Holiday Stress - Or is it Depression?
Holiday Stress? Or is it Depression?
It’s time…Here come the Holidays…and stress!
Feeling anxious and stressed as the holidays approach and during the holiday season is nothing new, and it’s actually pretty natural.
However, if you begin to feel closed in, isolated and sad you might be more than anxious, you may have some depression on the horizon.
Feeling down during the holidays can be tough, especially if you feel like you are so out of step with the world. Everyone else seems to be so happy and bursting with holiday spirit. You’re feeling a little ill and exhausted.
But here’s something that might just make you feel a bit better the next time you’re stuck in a room of revelers at a holiday party: Plenty of them are probably unhappy too.
“I think a lot of people would say that the holidays are the worst time of the year,” says Ken Duckworth, MD, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “They’re just straight up miserable, and that’s not only for people with clinical depression.”
So, if the family gatherings, endless parties, and the shopping get you down, you’re definitely not alone. But people with depression -- or who have dealt with depression in the past -- need to be especially cautious when coping with holiday stress.
Depression tends to increase during the holidays due to an increase in demands (perceived as stressful), family issues, and not being able to manage all the expectations.
The holidays are synonymous with family, so any issues that a person has with their family will come to the forefront during this time.
If there is loss, dysfunction, addiction, abuse, disconnection, separation, estrangement, or divorce occurring or affecting your family, then it’s very likely that you will have to manage all the emotions that are related to these issues. And for someone already managing depression, it is an additional emotional burden.
This is the time of year that I begin receiving lots of phone calls and messages asking for appointments one on one or online, to banish the stress, anxiety and depression.
Those who have gone through the CONTROL System have a change. The thing that was once the hardest thing in their lives to deal with, is now a forgotten pattern.
