is just difficlut for many people to put the things in their lives into proper perspective. What is, is . . . and we just have to learn to deal with the matters in our lives without becoming overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations or unrealistic hopes.
Thank you so much David for your lovely inclusion of the Serenity Prayer, which I have always loved. The discernment of knowing the things we have no control or power over is so essential for all of us and the acceptance of the things we can not change is really liberating. You are so right, life is as it is, take it or let it be. I like your expression of unrealistic expectations of unrealistic hopes! Hard lessons are hard to learn!
Hanging on to unrealistic expectations leaves us dry and empty. Only hope is to turn it over to the Divine God of Love.
As a psychotherapist perhpas you have an explaination as to why people’s emotional desires or perspectives most often tend to trump or override their intellectual logic and rationale? If that weren’t the case, then most of people’s problems would or should be much easier to resolve, huh?
David, you have posed an interesting but complicated question that I will try to answer from my perspective professionally. Intellectual logic and rationale may govern abstraction of thought and analysis of data, but is rarely very helpful in dealing with human emotions. Feeling is distinctly different from thinking. Some people,(thinking types) are given to be more directed by pure cognition or thinking in making choices or seeing their world. Others (feeling types) are more governed by their emotions in making choices or problem solving.
The feeling types are generally more sensitive and cued by others emotions as well, than the “thinkers”.
The feeling types will generally ALWAYS be at risqué of subjugating logic and rationale in face of their emotions, because their emotions are more real and have greater authority to them.
Though not all women are feeling types, there is more prevalence, and could explain in part along with hormonal issues why women are 70% more likely to develop depression in their lifetime than men.
Women are also more invested in relationships which by nature are more governed by emotions than logic. Thinking types though are less apt to develop full blown clinical depression, as they by nature skate around any emotions, sometimes seeing them as foolish obstacles of perception.
I could postulate, like you, that if we were all alexthymic or Mr. Spock like, we could easily discard our problems like petty pebbles in life, and never really be bother by any “emotional baggage”.
Having said that, our lives governed only by logic would be much less rich and rather devoid of the intensity that emotions play in creating attachment and intimacy needed for real and valid relationships to thrive.
Merry Christmas Cherry!!!
I hope you have had a joyfull day.
After reading your blog I realize just how HAPPY I realy am thes days .
Working at Home Depot for the last 27yrs were I’Im involved in selling Christmas deco. And trees and listing to Christmas music since a week before Thanksgiven all with a cheerful face will put you in a very most happy mood .
Cherry it really is “A Wonderful Life”
Thank you !!!
Merry Christmas to you too Isham! I know that with your spirited personality and winning smile, you have helped many people get into a holiday mood. Being surrounded by Christmas trees and then with plants and flowers year long is already a mood lifter!
Wonderful to see you celebrate your life with such happiness and enthusiasm!