Holidays for Singles: Depression

 By Nina Atwood

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Single during the holidays can be fun, but for some, it’s not, no matter how hard you try. If you’re recovering from a divorce or break-up of a long-term relationship, or another life loss, you may be vulnerable to the holiday blues – a temporary period of depressed mood. The holiday blues, while no fun, will naturally pass as you move into the new year and normal activities resume. The bigger risk is falling into a true depression – the kind that can be debilitating. Here’s how you know if you’re going in that direction.

Changes in sleep or appetite. Not sleeping as much as normal, or sleeping a great deal more than normal, are indicators of the onset of depression. If you normally get 7 to 8 hours per night, and suddenly you’re having difficulty falling asleep or waking up in the middle of the night unable to return to rest, that’s a significant change. Some people in the throes of depression find that they are unaccountably drousy and often sleep away the weekends. Likewise, a significant change in appetite that causes you to lose weight or gain weight (more than the usual holiday indulgence weight) is another sign of depression.

Loss of optimism. If you find yourself questioning your life, wondering what is the purpose or point of all the painful experiences you’ve had, that’s a possible indicator of depression. If you struggle to find anything to look forward to; if you can’t find anything to feel optimistic about, you may be falling into a depression.

Loss of interest in usual activities. If you find yourself withdrawing from your normal social outlets, you may be getting depressed. Signs of this range from not answering your phone when friends call to refusing invitations to go out to missing your office holiday party because you can’t face it in your current mood. In the throes of depression, you may stop working out, going to church or synagogue, and in general go into a cave in your home from which you are reluctant to venture.

Irritability. If you find that you are snapping at everyone and everything, unaccountably angry about nothing in particular, you may be depressed.

Thoughts of harming yourself or others. If you are having any thoughts about ending your life, or of harming or killing someone else, you are in real trouble. Run, don’t walk to your nearest emergency room for help. Depression in its most severe form can cause irrational thoughts that you may thing make sense, but they don’t. There are many, many people walking around today with productive, happy lives who at one point thought about ending their lives due to depression. The irony is that as bad as it seems while it’s happening, depression is the most treatable of all mental/emotional disorders.

The truth about depression. Depression, unlike the flu or cancer or other diseases, impacts your ability to think straight. Under the suffocating blanket of despair that depression generates, you simply cannot make wise choices for your life. The only choice to make at this point is to get help. Over my years as a therapist, I’ve gotten feedback from countless patients who say that they didn’t realize while depressed how much meaning and possibility they had in their lives. Once depression lifted, they went on to live very happy and fulfilled lives.

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Entry Filed under: Personal Growth