The holidays are supposed to be a time for joy and celebration; however, not everyone feels the same. If you suffer from depression, you may find it difficult to cope during these festive seasons. The holiday atmosphere actually makes you feel more depressed and bad about yourself.
Here are 10 holiday blues only people with depression would understand.
1. You want to feel joyous like everyone else but you can’t.
You understand that the holidays are meant to be joyous and celebrated. You wish you could join in the fun, but you just can’t feel the holiday spirit. Your world is so bleak that you can’t see any hope for the future. The holidays are just like any other day of the year, only worse.
2. You don’t wish to dampen the holiday spirit with your depression.
The holidays make you feel worse because you know that your friends are having fun but you don’t wish to be the one spoiling their fun. Even though you need support from your friends, you would rather be alone and not reach out to them. You don’t want to bring down their moods with your depression. You feel unworthy to celebrate with them.
3. You don’t want other people to know about your depression.
Depression is not something you want to talk about during the holidays. You are afraid that when you talk about it, you would suddenly cry in front of all your friends like what you usually do alone at night. Not only will it spoil the festive mood, but you will also feel ashamed crying in front of others, especially when it’s the holidays.
4. You deny your own feelings for the holiday.
People expect you to be happy during the holidays. You don’t have the holiday feeling, but you pretend that you are enjoying yourself so that others don’t probe further. Feeling depressed is already bad enough. On top of that, you have to pretend that you are fine during the holidays. Not being able to be yourself and feel your emotions makes you feel even worse during this period.
5. You would rather hide than catch up with your relatives.
You hate it when relatives ask you, “How are you doing?” You know this question is unavoidable. They haven’t seen you for a long time and want to catch up with your life. However, you feel like running away because you can’t answer this question honestly. Not only will you risk having a breakdown in front of them, but you also think they won’t understand and accept depression.
6. You want to avoid crowds, but people keep asking you out.
There are 365 days in a year. All of your friends seem to be free only during the holiday period. Everyone is asking you out for parties so that they can catch up with you and everybody else together. Honestly, you just want to be alone at home. Seeing crowds make you panic for no logical reason. You know you will feel worse after the parties. That said, in the end, you agree to turn up for a couple of them because you are so tired of rejecting your friends.
7. You dread gift exchange.
Getting the energy to cope with daily life is already a struggle to you. Having to buy gifts for others is asking too much of you. You don’t know what to buy for your friends. There are too many choices. What if they don’t like what you have bought? Everything seems so costly. There are so many things to worry about for gift exchange. You can’t see the joy in it.
8. You have to spend more time alone to recover from the holiday parties.
Every party you go, it drains you and leaves you feeling more depressed. You need to make extra effort to socialize with others when all you want to do is sleep at home and not bother with anyone else. You know you don’t bring your best to the party and you leave others with a bad impression. After each party, you feel worse and blame yourself for accepting your friend’s invitation.
9. Your friends don’t understand why you could feel depressed amidst all this joy.
You tell your best friends how you feel, but they think that you are too negative and ask you to lighten up for the holidays instead. They think you’ll get better with all the celebrations around you. You used to believe that holidays like Christmas were magical. However, ever since you have depression, you feel like you are abnormal and everybody doesn’t understand you.
10. You are reminded how unhappy you are when see other people happy.
During the holiday seasons, you just want to turn everything off. Walking on the streets and seeing everyone else happy with their families makes you more depressed with the state you are in. You can’t read social media posts anymore because everyone except you seems to be in so much joy and happiness. You wish your depression would be over soon so that you can be like everyone else again.
Featured photo credit: Rainy Christmas Grief Child Kid / PublicDomainPictures via pixabay.com
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