Holiday days

[WRITE]

does anyone else feel depressed on public holiday days?

Even though I've been to a nice party with my son and there hasn't been a bit of tension or stress, I still feel wound up and irritable. I have grown to hate the days everyone else seems to look forward to.

[Certain Hope]

Hi Write,

Yes, I have experienced some trouble facing "special" days in general, with a feeling similar to that I sense when faced with viewing old photo albums or mementos. It's gotten better, easier (well, not really with the photos, but with the holidays) and yet there are still a few lingering shadows. I think it's partly because there's a surreal quality to those times (like holidays) where the usual routine is broken. I guess I'm quite a creature of habit/routine and don't always adjust too well to having that disrupted... need to be more flexible? Also it seems that others have increased levels of expectations about holidays that can put a load on someone (like me) who tends to feel responsible for making sure everyone has an enjoyable time. And then there are the memories which never fail to come, unbidden, like today when we went fishing and I can't help but think back to previous fishing trips...  It's odd...  I was thinking today that the memories of pleasant times are almost more hurtful than those of not so nice adventures    Maybe that's because I spent ages feeling terribly foolish for actually thinking that everything was ok and we were happy... when there were some pretty nasty things going on all the while and I was blissfully unaware   Sorry for the babble... just a few random thought, I guess. One thing that occurred to me today was to just go ahead and bid the memories to come, face them square-on, and get over it instead of trying to force them back into the dim recesses. Like I said, it's gotten better and easier.... to not rip open old wounds and form new scars. Happy Memorial Day, Write I'll be glad when it's over, too.
Hope

[ANewSheriff]

WRITE,

Boy, oh boy.  You are not alone on this one.  I have come to almost abhor Mother's Day, my birthday (I always struggle with this one), Valentine's Day, etc.  I was thinking about this just in the last day or so. 

I know the reason I detest these days.  It is because they seem so superficial and "required".  I guess I am like most moms and wives.  I feel unappreciated most of the time.  To get some syrupy card on a birthday or Mother's Day seems so phony to me. 

I am much more concerned with how people treat me the rest of the year.

ANewSheriff

[pennyplant]

Hi WRITE,

Yes, I also have trouble with holidays.  I liked them as a child.  It has been as an adult that I've grown to dislike them for various reasons depending on the holiday.  Christmas is just far too much pressure, plus I usually work overtime during most of the season so I have no time to do the preparations and I'm tired on top of it.  The Monday holidays I usually work on, also many Sundays.

My husband was in the military for ten years so we were out of state all that time.  During those years everybody we knew made their own customs and rituals without us.  So, when we got back and would call relatives to see if they wanted to have a picnic for Memorial Day or Fourth of July, they were doing what they'd already been doing for years--visiting so and so's in-laws.  So, we couldn't be included.  We've been back for 13 years now and still don't have anything to do for those particular holidays.  For the big holidays, we always went to my father's side of the family.  But with the long break we took from it during the military, coming back to these people, we noticed how "not fun" it was.  Bickering and whining and too much with the gifts and food.  Things I hadn't noticed as a child.  We really don't like to go anymore and have come up with alternatives some years.  But for the holidays that I work--well, it is kind of a relief these days to have that excuse.

I'm getting to where I don't like receiving gifts.  I don't want more STUFF to try and put away or take care of or even keep track of.  With my mother, she expects great excitement from me when I open her gifts to me.  More pressure on me.  I often think she seems disappointed with my gifts to her.  She has everything, though, and often the best quality.  I'm basically running out of creativity with what to buy or make for someone like that.  Especially since I don't have a lot of time to devote to gift shopping.

It's rare for me to get sick or hurt, but the few times I have, it has been at Christmas time.  That holiday really takes a lot out of me.  I resent the pressures.  It's an overwhelming time for me.

Today I worked, my husband painted the house, I put flowers on my father's grave, and our son slept all day as he was at a party all night.  Tomorrow I'll work, my husband will be in a parade, then we will putter around.  I remember last year having a lot of anxiety around Memorial Day because I was waiting for my father's headstone to be installed.  They promised me it would be in time for Memorial Day and it was.  But I kept driving by and checking until it was all done.  I was a wreck.  A little bit of that came back this week as I was worried about having time to do the flowers and hoping I would be able to keep them alive this summer if it gets hot.  If I keep having anxiety about that this summer it's going to have to be fake flowers.  It seems like I'm setting up a responsibility related to my father, like when he was alive but ill and I was responsible for helping him maintain some kind of normal life in spite of ill health.  Spent years at that and it seems like part of me hasn't let go of it yet.  A related holiday is Father's Day--which is also my birthday this year.  Last year we went out of town for that weekend so I could be somewhat distracted and not get too depressed.  This year I will be working that day.  Not sure how that will feel.  I'm not dreading it this year.  But it is on my mind.

Maybe when I have grandchildren, I will enjoy holidays more.

Pennyplant

[Hopalong]

loathe Christmas, my daughter won't come home and NMom always whines (I want sacred music and one candle lit, that's it, but I can't withdraw from others' expectations yet...LOVE what you do, Sugarre..and that sort of thankful beauty is what I want to do on my own one day)

lonely on Valentine's Day

hate Halloween

Mother's Day...feh. Happy Hallmark.

My birthday I like, I like giving bday gifts to my D, have an agreement w/friends we don't

Memorial Day I write to my brother who was a medic in Viet Nam and thank him, think about Iraq,
and hate the consuming insanity. Even though I'm deeply opposed to war, I honor the idealism and sacrifice of soliders. I think stores should close and the 3:00 pm moment of silence be reverent.

Hops

[WRITE]

I'm not even sure if Memorial Day is the Sunday ( as in Remembrance Sunday in the UK ) but tomorrow ( Monday ) one of my senior groups will sing patriotic songs around 2.45, join in prayer and observe 2 minutes silence at 3 pm.

I KNOW they will appreciate it as many of them were affected in WW2, some in Vietnam and Cambodia, and now with their grandchildren, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the UK we all wore remembrance poppies, and we still try to do here, each November 11; I've been told you can get similar poppies here for US veterans, but I can't find them?

***

Reclaiming holidays: just one of the many small hurts of having lived with someone personality-disordered...and trying to move forward.

***

My husband was in the military for ten years so we were out of state all that time.  During those years everybody we knew made their own customs and rituals without us.  So, when we got back and would call relatives to see if they wanted to have a picnic for Memorial Day or Fourth of July, they were doing what they'd already been doing for years--visiting so and so's in-laws.  So, we couldn't be included.  We've been back for 13 years now and still don't have anything to do for those particular holidays. 

what an irony; I wish you lived next door to me and we could come up with an appropriate dignified response!

I spent ages feeling terribly foolish for actually thinking that everything was ok and we were happy

oh dear, we all did. When we thought happiness=cooperation.

I think that when I feel more free and in control of my life, I'll start staging some celebrations

what could we name them?

Emancipation...
Oh happier day...
Take my life- not you, I mean you....

THINK!

think (think) think (think) think (think)

You better think (think) think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think), let your mind go, let yourself be free

Let's go back, let's go back, let's go way on back when
I didn't even know you, you came to me and too much you wouldn't take
I ain't no psychiatrist, I ain't no doctor with degree
It don't take too much high IQ's to see what you're doing to me

You better think (think) think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think), let your mind go, let yourself be free

Oh freedom (freedom), freedom (freedom), freedom, yeah freedom
Freedom (freedom), freedom (freedom), freedom, ooh freedom

There ain't nothing you could ask I could answer you but I won't (I won't)
I was gonna change, but I'm not, to keep doing things I don't

You better think (think) think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think), let your mind go, let yourself be free

People walking around everyday, playing games that they can score
And I ain't gonna be the loser my way, ah, be careful you don't lose yours

You better think (think) think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think), let your mind go, let yourself be free

You need me (need me) and I need you (don't you know)
Without eachother there ain't nothing people can do

Oh freedom (freedom), freedom (freedom), freedom, yeah freedom
Freedom (freedom), freedom (freedom), freedom, ooh freedom

There ain't nothing you could ask I could answer you but I won't (I won't)
I was gonna change, but I'm not, if you're doing things I don't

You better think (think) think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think), let your mind go, let yourself be free

You need me (need me) and I need you (don't you know)
Without eachother there ain't nothing people can do

(To the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, think about it)

(To the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, think about it)

(To the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, think about it)

(To the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, to the bone for deepness, think about it)

You had better stop and think before you think, think!!

Aretha Franklin

( followed by therapy session! )

[reallyME]

Wow! Interesting post for sure...esp the part about Aretha Franklin!

Personally, I find that I enjoy the holidays when I spend them with the RIGHT people.  Family of Origin holidays will most likely not be pleasant, when you are with a bunch of slandering cross-talkers, drunks, controllers, manipulators.  That stands to reason.  So, try finding some nice people who like to share on pleasant topics and love to eat and have fun!  Then, the holidays won't be so bad.

RM

[Brigid]

Certain Hope

 

It's odd...  I was thinking today that the memories of pleasant times are almost more hurtful than those of not so nice adventures    Maybe that's because I spent ages feeling terribly foolish for actually thinking that everything was ok and we were happy... when there were some pretty nasty things going on all the while and I was blissfully unaware 

How true.  I still wonder how I could have been so blind (deaf and dumb, too, I guess).  It certainly was the most difficult part of my recovery.   

One thing I finally was able to come to terms with was that my memories of the good times, were not, in fact, the reality.  They were what I created in my imagination to make me believe that everything was happy and good.  What I wanted in the marriage and what I had were really two different things.

Brigid
 

[Certain Hope]

Hi Brigid,

Yes. There are still lingering effects for me ... an internal resistance to feeling free to enjoy the "good" times, as though I'm in a holding pattern, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I've learned to practice acknowledging those undercurrents of thought and rebuking them. Kinda a "get thee hence from me, Satan" attitude If my happiness is not dependent on anyone else, I can make conscious decisions to spend alot more time rejoicing in the small things and not be swept away by circumstances. I'm thankful for that. Happy Memorial Day, Brigid I'm gonna go for a walk and pluck the deadheads off my flowers, stopping to smell a few along the way

Hope

[Hopalong]

PS--
love Thanksgiving because it's just about thanksgiving

Hops

[pennyplant]

PS--
love Thanksgiving because it's just about thanksgiving

Hops

Me too.  Just a bunch of people and delicious food.  No pressure for weeks in advance.  A chance to think about what is good in life.  MAYBE clean the house.  I'm glad you mentioned Thanksgiving--that's a holiday I've grown to love.

PP

[Brigid]

Hope,

If my happiness is not dependent on anyone else, I can make conscious decisions to spend alot more time rejoicing in the small things and not be swept away by circumstances. I'm thankful for that. Happy Memorial Day, Brigid

I find it is so hard not to have at least some of my happiness be dependant on others--be it my children, my friends or my b/f.  As mothers, the happiness of our children impacts our own happiness so significantly--"A mother is only as happy as her least unhappy child."  (I think Dr. Phil said that, but I could be wrong).  My friends and b/f are also so dear to me, that I do take on their pain and discomfort and it does end up affecting my happiness, at least in the short term.

I do agree about rejoicing in the small things.  After suffering such a major blow to my belief system and everything I thought my life was about, I tend to be grateful for just the small day-to-day positive events that will hopefully add up to months and then years of happy moments.  I'm thankful for that, too. 

I hope you had a lovely Memorial Day too, Hope.  My flowers are just beginning to bloom, so no dead heads to remove yet, but still a little more planting to do.

Hugs,

Brigid

[mudpuppy]

This is one area where I think men have a great advantage over women.

Every holiday is good for a man as long as his stomach is full, to the point of being stretched like a drum.

mud.

[Hopalong]

but when mudpuppies explode they make a big mess on the carpet,
and only some of them do the dishes...

 

[WRITE]

we did this lovely 10 minute prayer/ hymn/ 2 minute silence today, beautiful.