Christmas used to be an endless two-month stretch of pain and more pain and praying for any relief from the horror of the way I felt. Don’t ask me why, but that’s how I felt in the run-up to Christmas and over the holiday period itself. It was Hell. I felt lonely, isolated and desperately desperately sad. The sadness was a grief overwhelming.
Then they found out that I am a bi-polar sufferer and they put me on medication and now Christmas is a right fun little pork chop of a knees-up!
For people who do or do not know that they are struggling with depression, the ramping up of the Christmas season is crushing. The pressure to be happy brings the depressed, alone and lonely person down even further, to dangerous levels - don’t ask me why, because I don’t exactly understand it – nowadays for me I take my meds and go to the parties whereas the torment used to be practically unendurable. For me, these days – it’s ‘problem solved’. Not so for many others.
I’ve got friends now who do Christmas really tough. I tell them that I know they do it tough and that they can contact me if they need support. I tell them how I used to do it tough too and that I fear they have clinical depression and to call me if they need me and try to get the support they need and to ‘hang in there’.