“It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. Or so the song goes. At it’s best, it is without doubt a magical time of the year, and a wonderful celebration shared with friends and family. The modern way of starting the Christmas build up in September, means that by 25th December we are in no doubt that we should be having the time of our lives, and be ensconced within a bubble of good cheer and festivity. But do we put too much pressure on ourselves? And does this assumption of the need to place oneself upon a cloud of unbridled joy actually have a detrimental effect?
As a child I loved Christmas, just as any child does. It was a very special time, where anything seemed possible, and the excitement was palpable as soon as the nights began to draw in, and the air became colder. As I got older, the presents became smaller and more expensive, and my faith moved from Father Christmas to Amazon, and yet it still remained an exciting time. I still looked forward to it all year, and the feeling of breaking up from school/university/work was incomparable to anything else.
In the last 7 or 8 years, the effect of Christmas has changed for me. It has become one of the flashpoints in the year where my mood will inevitably and unavoidably take a nosedive. By it’s very nature it is an extremely intense period, with parties, family get-togethers, my birthday and much more besides. In theory this should be a cause of celebration, and a reason for good times. However, it is a period of time when I feel desperately sad. This may be in part because I get nostalgic of ‘the past’, and of Christmas’ from childhood, and of people who were so deeply associated with Christmas, and yet who have since passed away.
However, I think the main reason why this time of year has a negative effect on me is because there is a such a focus on happiness and having a good time. This causes me to ruminate over the areas of my life where I’m not happy, and engage in unhelpful comparisons with others. Social media inevitably provides a portal into this self reflection, as you are presented with marriage proposals, babies first Christmas, people having fun at parties, and perfect scenes of Christmas fun. I realise that it is foolish, and inaccurate, to assume that everyone is happy and exactly how they present themselves on Instagram or Facebook. Of course people want to portray the best of their lives; why would you want to share the negative? Especially not at Christmas.
Despite my ability to rationalise this, it still doesn’t prevent me from finding this time of year harder and harder to deal with. As each December comes, it brings with it another birthday, and I find myself another year older. I can never prevent the blanket of sadness or regret at the years that have passed, or the painful truth that I’m no different now than I was 5 or 10 years ago. Similarly, New Year brings with it an inevitable assessment of the year, and highlights how my life has not progressed in the way I want it to, despite thinking every New Years Day, “maybe this will be the year”. I still get the bouts of loneliness, I still can’t prevent the waves of anxiety or depression, and I still can’t consider myself happy. The unfair part of it is that my mind will only focus on the negatives, and not the positives. This year I trained and ran the London Marathon, and started a new job. But these will not feature in my mental assessment of the year, despite being huge challenges, and to any rational mind, big successes.
Christmas will always hold a special place in my heart, and I hold on to a faint hope that one day I can enjoy it again as I once did, and not view it as a time to just ‘get through’ as unscathed as possible.
Obviously how I feel, and the affect this time of year has on me, is nothing compared to many other people, and I am in no way suggesting that it is. I am very lucky in everything I have. For those people who have no home, or no family, or are seriously ill, Christmas must be an indescribably miserable time. It’s no surprise that last Christmas The Samaritans received 227,000 calls, many of which were from suicidal people.
As 2019 approaches I hope it is a great year for everyone. When the clock ticks over to 00:00 on January 1st, you are presented with a blank canvas, and an as yet untarnished new year. Everyone’s goal should be to ensure that we, and those around us, don’t destroy our canvas, but instead attempt to create a beautiful artwork.
The Inner Darkness - My secret battle with depression and anxiety 