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The Holiday season is coming. First is Thanksgiving, and then is Christmas and New Year. For the Persian community, soon after, coming March 21st, Persian New Year and continuing through early April, celebration of Seezdeh Bedar. Persians, as they have lived in the West, year after year usually celebrate the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays as a time of getting together, have a feast and enjoy each other company.
In Holiday seasons sometimes we get the blues, or feel sad, down and anxious. It is called the "Holiday Blues." The blues can occur right before, during or after the holidays. According to the National Mental Health Association, reasons for feeling blue around the holidays are numerous. They range from fatigue -- a result of all of the increased holiday activity -- to family tensions and strained family dynamics and financial limitations. For us Persians, particularly senior Persians being away from our country of origin, our relatives, and memories of the past good times are added factors to trigger our blues.
One important factor that can contribute to feelings of sadness around the holidays is memories of our deceased loved ones. Here I am not talking about the recent raw experience of the loss of a loved one. The space here does not provide enough room to explain the stages of the emotional roller coaster people go through when facing the loss of their loved ones. I will, hopefully write about it and other reasons for holiday blues in future issues of Payam-e-Ashena . For this article I am going to focus on the experience of those people who have lost their loved ones and have already gone through the main stages of grieving their losses. The holidays trigger memories of the loved one and feeling blue, which is normal in many cases. Here I want to get the readers’ attention that sometimes the holiday’s blues may become a full blown clinical depression which it needs medical attention, and how the individuals can help themselves with holiday blues.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 19 million American adults suffer from depressive illnesses every year. Unfortunately, many people with clinical depression don't seek help, even though depression is a treatable condition.
Holiday Blues vs. Depression
Holiday blues may feel one or more of the following:
• A persistent sad, anxious, or empty mood.
• Sleeping too much or too little. Reduced appetite and weight loss or increased appetite and weight gain.
• Loss of interest or pleasure in activities, including sex.
• Irritability or restlessness. Difficulty thinking, concentrating, remembering or making decisions.
• Fatigue or loss of energy.
Someone experiencing more than five of the symptoms above for more than two weeks should seek professional help from physicians or mental health care providers, to assess whether it's the "blues" or depression. Those with suicidal thoughts need to seek immediate medical attention from their physician, crisis line, or go to the nearest hospital emergency room.
It is important for the grieving person, and family members around them both to recognize that some of the feeling of blues is usually healthy and understandable, and do not incorrectly label them as "pathological" responses.
The best way to cope with the feeling of blues due to remembrance of your losses is to allow yourself to experience the memories and the pain of your grief. Do not push it back and ignore it, embrace it. If you ignore it, your grief will keep resurfacing throughout your life and interfere with your healthy emotional experiences and affect your future relationship.
Ways to Help Yourself
• Maintain a normal routine, Do your normal activities.
• Be sure to get enough sleep, rest and maintain a balance diet.
• To relieve tension and improve moods by regular exercise and other physical activities.
• Take things one hour at a time, one day at a time.
• Remember to make time for yourself—for solitude and relaxation.
• Spend time with caring, supportive, nurturing people. Limit the amount of time spent with people that are difficult to be around.
• Consider doing something in memory of departed loved ones or creating a new remembrance ritual. Some suggestions include: light a candle, hang a certain photos, listen to music enjoyed by the loved one, donate a gift to the loved one’s favorite cause, buy a tree and plant it in memory of them.
You do whatever is working for you. The point is that we need to remember our losses, process our feelings about them, and free our trapped energy that unconsciously is spent to deal with the pain of our losses to to go on with our lives using the energy for more productive and happier living.
I will write more in the next issue about ways of helping someone else:
Here I would like to mention that as caregivers, relatives, friends of those grieving a loss, we can not change the situation, but we can acknowledge it, listen and be supportive. Until the next issue, I wish you all well through the holiday season.
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