Holiday Depression

Statistics say that depression gets dramatically worse around the holidays. This may sound crazy. What’s not to love about holidays? Family time. Presents. Delicious food and desserts. No work.

But what if your family isn’t great? You may have difficult relationships with people in your family. You may have had to cut off contact. Family members may have passed on. Or you may simply feel that you’re a disappointment and that no one wants to be with you around the holidays. Food can be a trigger for bad memories. Or you may be trying to lose weight. Or feel terrible about how much weight you’ve gained. You may tend to spend too much money. Or not have money to spend. Work may be the one place that you feel like you do well, or at least not badly.

I recently took a mental health test at a regular medical appointment. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that I got the worst score I’ve ever gotten in my life. But I was, because I’m doing better than I was a few months ago. Still, I struggle with feeling like I’m not good enough. The divorce and its consequences for the holidays have been devastating. Financially, emotionally, psychologically, in every possible way. I’ve lost weight, gained weight, tried to do too much, given up and done nothing for the holidays. Nothing seems to help.

Friends have asked me repeatedly if I want to spend the holidays with them. My answer is an emphatic no. Spending the holidays with other people’s happy families just makes me feel worse. I’m kind of stuck with myself, and I don’t like me. Which is weird because, as a kid I remember being confused by people who asked what I’d do on a deserted island while I waited for rescue. It sounded like a great vacation to be by myself all the time (since I grew up in a family of 13 people, silence and choosing things for myself was rare).

And then there’s the extra special trauma of holidays for someone who grew up with a father who was especially volatile and likely to beat us during the holidays. He spent too much money and got too little sleep and if we didn’t act grateful enough or weren’t perfect enough children, he’d react with rage and physical violence. This was so difficult for me as a child because he often bought us presents that we didn’t want and then expected us to like them. He’d insist each year that we could write up our own list, and then he never bought us what we asked for.

He always had excuses, but they mostly boiled down to him saying we didn’t know what we wanted and that what he bought was actually what we “needed.” So, yeah, underwear was what we needed. Or a book on how to make friends. Or for me, a feminine dress with ruffles and makeup. From his perspective—I was the problem. From my perspective, the holidays always made me feel like there was something wrong with me. This can still pop up when I get a gift from someone that seems like a “corrective gift,” ie a gift that tells me what I should want and doesn’t reflect what I actually want.

Then there’s the ritual of saying thank you to gifts that you didn’t want, and deciding if you’re going to return them or not. Is housing them in the garage until you get rid of them the right thing? What if the person asks you later if you liked it and expects you to wear it?

And none of this even touches the problem of being expected to sit down with people whose political ideologies are anathema. I can try all I want to make sure I don’t bring anything up, but it’s going to come up anyway and when I’m outnumbered (and female), I’ll be expected to put a smile on, nod my head, or just be silent. And yes, I can leave the room. I can wave goodbye as soon as possible. But trying to prep for it in advance is stressful. Sometimes to the point that I wonder if it’s better just to stay by myself for the holidays, if it’s too much trouble for other people to make nice to me instead of the other way around. Which brings me back to the problem of depression and feeling like there’s something wrong with me and I’m just not good enough to have nice holidays.