Christmas is Here

I have had bad Christmas seasons before - the year I found out my husband wanted a divorce, the first Christmas I had as a truly single mom, the year I lost my job/career and decided to move back home... but this year has topped them all.  The biggest difference between those horrible years and this year is that it never got back.  I wasn't able to muscle-through and at least try by going through the motions.  I just couldn't work it up to care enough.

I chalk this up to major depression and some life events happening this month.  I haven't put up one decoration and have barely done any Christmas shopping.  I haven't gone to one Christmas party or event (well, with the exception of watching my daughter's college choir in their annual Christmas event - but I felt numb through the entire program).  My daughter and I make Christmas cookies together almost every year (very few exceptions), but that didn't happen.  We didn't even watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" together - which is a staple for the two of us.

To top it off, my family Christmas is always on Christmas Eve because my daughter goes to her dad's the afternoon of the 24th and is there all day on the 25th.  So our Christmas Eve is the 23rd and our Christmas is the morning of the 24th.  Well, she had to work on the evening of the 23rd and I had a support group meeting I needed to go to.  So no Christmas Eve stuff happened.  Then I woke up with a bad headache, nausea, and some abdominal pain yesterday - on the 24th.  This has never happened before, but I didn't even have my daughter's Christmas gifts wrapped (she was basically the only one I bought for this year that needed to be wrapped).

It took all day to make myself just get up long enough to wrap those gifts (one was big and heavy and really difficult to wrap).  My daughter has never been one to wake up early to open presents (even as a little kid she preferred to sleep over seeing what Santa brought).  This year, though, she was in the same boat as me, except that she had done a little bit of decorating earlier in the month.  Yesterday, though, she was as depressed as I was - and so she didn't come down until late afternoon.  This gave me time to wrap the gifts before she came down.

I don't want to go into details, but the evening just got worse as it progressed.  I hoped that I would wake up today feeling better, but I don't.  Right before the nearest grocery store closed last night, I did have the foresight that I might feel this way - so I bought some snacks for my daughter's trip and some junk food to eat today.

Yes, I know that this is completely opposite to my goal of recovery through OA.  Yes, I completely realize that I am medicating my feelings with food.  Only a few times in my life have I bought alcohol to drink at home - and those were more for others.  But last night I did think about trying to get drunk, just to make the pain go away.  However, I'm too broke for alcohol so Little Debbie cakes and chips and queso made the cut instead.

Once more, it's a blog without a moral, without encouragement, without help for those of you in the same boat.  But then again, maybe it's not.  There is no great story about how I stayed sober with my food addiction through this hard time.  There aren't some helpful tips on how to make it through this kind of crap in a healthy way.  There's nothing positive about this post.

But... maybe you are in the same boat I am.  Maybe life circumstances or mental/physical health issues or finances have meant that this season sucks.  Maybe you are also by yourself and just like me, all you want is for this day to be over.  I might not be able to encourage you except to say: you aren't alone.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mania to Depression During COVID-19

When Hopes and Dreams Attach to Things

Once Again, I'm Ba-ack!