So I’ll be very blunt. October through about April is the hardest part of the year for me depression-wise. The collapse of my marriage and subsequent divorce more or less ran from those months and while I try not to dwell on the really painful memories it entailed it still affects me to this day. I have however come to understand that I have to find outlets and methods to cope with it and being New Years Eve I thought I’d schedule this particular post for anyone having difficulties as the year draws to a close.
New Years is always a time where people take to self reflection. I do that constantly, to the point where it ramps my anxiety. As such the increased focus on it in social media, news and social circles can become overwhelming. As down as it sounds, I stopped treating Christmas and the run up to the New Years as something to celebrate. After all being Asian my family actually celebrates the Lunar New Year more than NYE/NY. I don’t make particularly elaborate plans, I just treat it as ‘a day off’ from work. But what does that really mean right?
Call me a Grinch I suppose, I don’t really go all-in with Christmas but as a result, my budget is OK, I don’t stress about parties or gifts (except for those really close to me) and I try to focus on positive messages and thank you to those who have managed to still keep in touch. I find activities that have a short turn around time and yield fun results. The latest experiment for me, coffee gummy bears.
Cooking has been rather cathartic for me, between healthier eating and the occasional bread-making, I’ve tried to expand into recipes that I don’t really know as well. This past Christmas I experimented with paleo-friendly gummies. The main reason? They take all of ten minutes to actually mix, and just an hour to set and enjoy. While an hour can sometimes seems like an eternity, I tried to find small activities throughout the holidays that could yield results. Other tasks I passed the time with, Lego sets while waiting on laundry. Seems silly right, but it gets two things out of the way. You’re distracted while cleaning so that you aren’t sitting there listening to the drone of a washer/dryer and you’re making progress on cleaning up around yourself and self-care.
I realize my outlets aren’t going to necessarily line up with everybody else, but consider some of the aspects of my approaches and apply them to yourself. If you like cooking, try a small recipe you’ve been meaning to try out, doesn’t need to be candy. Like building things, maybe try out a building game rather than an FPS shooter (The Sims, Parkitect, Rimworld). Vary your pattern just enough so that you get something ‘different’ than just your daily.
Motivation is probably the biggest issue with anything I’ve mentioned above, and I get that. There’s a lot of mornings it’s a struggle to want to cook or try cleaning up anything. So remember that a lot of it is momentum. Don’t try to be grand in your plan like “I’m going to clean the whole room”. Go smaller, tidy up just the bed itself. If you have that forward push, maybe try sorting a drawer. If you find your motivation waning, move on from the cleaning to something else.
The holidays are rough, but if you can find those two or three things to get you through the day without putting a strain on your mental health it makes a difference. I know, I know it sounds like some stupid motivational meme thing right? My days aren’t full of constant cooking and positivity, there are a lot of days I just sort of zombie-walk my way through things. No matter what your current situation, small changes, big changes, anything to move into a better mental health space helps. It doesn’t always feel like it, I know, but while there’s no magic cure-all, you can find ways to fight back against the undertow.