Blue Christmas
Have you ever had a blue Christmas/Holiday Season? Is it a
struggle to get out of bed and be filled with holiday cheer? Is even getting
out of bed, showering, and eating toast to hard? Does depression have a hold on
you? Tis the season of joy, good cheer towards men, and lying in bed praying
for it all to pass and hoping no one notices you are missing. Depression is a
mental health issue many of us suffer with during the holidays. Seasonal
depression is real. Why then do people still not believe others when they say “I
am feeling blue"?
Seasonal depression is when the
holidays feel like a weight is on your chest. It is debilitating and crippling.
It keeps us from singing holiday carols. It holds us hostage in our homes and
makes showering or eating too much to do. It is a struggle to put on clean
clothes. It is a blueness covering our view of everything holiday-ish. A few
years ago, I was hit with it hard. I was missing my grandparents who passed
away years before and I kept thinking about the old holidays at their place.
The joy I felt sharing the holidays with them and how now the holidays meant
less without them. Each year farther
from when they were alive had me sinking into a blue Christmas .People
around me know I am so full of holiday cheer it is annoying and that this
blueness was not me, but they told to buck up, life was good, cheer up and sing
some carols, and many other things. People battling mental health issues, like
Blue Christmas, cannot just shake it off like snowflakes falling on their
jackets. Blueness goes deep.
Not all people have someone to
spend the holidays with. This along with no money for gifts for people and
other numerous items are enough to make you blue at the holidays, but Seasonal
Depression runs deeper. It fills your veins with blue, it bleeds into your
blood stream, and you cannot even feign the hint of holiday gladness in your
life. Or Gladness at all! Dealing with holiday cheer is just too much for many
of us, but we know there is a light at the end of the holiday season. Once the
world is back to normal, we claw our way to normal as well. We try to pretend
the holidays did not even happen. We ignore them and move on. We come out as if
we are checking if there are six more weeks of holidays, no OK, out into the
world we resume. The blue veil lifts off us, we can breathe again and we
attempt to move forward into a new year with everyone else. We strive to
shower, dress, and be "normal" again.
The seasonal depression lifts
and we can breathe again. We made it through the dark and we lived to tell of
another day. We do not have to be cheerful. We do not have to sing carols and
pretend we are happy to lock ourselves into a room with family and friends when
all we want to do is go back into the dark bedroom and sleep. We can now move
forward. It may still be a struggle, but we will get there. Holiday blues hit many
people, so much, so that churches now recognize a need for a blue feeling
service. The world seems more morose to so many people these days. We fail to
connect to people and as such, we are less happy, we battle depression more,
and we hide from the holidays. Life has just become too much.
If you suffer from seasonal depression,
know that you are not alone. You are with others who have no holiday cheer due
to the depression. You may not shower, but you ate today. Good for you! You may
have done one thing, good for you. With the blueness comes a lack of energy and
purpose, but once it lifts then you will feel like yourself again, but until it
does lift, know you have comrades down in the ditches of depression with you.
All of us are just striving to make it to another day.
I pray this holiday season is
not too much for you. I pray that the depression you feel does not feel like it
is swallowing you whole. You are with good company, you are with others, and
you are a warrior who struggles, but will win the battle. Stay strong fellow
warriors and if you get to a point where you cannot get out of this blue state,
tell someone, and please get help. Sometimes depression comes in the form of
season depression and takes up residence in our lives. May the depression be
short, your holidays be what you need them to be, and know the peace that
passes understanding for all of humanity. You are not alone, you are not
forgotten, and you are most definitely loved!
Happy Holiday season to you
all.
Your story teller/writer/poet
Debbie
xoxo
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