Getting a handle on my anxiety/depression

This time of year can be extremely hard for us with depression. Take this time to be mindful. Make new memories with family and friends. Remember good things about your mom. I know you are sad, but she wouldn't want you to be.

Make the most of each day whether you stay in bed or get out and do things. This is your life, live with the living. Start new traditions. I know you can find something good in every day.

Hope things get better.

Hugs, Karen...

My mother has been gone for 28 Christmases. I can't say that it's ever easy to deal with, but it does get less painful. I will always remember my mother at Christmas, that's just the way it is. It was "her" holiday!

So, now we know those feelings are going to be there, how to acknowledge them and keep on going. I was told an interesting "trick" years ago. Let yourself grieve and rant, loudly if need be, for 5 minutes at the start of the day. (I choose to do this in the shower.) Then have a day, the best day you can, doing things that would make her proud of you. Then have another 5 minutes at the end of the day.

I've found that acknowledging the pain and loss, immersing myself in that for those few minutes -- well, it really helps make everything else better.

Hang in there, you aren't alone.

grief is a very personal process, but I am learning that to honour them is to live, and with beautiful memories. that's what they wish for.

Both my parents and my father-in-law are passed. Mother-in-Law is house bound no longer comes over.

We have no children and my husband is a Chef so he works very long hours.

Only people that see the inside of our house are a couple of neighbors once and a while and a spare of friends.

This year, I managed to put the nativity scene out, the tree up but only with lights and I bought John a winter village so that is out.

The tree my FIL made is out front and the lights went out last year, I restrung it, lights failed after 2 nights. It is still out. Don't know what I want to do with it.

Decorations just do not make me happy anymore.

Going to the local nursing hope giving they the lap blankets I made, reading poems once a week; or meditations during Advent. These things give me more peace and joy. Toys for tots and for police for domestic violence calls.

Knowing a difference was made, even in a small way in someones life.

Peace and strength JRF
Trina

That is what keeps up going Jamie. Looking out for others, especially when they can not pay us back. There is a blessing in the action somewhere that give us strength to go on.

Peace
Trina

Indeed Pitmom!

First Christmas after my dad died was awful. Came only 10 days after his death. I so resented the lights, decorations, holiday cheer.
My dad was Mister Christmas- he loved it. Without him here it was nothing. My kids were young so I shouldered through. My kids were young but not so young that they believed in Santa Claus- everything sucked.
The next year someone I knew had a dad that was diagnosed with the same thing that killed my father at the same time of year- I felt like I was living it all over again. The next year my brother died on the 8th of December.
As the holidays approached I had no Christmas spirit-only bitterness and sadness. Not against God-He calls home those whose time has come to fulfill their just reward. It is us who are left behind that mourn their presence without thinking how much happier they have become now that they left this world.
We miss them sooooo much.
Well a lot of time has passed. Still miss everyone that's gone. However I try to make their favorite foods and carry on their traditions so that they live thru me. I feel them close.
Yet it will never be the same.....