Holiday depression

Does anyone Get really depressed on any kind of holiday?. Christmas, Halloween, Easter, what ever.


I personally find that they are worse than birthdays for me (in terms of depression)


I see them as milestones. Just as you grow older every year and reflect on the year gone, you do the same with the holidays.


Like, this time last Halloween, I wasn't doing anything with my life


Now we've had the complete circle, it's Halloween again., and I'm in the same old rut


That kind of thing

Hi @emily1890 - I hear you. Holidays for me always inferred that I should be with people and the way my life is I am not a party animal by any stretch of the imagination. So I am at the point where holiday expectations are about zero.

I still think of my parents from time to time. I wonder if my daughter will think of me when I am gone. Hopefully not too upset but I am surprised it means something to me to have someone think of me then.

What things happened for you around holidays that made them so toxic?

@CANDC

Yes, its really bad this year.

TRIGGER: I'm putting one foot in front of the other and surviving by over medicating myself so I sleep for days. I wish it was forever.

Yes. I also wish we could get rid of some of them. I think Thanksgiving per se is really outdated. Where most people today do not have the nuclear family I think it is outdated and nothing more than a day to make a whole lot of people feel bad.

Christmas was such a magical time when I was a kid I had no idea how anyone could be depressed. I saw a holiday postal service commercial about an hour ago and I felt panicked. I have a lot of family stuff going on right now and idk. Thanksgiving will be tough this year.

To me it's starting to look and feel like the holidays. And now the depression has started to make its way into me. The main reason why I have holiday depression is because it's supposed to be a joyous time, but instead, I'm just going to be alone, so it doesn't mean anything to me. It's been that way for a long time for me.

Lately I have been having memories on how nice the holidays were when I was much younger. It was with my original family. The family wasn't great when I was growing up, but it seemed like the holidays was a time when we'd emotionally bonded more with happiness; and put away our differences. When the holidays were over, it felt like the end of the world. Not just because the holidays were over, but because we'd be back to being emotionally separate with each other.

I'm retired now but back in the days when I was working it was the worst before the holidays. The constant questions of, "what will you being for the holidays? Will you be with your family"? And then they'd talk about great plans they will be having. Yea, that really makes me feel great about myself! I have my neighbors now but I hardly talk to them. So I guess that would mean less questions for me.

Also, I hate to sound like a "Scrooge", but I can't stand those superficial - "Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year" I get from store clerks and others.

I don't exactly get depressed, but I'm learning not to have a Norman Rockwell version of holidays. Try to enjoy what is---not want I wish it would be. Go out to have a Thanksgiving dinner--turkey and all that stuff; buy some gifts for needy children, since I don't have any at home anymore, etc. Listen to Christmas music; even watch those sappy Christmas movies and live through other people

We've had a Christmas Day gathering here at My Support Forums for the last several years--where people can get on a thread and visit; pretend to bring food, etc. Even gifts would be fun.

We could do that for Thanksgiving, too, if people are interested.

I get depressed severely every Christmas but this year I'm in a mixed episode I think. Be nice to be better at Christmas for once.

Even the sanitized version of the first Thanksgiving we were taught in school was way off the mark. We have too many holidays in this country and like you I wish we could get rid of some of them. And all of them are overly commercialized now. It's about money, more than ever it seems. Stupid Black Friday, sometimes starting it on midnight Friday, to get an early start! Some stores used to open on Thanksgiving in the past too.


Well, you KNOW I agree with every word. The phony greetings we do and the words "happy" or "merry" added to almost every holiday is, to me, a form of adult peer pressure. You're supposed to be happy or have a happy time. Sigh....

I get those questions too, not just from store clerks but from other members at the stupid senior center. Everybody is talking about their great plans, trips, grandchildren, none of which I have. In book club last week, they started talking about how great their Thanksgiving was and how they saw their grandkids, etc. My cue to get up and go to the restroom, lol. When I got back it was over. People think everybody's life is like theirs' it seems.

And EVERY freaking year the media shows us footage of people at the airport, as if every person on this planet is headed to the airport to travel for the holidays. Then there's images of smiling families and couples, waiting in long lines and the reporters interview them. They talk about how they are going to see _____ and are excited about it.

Yeah I sound like a Scrooge or The Grinch too (I actually have a small, stuffed Grinch that I got out), but for the love of everything holy, the holidays are NOT GREAT for everyone. And some don't want to be told how they can make it better. They feel bad enough.

I have a bit of an issue with my college friend, who lives 3,000 miles from me. We email each other and call on occasions. Before Thanksgiving, he was telling me that he will spend that day (and Christmas also) with his sister and husband. He's a lifelong single like I am. I think that there were times when he told me that he's not all that crazy about going to his sister's.

After he had told me about getting together with his sister, we talked on the phone; and I told him that I feel depressed about being alone for the holidays and how people don't help when they talk about getting together with family. He seemed to have understood and then told me that he wouldn't mention to me about getting together with his sister on the holidays again. He was nice, sympathetic, and understanding about it. But lately he's bringing it up again about Christmas.

I don't know if it's weird of me to feel that way. The thing that frustrates me the most is when there's an understanding and an agreement about what should not be talked about; and then the other person doesn't honor the agreement. That's been a problem for as long as I've known him. It's not the only time he's been like that. With me, if anyone tells me that they don't want to talk or hear about something they don't feel comfortable with, I make a note and be sure never to mention it again.

Ahh...alas some people just aren't as discerning and emphatic as us. I used to be friends (sub-standard quality) with a woman who KNEW I was alone and had no one, yet she'd cheerfully wish me a "happy holiday". Really? Talk about a knife in the gut. She'd tell me all about her warm, extended family and the gatherings planned.

Not once did she ever invite me, knowing I live alone and am not going to any family gathering---small or large. If it were the other way around, I'd certainly invite HER so she wouldn't be alone. IF she prefers it or declines, that's okay but I'd make the gesture nonetheless. I swear I don't even miss her. Insensitive, judgemental, thinks she can do no wrong, always right, etc.

This guy sounds like her. Also, he could be so forgetful that nothing sinks in..even telling him repeatedly. Or he could just lack emotional intelligence, they are clueless as to how the other person feels. They are so out of tune with emotions in general, maybe even their own.

A favorite radio station keeps saying "HAPPY holidays". When I can't stand it anymore, I tune to a commercial free music channel on TV. It can be repetitive but they don't say "happy or merry". But they do play a Christmas song now and then.

The media is bombarding me with smiling family images, most of which I can fast forward past. And even with 2 wars going on, we're supposed to still be cheerful for the holidays and have all these big plans. I read what a sick society the US is and why depression/anxiety is so widespread, esp.at this time of the year.

3 weeks and it will be over, though things don't completely "settle down" until the second week of January.

Holidays don't cause depression for me. They do make it desirable for me to isolate.

As of now I'm realizing that this Christmas, this time, is not going to be great. Probably even more so this time than in the past, when I've spent so many Holidays alone.

This Christmas I won't have a single friend. And then my sister had a fall last week and broke some bones on her arm. I called her last Thursday and she didn't sound good and was in a hurry to hang up on me. She said she'd call me the next day and, as of now, still hasn't called. She does that to me a lot and I get tired of it. Plus, when I call, it's always a bad time. So I don't like to reach out because I have a fear of rejection and it happens almost all of the time.

I remembered decades ago, when I was much younger, that during times when I'd be watching TV with my father, I'd sing along with the Christmas commercials I was happy back then. While I was singing, my father interrupted me by saying, "there are many who feel really bad at this time of year". I thought that he was such a downer and it was hard for me to believe how people can feel bad during the season. Now that I'm much older and alone, I know why.

I thought you had cut your sister out of your life but that was months ago, that I saw that thread or maybe longer.

Your dad sounded way more "in touch" or in tune with how things are for some people than mine.

Yeah, I really get it too. I'm well more aware of things like dysfunctional families, the ever widening gap between the haves and have nots, cultural expectations to have big plans, how commercialized and superficial our holidays are, how the pressure to shop can be too much, how the shorter days impact people's moods, etc.......while we have two wars going on and continue to get mass shootings like no other country does. But tis' the season right?

I swear it's a form of adult peer pressure: It's the holidays and you're supposed to be cheerful and be with family/friends. The ***** at the senior center who was processing my renewal insisted I "must" have somebody for my emergency contact. That was like pouring gasoline on a fire, for crying outloud.

To add insult to injury, I'm getting promotional emails from my credit union or bank or to complete a survey on the call with a representative. No emails, texts, or calls from anybody I want to hear from. Just marketing or scams, that's all the messages I get now.

I felt really good for Halloween. I had little candle-lit pumpkins and autumn decorations all over the place. My place looked nice. Patio was decorated. I was into the season and loving the fall weather.

Second week of November my happy mood collapsed. It's been collapsed all the way to now. I'm never like this a week before Christmas. I feel like I can't cope with anything. I was alone for the last 3 Christmases, and I managed okay, but this year I feel so much worse.

Just a couple of weeks, and it'll be a new year, and potential for a new start!

2023 was not a great year for me. Lots of disappointments, set-backs, and takeaways. Some good things happened but it was mostly a weird and not-so-great year.

That song "A Long December" by The Counting Crows comes to mind. Although I have been fortunate this year not to experience "the smell of hospitals".

One of my "metaphors" for the end of 2023, and hopefully going forward, is based on the song "Go West" by Pet Shop Boys. I'm going to try to live a life of peace, sun, and joy going forward.