Anywhere But Home For The Holidays

Depression, family drama, and low-key emotional abuse over turkey

For me, the holidays have traditionally meant one thing: depression.

I’m bipolar, and the seasons affect me quite a lot harder than many others. Once the weather gets cold and the days get short, my brain decides that the happy days of summer are over. Nothing but crappy feelings and anxiety for the next four to five months.

The typical trigger for this is the wretched Daylight Savings. Once that clock falls back an hour, my brain taps out.

This is always bad enough, but for almost my entire adult life, the holidays mean big family gatherings. Lots of people, lots of drinking, lots of noise. Things this quiet, reserved, non-drinking introvert doesn’t particularly care for.

Add onto that the fact that my family typically hosts Christmas and manages to cram 30 or so people into a relatively small house with no escapes, and I’m pretty much hosed.

It would kick off with Thanksgiving at Grandma’s. Grandma lived in a big place, so there was room to spread out (and places to escape to). Still, though, I had to endure a lot of people, loud conversations, raucous stories, and general rambunctiousness.

Dad usually said I could go home early for Thanksgiving. I always counted on that, with the caveat that Christmas was around the corner. Christmas was always way worse.

Because my parents hosted Christmas, I was expected to be there early and stay the whole time. There was very little space in their house when everyone was there, so there wasn’t anywhere quiet to hide.

It wouldn’t matter if I could hide, though. Any time I would get away from people for a minute, dad would drag me back into the group, nagging me about joining the family. There was no escape.

My wife (then girlfriend) would usually comment about how I was always drained after Christmas. I always tried to take the week off between Christmas and New Year’s Day, but I rarely enjoyed it because I was so drained from family stuff.

Needless to say, I hated Christmas. I proudly identified as a Grinch and generally shat all over the holiday and its celebration. My wife, who always tried to enjoy herself during the holidays, never liked that about me.

And so it went, year after year. Daylight Savings would roll around, and my mood would fall. Between the season change and the upcoming Mandatory Family Fun Time™, I was generally a cranky git during November and December.

All I wanted was to not have to participate in the holiday family gatherings. To just have a quiet Thanksgiving dinner with people I loved without it turning rowdy. To enjoy a peaceful Christmas Eve and Day with people I cared about.

Unfortunately, my family was an obstacle to this dream. It’s not that I don’t love them and care for them. I am just a black sheep that doesn’t fit in. They tried to include me, they really did. It’s just that nothing ever really felt good about it

I hated going home for the holidays.

One year, a holiday miracle happened. I had a massive six-month-long fight with my father, who proceeded to gaslight me before sort-of disowning me.

So it’s a crappy miracle. So I was also going through a lot of other stuff, like losing $15,000 and burying a beloved cat. So I was on the verge of killing myself. So I’ve been coping with the emotional fallout for a few years afterward.

It still worked out okay, I guess.

For one, I don’t have to go do family holidays anymore. That’s a win in my book.

Don’t get me wrong, it sucked at first. The fight started in November, so I missed my first family Thanksgiving in my adult life. It felt weird. Wrong.

We tried to reconcile in December. I wound up skipping Christmas Eve (the biggest party, so I was thankful there). Christmas Day I went and opened presents, awkwardly, at my parents’ house. The whole thing felt wrong.

Our reconciliation attempt blew up in January, and the whole thing ended in May with a crappy letter from my father. That holiday season, I was a wreck. My depression kicked in worse than usual, I was a mopey, angsty sod, and I’m pretty sure I was crappy to everyone around me.

The following year — last year — was quite a bit different. My nurse practitioner put me on an antidepressant in October, so my annual depression was a lot duller than normal. The cloud of the family feud was further in the past, so I wasn’t feeling so bad about it.

We had started a new tradition: a friend of ours holds an annual Thanksgiving for those of us with nowhere to go. Having newly qualified for it, we decided to go. What a difference.

The conversation wasn’t the loud, drunken storytelling that I was used to. Instead, it was a bit more subdued, with more emphasis on enjoying each other’s company than one-upping each other’s stories.

There was a dedicated quiet space in one corner of the house where you could go to decompress if everything got to be too much. I spent about 20 minutes there when I got overwhelmed. Our host checked in on me briefly but didn’t try to drag me back out to the gathering. “Come back when you’re ready,” he said. It was refreshing.

Christmas was a bigger gathering, but similar in tone. Good food, good company, and a quiet place to escape if necessary. I’d never felt more at home at a holiday gathering.

Something strange happened that year. Whether it was the antidepressants, the lack of family pressure, or just plain feeling comfortable, I began to enjoy the holidays.

I smiled more. I was less stressed. I helped decorate the house a little bit. I even sang along to a Christmas carol once.

I wasn’t the Grinch I once was. My heart grew a few sizes that year.

I had found my people.

In the aftermath of the blowup with my family, I had to figure out where I fit. My chosen family stepped up and took me in with open arms.

I began to learn that you’re allowed to not want to associate with people that make you feel like crap. Even if they’re your family.

Every year, my family would send me into an anxious depressive spiral into oblivion. I’d arrive in the new year emotionally exhausted and ready to throw in the towel.

Finding out that I didn’t have to do that was a fantastic lesson. The idea that I could spend my time however I wanted with the people I wanted is a lesson I am glad to learn.

So, this year, I’m doing it again. We are doing Thanksgiving with our friends and Christmas with our friends, and bugger if anyone is stopping me.

I urge you: if going home for the holidays makes you feel like garbage, then don’t do it. You’re allowed to do what you want for the holidays. You’re supposed to enjoy yourself, and if you don’t enjoy yourself around your family, don’t be around them.

If you’re like me and you have a mental illness, don’t be around people that make it flare up. Even if they’re your family, even if it’s the holidays. My feelings of depression and anxiety were only heightened by being around my family, and now that I’m not anymore, I actually enjoy the holidays.

You are not required to keep people in your life that make you feel like crap.

Go do the holidays the way you want to. If that’s at home, cool. If you need to go anywhere but home, do it. Do what makes you the happiest.

Be happy and safe this holiday season.