I hate the holidays – not
in a Scrooge kind of way but in an
everyone’s-increased-happiness-is-rubbing-bipolar-disorder-in-my-face-extra-hard
kind of way. To make matters worse, my birthday is literally on Christmas Day,
so I’m supposed to be the absolutely most excited of anyone else. In reality,
it’s just a reminder of all the parties I won’t be having.
I’m not sad. It’s more
like Christmas decorations go up, and I can feel my emptiness intensifying or
being spotlighted or something. I know emotional
repression/depression/dissociation has rendered me incapable of experiencing
so-called Christmas spirit, and then there’s the – surprise – guilt that comes
with being unable to feel what I know I should. But I always play the part
because god forbid my mental illnesses get accused of bringing other people
down during the most wonderful time of the year. Plus, I always think there
might finally be enough lights, garland, and ugly sweaters in the world to
temporarily inflate my empty husk into something that resembles a person. Not
to mention that manic Allie loves all the stuff,
but I have unfortunately come to terms with still being in a depressive episode
for the foreseeable future.
I can’t possibly be alone
in this. Whether the holidays are imbued with a greater spiritual significance
for people or not, there’s always a vague emptiness that accompanies a sea of
unwrapped presents. A feeling of “OK, what next? Wait. That’s all?” For me,
it’s like eating a great meal really fast. I don’t even remember what it tasted
like. I just know I’m miserable now.
Sure, there’s family and
all that jazz, but the immense pressure put on making the holidays a time for
intense bonding and a setting aside of differences takes me out of the present
moment enough to forget I’m supposed to be enjoying myself.
The first Christmas I
spent with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (my other mental illness)
really threw me for a loop because, while surrounded by my entire family, I had
this persistent and intrusive thought that one of us wouldn’t be around for the
next Christmas. Did this come to fruition? Obviously not, but there’s something
about the combined newness of my birthday, Christmas, and New Years that really
sends my anxiety into overdrive. Like the possibilities for terrible things to
happen has just been rewound and set back into motion. Relentless pessimism,
anyone?
Plus, the whole idea of a
“fresh start” just reiterates to me how out of control I am, and with people
throwing the word “resolution” around like it’s nothing, my inability to choose
my mood/state of mind is constantly being brought back to the forefront of my
everyday life. Since I’m in my last year of college, this year’s “fresh start”
is particularly loaded. Four or five Christmases ago, I was a gifted kid with a
lot of promise. Now, I’m behind my peers in every sense of the word and lack
all motivation to regain my footing.
Trust me. I’ve done the
whole “fresh start” thing before. Every time I feel even the slightest reprieve
from my depression, I attempt to get my life together. When I finally have a
plan in place, depression or hypomania can completely and utterly destroy it.
So why bother trying to fight the wrecking ball of my moods and anxiety? There
are so many things I want to and know I can do, but I am always caught off
guard and suddenly at the mercy of my mind at the worst possible moments. But
that’s a little bit of a digression.
I’ve definitely been
trying to channel my holiday-induced hyperawareness of my mental illnesses into
humor or irony in the past few weeks, but the reality is completely absent of
humor. I unironically live with this every day, and neither I nor anyone else
with a mental illness wants pity because of that. Just know that for all the
Christmas-spirit-killing my honesty does, it pales in comparison to fighting
tooth-and-nail just to exist and inhabit a reality that vaguely looks like
normalcy from the outside. I’m tired of feeling selfish for not being able to
push my mental illnesses to the side during moments of objective happiness.
The holidays – no matter
which ones people celebrate – carry such a profound sense of “another year
down, X amount of years left” for those of us with mental illnesses (and I
have a birthday in there, to boot), and guess what? That is depressing, so it
makes sense that no one wants to hear that during the holidays or any other
time, for that matter.
Yesterday, my school held
its ceremonial lighting of campus, and all I could think about was how detached
I felt from everyone and everything around me. All the people laughing,
hugging, and singing forced me to step back and reckon with my inability to
genuinely partake in those things.
But this isn’t a sob
story. I think it’s important to remember that people don’t magically get
better just because the season is supposed to be magical. If I were scared to
be vocal about my mental illnesses or otherwise having to struggle in
silence, I would want my lack of holiday spirit validated, so that’s what this
post is for more than anything else. It’s OK to not be OK even when
everyone expects circumstances to suddenly lift people’s spirits.
I can acknowledge that my
current depressive episode, anxiety, and OCD aren’t going anywhere. I can also
congratulate myself for making it another year even though I don’t particularly
look forward to the year ahead, but that sentiment, of course, is operating
under the assumption that I won’t feel any differently in the near future. But
I’m taking steps toward getting better. So maybe that should be the resolution
of people with mental illness: remembering how far we’ve come and
remembering that our state of mind doesn’t have to be permanent, but it’s
totally fine if we aren’t progressing as fast as we had hoped. Truth be told,
progress is simply making it to see another holiday season.
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