What Holiday Depression Really Feels Like - Article Health

People often joke about the suffocating holiday spirit that seems to hit store shelves earlier and earlier each year. Sometimes, you’ll find a giant plastic Santa in your local drugstore before the turkey has even been carved on Thanksgiving Day. With the Christmas carols, the cheesy Hallmark movies, and the wallet-busting shopping trips comes family togetherness. For many of us, that means listening to relatives we see once or twice a year argue about politics while we silently wish to be somewhere else.

Sure, it’s a bleak picture to paint of the holiday season (there are plenty of wonderful things, too, like gathering with loved ones and showing appreciation through thoughtful gifts). But for many people who have clinical depression, the holidays aren’t just hard to get through—they’re unbearable.

“The holidays are our sickest time of year,” says Sheryl Recinos, MD, who often works with patients who have debilitating diseases. Patients become more depressed about their illnesses around the holidays, she says, because they’re unable to spend the time with loved ones.

Many other people who have depression dread the holidays because holiday to-do lists (buy presents, decorate the house, make holiday cookies for the kids’ party, entertain guests, etc.) can be stressful. “Culturally, we might feel that there’s pressure to do more. The end of November and into December, people have less time for themselves because they’re spending free time doing everything else,” says Amy Alexander, MD, clinical assistant professor at Stanford University’s psychiatry department.

"I'd always played the game of going home and being hunky dory for the holidays."
Last year, Bryanna Burkhart chose to skip out on her family’s traditional Christmas gathering and visit a friend in New York, instead. The thought of pretending to be happy throughout another family holiday was too much; she just couldn’t fake it anymore. “In the past I have always played the game of going home and being hunky dory for the holidays,” she tells Health.

Usually, she’d head home for Christmas and spend the whole time just trying to get through it. She describes the feeling like holding in a sneeze. “You really need to sneeze, but you hold it in,” she says. “You feel better that you didn’t sneeze, but you don’t get that same relief

Tweet

Article Health

Blogger who interesting to provide various tips about health. especially medicines in a natural way.

Subscribe to receive free email updates: