Christmas mental health musings
I'm slowly unearthing from a social media break of two weeks. it has been absolute bliss.
before I write about some other things that have happened, I wanted to share what happened this Christmas season.
first off, it started rough. I was sad. and I was mad that I was sad. and I was worried that I was sad and I was worried I was going to ruin Christmas for my kids and family. I have tried and do try really hard around Christmas to make it wonderful for my kids and even myself.
and here I was, Christmas decorations up. music on. fire in the fireplace...and nothing. blah. bah humbug.
luckily I had an appointment with my therapist and she really helped me to see some golden nuggets of growth here in this situation.
1. faking you are happy for your kids and family is a disservice to them. because guess what? your kids will grow up and surprise! be human and have emotions, and then they will beat themselves up for feeling anything other than happy and joyful because their "mom" was never sad or depressed about stuff.
2. allowing yourself to be sad during the holidays after a loss does not mean EVERY Christmas season is going to be covered in sadness and darkness. it just happens to be the time of year it happened that everything hit the fan, so it's ok.
Somehow I truly believed if I allowed the sadness two things would happen, 1. the sadness would never leave and 2. every Christmas would be sad and tainted.
I actually was given homework to give myself a "sad" day to just wallow in it. stay in my pjs, eat ice cream, watch sad movies, and just sulk. it actually was way hard to try and do that! but I did, and then went on with my week. with no expectation to be happy or joyful, but also just allowing whatever feelings there there to exist. and then the next week came and I gave myself another sad "day" and again, the rest of the week I kept going.
a few times I worried because I wasn't shopping or planning or anything. I was just, kind of existing.
but then the strangest thing happened. it was like my sadness was a puddle in the sun, and somehow allowing it to be there, it started to dry up all on it's own. and you don't really notice it's drying up because you are in the center, which is also the deepest part. I found myself getting excited for Christmas, and starting to shop. and somewhere, somehow, at sometime in the middle of someday, I could think about the baby and the loss and wasn't drowning in sadness. I wasn't even thinking about it very much.
it's like as the sadness dried up, love and acceptance came in around it.
we ended up having a wonderful and peaceful Christmas. lots of baking and lying around in pjs watching movies and making lego sets. I was so grateful that once I let go of trying to control how I felt and trying to control making everything "perfect" for everyone, that God just came in and fixed it all for me.
I know that things will still happen, and that everything is for my learning and growth. I'm so grateful I could feel peace and joy around this time of year, because it is my favorite. I also have to mention that I was completing a 90 day challenge to read the entire Book of Mormon, and I know that having that daily, along with my prayer and meditation and faith is what allowed the healing to take place.
I hope if there are some feelings you've been fighting, tryin letting them just be and see what happens. it's amazing what can happen when we let go.
some of the many small miracles that I received this season:
-beautiful heartfelt gifts from new friends
-feathers! feathers everywhere! almost every day a precious feather would be for me to find and feel loved.
- Joanna Gaines' book from my sil that helps me feel that going slow and deliberate in decorating my home is perfect (yay!)
-our Christmas Amaryllis from my parents is already blooming!
-our tree died, and we had to get a new one 4 days before Christmas. I know that doesn't sound like a miracle, but for me it was. I wasn't upset, ty and I got a date to a new Thai restaurant out of it, I got more time to reflect about the season and I was full of Christmas spirit putting the decorations on this second round. and this tree is still so happy and green!
-peace. this is my first Christmas not on anti-depressants for 4 years, and for what has been going on I was so happy to feel...peaceful. and even joyful sometimes. no small miracle at all.