How to Get Through a Tough Holiday Season
The holidays can be tough. The world is telling you, “BE FUN,” which makes it hard to have no joy. We asked how you deal with family strife, grief, loneliness, and untimely life crises. Here’s your best advice:
DanceswithPeeps The Burner v2.1 offers what may be the mantra of every year at this time: ” From you need not meet the expectations of other people,” and, as a result, “you have to think about what you’re willing to burn bridges.” Everything that follows falls under this umbrella: in order to take care of yourself, you must put your own needs and desires first.
Untitled1 echoed this opinion:
My advice: If you really don’t feel the spirit of Christmas, but plan to study out of a sense of duty, you don’t need to. Sometimes it’s good to force yourself to be around others, but sometimes you can withdraw into your shell for a while. Don’t let anyone accuse you of being involved if you know it is a mentally healthy thing for you to stay to yourself.
Some of you have recommended traveling on vacation to make this time of year special and to get out of the rut. The fiddler on the hot tin roof said
No husband, no kids, and my family is terrible, so I never feel like I belong somewhere around Christmas. I started traveling around Christmas and it was the best decision I have ever made. If I get lonely at Christmas, at least I will be lonely at Christmas in Dublin, Madrid or Paris, where I can go out, take a walk, do some sightseeing and get the hell out of it because I’m somewhere amazing instead of to cry in my empty (except for me and my cat) bed at home.
Prependix found travel to be a wonderful custom for individual holidays:
In the second vacation season after getting my first real job, I decided to leave home and go somewhere, short or long. That year I went to another country for about a week and did the same the next year. For the last couple of years I’ve just kept it local and go camping. Just forcing myself to get out of town works wonders in minimizing the emotional slump I experience around this time during the holidays.
And GGxGG found that planning even a local vacation trip gave them the ability to look forward to:
I planned what I really enjoyed doing for the New Years (going to a beautiful place), then made a chain of paper rings so that I could rip off the ring every day until we get to January 1st. In short, every day reminded me that no matter how shitty every day was, I was at least making progress in postponing the holidays and doing something fun to start the new year.
If you can’t be where you want to spend your vacation, there are always ways to distract yourself a little. ThereIsNoFluffy goes to the “Lots and lots of grass and a half-dozen new novels.” CommonVices recommends “Four shots of RumChata, one shot of Fireball. Mixing. Drink. Repetition.”
Accepting that things suck when they suck can also be better than trying to get you to greet. Get from BurntFootGumbo :
Wine. My baby is in the hospital for the second week and it looks like they will be spending Christmas there. The tree we put when it had the episode) is still where we left it. Although I am at home every night before going to the hospital (walking the dog, etc.), I have not touched the jewelry.
When I come home and get ready for bed, it’s 2 glasses of wine.
Perfect end to a shitty year.
And remember that if something is really bad, you can get help. If you need it, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline at 1-800-273-8255. Best wishes.