Hard Candy Christmas

I’m going to tell you a secret.

I hate the holidays.

December is the month with the highest rate of suicide, and the week after Thanksgiving follows close behind. This time of year is difficult for lots of people. I known many who suffer from clinical depression. Though I do not, I have a huge amount of sympathy for those who do.  I know what it feels like to be sad, overwhelmed, and empty. I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to feel that way all the time without being able to change it. There is such a huge difference between the “blue meanies” feeling we all experience and the crippling symptoms of the medical condition we call depression… I really wish we could find better language for it.

It makes me think of a wonderful song Dolly Parton did called Hard Candy Christmas. Most people would hear the title and think it was positive, but it refers to a childhood spent in poverty, when hard candy and a piece of fruit were the only things waiting on Christmas morning.  One section always runs through my head when I am feeling the weight:

I’ll be fine and dandy,

Lord, it’s like a hard candy Christmas.

I’m barely getting through tomorrow,

but still, I won’t let sorrow bring me way down.

For me, the holidays have always been a landmine. I have clinically depressed people around me. I have an array of religious beliefs being celebrated. I have a family prone to pissyness in the best of circumstances, so arranging holiday gatherings so that grandparents can see grandchildren, and so THIS side can accommodate THAT side, has always been fodder for non-stop bitching.  As the little ones became bigger, the bitching should have subsided.  It never really works that way.  People who suffer depression, people with bi-polar disorder, people who have personalities prone to hysterics don’t behave the way they do because of external stimuli. The external stuff gets the blame, but nothing is required to “set someone off.”  Most of those people don’t have an OFF switch. They are always ON, and are very good at finding something handy to blame.

They can’t help it.  It took me a lifetime to “get” that.  It took me years to realize that clinical depression has nothing to do with sadness other than sadness being a symptom.  It took me years to realize that asking a manic person to be rational and “calm down” was an error on MY part; that’s like asking a cat to fetch.  It took me years, and years, and years to realize that we don’t “keep peace;” we delay consequences. We don’t “just try to get along;” we simmer in hostility until the passivity finally gives way to aggression… sometimes after decades of internalizing.

So while I can better understand the reasons… I still really hate the holidays. I have hated them since I was a child sitting around a cheerily lit tree, ignoring the elephant in the room, hearing the words “keep peace” bleated  like bad muzak carols on repeat.  I hated them, burning with an understanding that peace can not be “kept” in this way, even as a small child surrounded by adults who pounded the lie home with a relentless hammering. I will always hate them on some level.

These days there are bright spots.  I am loved by a wonderful man.  The family I have chosen—friends and more distant family… people who love the way I like to love in return—have changed my life so much.  The days set aside for them are shining, dazzling flashes of joy.  I find family easier, as the ugliness that lurked in corners has been dragged into the light, exposed, and purged.  My family is not perfect, but the disease has been removed.  Those cancers left scars, but we are survivors.  Periods of remission that lulled us into complacency are no longer pitfalls of delusion.  That false peace no longer kept, we may scratch an old itch like amputees with phantom spasms, but the limb is gone, its poison hacked away.

Consider those around you during this season of cheer. For some, the cheerfulness piped into elevators and strangling off lightposts with glitter and lights is mocking and painful. For others, like myself, it is an uninvited guest to be tolerated with grace, but dreaded none-the-less.  I smile and wish well, but there is a post-traumatic reaction hidden just one layer beneath. If you are lucky enough to love the holidays, consider tolerance for those who do not the ultimate gift.  Watch those who suffer depression closely. Be mindful of family and friends who may not feel as you do, and show them kindness and tolerance.

I do hope your holiday is filled with joy.

Life Without Bootstraps

Depression is an illness many don’t take seriously. I have tremendous admiration and respect for anyone who deals with it.
I’ve never suffered clinical depression.

I am currently suffering environmental depression. The very idea that one could exist in this state endlessly, without a way out, without a rational connection to something that is happening chemically, but exists just as viscerally, terrifies me.

This morning, having reached the end of my rope and discovering a seriously frayed and unreliable knot, I got a phone call from a friend who lives with clinical  depression and is in addiction recovery. He is one of my oldest friends, and might be the bravest person I know.  As is so often the case in moments like these, an angel whispered in his ear at exactly the right moment. He called when I needed him most.

“How do you do this every day?”

“Medication, meditation, a wing, a prayer, and really good friends,” he said.

We vented, ranted, and he did me a favor. It meant I could finish this day without dissolving into completely useless tears.  It also gave me the push I needed to get through a week that is going to SUCK. Life sometimes does, and knowing it’s coming doesn't always help. Today I can just know the suckage is headed this way.  I’ll stop whining, wipe tears that were an indulgence, and go do what needs doing. I’m lucky. I have incredible friends, and amazing man, a furry best friend who warms my knee, and bootstraps.

Tug em if you got em, kids… life without them is a lot harder.

When I'm Sad...

Creative people rescue me when I'm down. There have been times in my life when life was too much. Cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, and just the weight of the world can sometimes get so heavy, I need to run away to a safe place. The actual place is our lake-house in Oakland, Maine. But the heart-places were born of writers, actors, film-makers. If you ever need a day to escape, I recommend you visit the following far-away lands.

When I need to clear my head, laugh, and get completely lost in another world, I can do the entire (waaaaah!!! ONLY) season of Firefly. Joss Whedon is the man, Nathan Fillion is the other man, and... well dammit, BROWNCOATS FOREVER! Nuff said. (I own, love, but avoid Serenity, because it makes me cry snot out my nose.)

One late spring I was very sick with cancer, had no hair, no eyebrows, and no eyelashes. I'd lost so much weight my skin was like paper. Ahmed took me to Maine, and while neither of us said it-- neither of us was sure I'd make it through the long weekend. I was in a great deal of pain and had lost all my fight. Out of pure need to feel GOOD about something I sat down with the entire (at that time) Bridgerton series by Julia Quin. I began reading in the bedroom. Moved downstairs, near sunlight. Finished on the gazebo at the end of the dock. These books saved my life. For real. I was eating and had passed through the pain by the end of the third day.

Sometimes I want to get lost in love and beautiful clothes, but just don't want to read. When Quinn can't fix it, Colin Firth can. I love Austen; I adore Colin Firth, and the BBC/AE mini-series with him as Darcy takes me out of my head, into my heart, and off to the sweeping green scenery and lovely gowns. Just pure indulgence, beginning to end. Colin is so dreamy. :)


I've probably re-read Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion a million times. I own all three original paperbacks, the omnibus trade that is so unwieldy it leaves my hands aching (pictured), and now have the over-priced ebooks because her publisher can't keep me from Paks! Strong heroine who is both broken and redeemed in the arch; amazing world-building with a powerful Tolkien taste; true bildungsroman high-fantasy at its pure-escapist best.

When I have a real fight with Ahmed-- yes, it happens, even if it happens rarely-- I want to read about a romance, but I don't want to read romance. Make sense? If not, go find Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy and read it. These are big, thick, spend-a-week-or-more-with-them volumes of amazing world building, but the strength of the novels is the incredibly strong and perfectly crafted relationships between both the primary-lead couple (Rohan and Sioned) and many of the secondary couples, too. I remember, as I read, why it's GOOD that we fight. We respect one another. We have strong personalities. We love deeply and fiercely, and fight just as deeply and fiercely because of this... which is a good thing. I've worn out several copies of this series, too!

Boooooooooooooo- Ringggggggg!

I'm all for a change now and again but let's face it... when you're an addict you can only allow for so much flexibility. And I'm an addict. In fact, I'm an addict several times over and may, in fact, be captain of the addiction team for the next Olympics. It's close. Ahmed is trying to sweat me out and Maria Alvarez is putting in a pretty impressive dark-horse showing.

But anyway...

Romance Diva's forum is down. This is problematic for me on several levels.

1. I can't dork around reading messages to waste time, avoiding the things I am not in the mood to do.

B. I can't check messages from fellow Divas.

Third. I can't send an IM to my secret santa telling her how incredibly cool the little gift she sent was. (Neato book and cooking set thingie for Max... so tres coolio!!)

Last. I can't get advice, give advice, and share the daily grind of writing with women who are smart, talented, funny, experienced, willing to share, willing to laugh with_not_at my own struggle. I can't connect to a few hundred best-friends-ever I've never, technically, met... but whom I love.

Is there a rehab clinic anywhere close by? Cuz dude... this would be like if they closed Starbucks. S'rsly. :-(