Depression peaks around holidays
Morgan Hill – For Patricia, ‘Merry Christmas’ is an oxymoron. Christmas carols make her crumple. Sleigh bells send her scrambling back into bed.
Five years ago, her mother died: the axis around which Christmas revolved. Crammed into Nana’s two-bedroom apartment, Patricia, her four brothers, and their myriad children would bundle cornhusks into tamales, to the tune of cheesy carols on tape. The kids clamored for sweetbread as Nana and their
parents sipped coffee, cracking jokes about their childhood, way-back-when.
After she died, “I wouldn’t even put up a tree,” said Patricia, a Gilroy mother of two who preferred not to give her last name. “Now, I still can’t get into it. I can’t even get motivated to get stockings.”
Some people dream of a white Christmas; for others, it’s more of a nightmare. Depression wells and suicides spike around the holidays, despite – or because of – the onslaught of Yuletide cheer. Comedies like ‘A Christmas Story’ and ‘Bad Santa’ have long lampooned the giddy festivity that stretches from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, but for South County counselors, holiday depression “isn’t a cliche,” said Barry Goldman-Hall, clinical director at Community Solutions. According to police, suicides cluster late in the year: in Gilroy, almost half of suicides from 2003 to 2006 happened in October, November or December.
“It’s very real,” said Goldman-Hall. Besides the lack of sunlight, a natural trigger for Seasonal Affect Disorder, “the holidays bring about pressures for families to be together, pressures to celebrate. Between the retail world and the media and the Internet, you’re inundated. If you’re not lock-step with that stuff, you struggle.”
Rosy images of close-knit families wallop the lonely; gleaming ads for toys and trinkets rub the cash-strapped sore. Alcoholics are urged to drink; trauma victims are told to be merry. Even kids suffer, says school psychologist Joe Guzicki, who works at Gilroy high and Mt. Madonna. Some fear winter vacation, when they trade a well-ordered schoolhouse for a disorderly home. Truancy also ticks upward slightly, Guzicki notes, but it’s hard to say whether that’s depression, or families skimming a few extra days of vacation.
“It really points out to kids things that are deficient in their lives,” said Guzicki, “and that wears on them.”
The holidays aren’t a holiday for social workers at Chamberlain’s Mental Health Services, said Assistant Program Director Vicky Tamashiro. Foster kids long for their parents; parents despair. At every visit, a social worker must be present, and visits cluster around Christmas.
“They miss them more,” said Tamashiro, “if that’s possible.”
Others long for toys out of reach – or out of budget. Ads pander to kids, forcing low-income parents to say ‘No’ like a mantra. Some snap at kids, saying too much about what they can afford, and what they can’t.
“The commercials, the radio, TV and movies play up what you should have – but it isn’t available,” said Erick Westphal, an undergraduate social worker at Gilroy Family Resource Center. That puts pressure on parents to buy and compete, added Goldman-Hall.
“Poor families are both literally and figuratively looking in from the outside,” he said. Even the well-off can crumble, when faced with orchestrating the picture-perfect holiday. “You’re expected to give and buy for and take care of everybody. Take some time out. Refuel your batteries.”
Amid the holiday rush, self-soothing practices sometimes fall by the wayside: who has time to meditate, ride a bike or catch a movie when six more gifts need to be bought, aunts and uncles are knocking at the door, and the fruitcake just collapsed again? Instead, overwhelmed adults indulge with food or alcohol, “not highly effective coping mechanisms,” said Goldman-Hall.
A better method? Calling a friend, said Westphal.
“We’re not meant to live alone, or we’d each have our own planet,” he joked. “Some families don’t reach out, and then January is the letdown month. The decorations come down, and they’re even lonelier than before.”
Patricia is trying, slowly, to make Christmas work. Her sons miss it, she says. She bought stockings this week, the first stockings since her mother died. A few years ago, she bought a tree, and ringed it with presents. And last Thanksgiving, she tried to gather her brothers, her sons, and all the kids for one big family dinner, just like Nana used to do.
“It’s just not the same,” she said quietly. “People that do have the parents here – value them. Don’t take each day for granted. Those little details, things you don’t think you’re going to miss? You miss them.”
Emily Alpert covers public safety issues for The Dispatch. She can be reached at 847-7158, or at ea*****@gi************.com.
