Reply #31: I know exactly how you feel [View All]

[hyphenate]

Last year was a bad year for me. Last holiday season I was so damned depressed, and was on Prozac which did diddly for me. This year it's a new anti-depressant, but still not up to par.

Last year, I was in the "anger" phase of grief. I was just so mad at the whole world, and nothing was going right at all. I was broke, lost one of my best friends to an early death, lost two of my "kids" (the four legged ones) and was cold and in pain.

In the last few months this year, I've moved out of the angry stage and into the despair and acceptance phases. It still hurts, and it's still weighing heavily on my mind, but there are now twinges and realizations that things are different--not necessarily better or worse, just different.

I still "talk" to my friend. While I profess to be an agnostic, I still believe in some form of afterlife. So I talk with them, and feel better about it. Perhaps that might also help you, because it is, for me a panacea that not everything is for the worst.

The holidays are rough for a lot of us, and I know we're not alone in that feeling. My friend Steve lost his mom a month before Christmas in 2002. I lost my dad a month after Christmas, and Christmas was the last time I saw him alive. More people I know than not have had to deal with death, sickness, financial loss, or some other minor or major catastrophe during the months of November through January.

There is nothing to feel guilty about finding someone new in your life. We all want to have someone we can confide in, someone who is there for us, and someone who understands. We so rarely get that, so it's of prime importance to hang on to what you have while you have it.

Good luck in your new relationship, and as time goes by, you will heal emotionally. Just don't expect it to be overnight, and don't expect to do it before or during the holidays. Instead, give yourself the room to avoid doing too much during this year's celebration, and don't expect to gain a new perspective at this time. Turn the holidays into a time for introspection and reflection. Eventually, time does make things better.