People think Christmas is a great time for everyone. Sadly, this is not necessarily true and this is how Christmas can make you feel depressed.
Christmas feelings
Christmas brings lots of emotions for people. A lot of people look forward to all the build-up of Christmas, ie shopping, wrapping presents, decorating the tree, etc. Even people who enjoy the build-up will have had a different experience this year. A lot of the shopping has taken place online this year and people haven’t necessarily got into the Christmas spirit. This is because they haven’t trudged round the shops, battling the crowds and taken in the Christmas atmosphere.
Office parties and Christmas jumper days will be different this year due to lockdown restrictions. Most office parties will be cancelled unless you work in an office of less than 6 and/or are lucky enough to be in tier 1. Some office parties have moved online, which will be a unique experience for Chrismas 2020.
In contrast to this, there are lots of people who struggle with Christmas. Some people have lost someone at this time of year and struggle to cope with the feelings they associate with Christmas and all its festivities. Other people feel pressure to provide a ‘perfect’ Christmas to their family. This comes with the pressure to find money to be able to provide presents that everyone wants. There is even more pressure this year with the uncertainty of jobs and what is currently happening and will continue to happen in 2021.
Another thing that causes distress at this time of year, is not having a family. As we have learnt in 2020 there are a lot of people out there who live on their own and do not have any extended family. Seeing other families getting together can be upsetting for these people.
How I have helped a client deal with these issues
A client came to me after the recent loss of their parent. They were struggling to deal with all their emotions and feeling associated with this loss. There was also the additional impact of Christmas being on the horizon. We began by discussing how this was affecting them on a daily basis. Some days they were coping and some days they were not managing simple tasks.
The client mentioned the guilt that they felt. We explored this guilt in much more depth. The client felt guilty because they believed they had not been the best child. I asked what made the client say this and their answer was quite shocking, but actually very common, they never felt good enough for their parent. How does a child feel, when they don’t feel good enough for their parent?
After further exploration with the client, it became apparent that the client was a ‘YES’ person. Rather than being a yes person, it is actually a ‘please others’ driver that the client has. This means that the client will please others to the detriment of themselves. If someone was asking the client to do something, both at work and personally, they were saying yes. This was despite already working full time, running a house, looking after a family, and supporting their parent prior to their death.
Learning to do things differently
After I explained this to the client, they was a light bulb moment, that I had described them perfectly. The client could start to see what they had been doing and was now starting the see the effect this was having on them. I asked the client to be aware of how they reacted to people when they were asked if they could do something. Were they doing it because they wanted to do it, or were they doing it because they thought it would please the other person and therefore they would like them?
At our next session, the client had been asked to do something by someone at work and they had said no. The other person wasn’t very happy but the client was delighted that they hadn’t taken more work on as they were already very busy. The client found this very empowering and could start to see how they need to value themselves as a person. The client realised that this was going to make Christmas more manageable as they wouldn’t be saying yes to all the family, they would be taking care of themselves and putting them at the front of the queue in a self-care way, not a selfish way.
As you can see this is how Christmas can make you feel depressed. If you are struggling to deal with the emotions and feelings associated with Christmas click below to book an appointment to see how I can help you deal with things differently.
