Managing Thanksgiving Mental Health

Thanksgiving for the USA is tomorrow and for many that means good food and good fun with family. However, there are many who don’t have such a pleasant Thanksgiving experience due to returning to a toxic home and/or family during this holiday. I’m writing this article to remind my readers that if Thanksgiving—and the upcoming holiday season—bring on toxic relatives, environments, and unnecessary strain on your mental health, now is not the time to put your needs aside.

Maybe you struggle with the comments about your weight gain that Uncle Rhett doesn’t know is a result of your recovery from disordered eating. Perhaps the family makes homophobic/transphobic comments not knowing that you identify as part of the LGBTQ community. Further still, you may be healing from a traumatic childhood experience stemming a family member who will be present.

Everyone who struggles with the seemingly boundary-less call of the holiday season Thanksgiving kicks off has a reason they need to be watching after their mental health. I’m not here to talk about the reasons because there are too many. I am, however, here to talk about potential strategies and solutions to managing this holiday and your mental wellness.

If you’re choosing to go to the family Thanksgiving:

Despite your desire not to and concerns about the impending triggers awaiting you, the decision has been made that you’ll go for Thanksgiving. What can you do now to manage the chaos and ensure your mental health is taken care of?

1. Come prepared. Start tonight with some extra self-care to put you in comfortable mindset. While you’re being kind to yourself, consider what you can expect during the family get-together. Consider how you want to deal with the triggers you might encounter. Some may choose to confront an issue and set a boundary, while others may see the best course of action to be letting it roll off of them. Whichever you choose depends on you and your situations, but I think it’s important to mention that you cannot control others and you cannot control circumstances but you can control what you do.

2. Drive yourself. Don’t have cousin Richie pick you up on the way over. Choose to drive yourself so that when you’re ready to leave, you can. Otherwise, you’ll leave when Richie wants to leave, and that might be too long for you.

3. Set limits. Plan limitations around your presence at the get-together. If everyone shows up to the designated house at 9 a.m. and leaves at 11 p.m., you may need to have these parameters. You could set up how long you plan to stay if you’re good at sticking to your guns and don’t get guilted into staying easily. But if you do find yourself swayed, plan around your designated time frame. Start the day out with a 5K so you’re out for a couple hours in the morning from the race and following shower. End the day by going to a friend’s Thanksgiving dessert.

4. Bring a friend. When someone comes in from the outside, misbehaving family members may be less likely to act in full character around a person they don’t know well yet. Additionally, a friend is also a support and can make you feel less like you’re going into it all on your own. The friend may also be a good ally in helping you stick to leaving when you need to by simply needing to go somewhere else and you’re the driver.

If you’re opting out of the family Thanksgiving:

You’ve set your boundary and you’re sticking to it. But you may still want to celebrate the holiday. Try one or more of these options:

1. Have a Friendsgiving. Invite your chosen family to a thanksgiving get-together. If you can’t get everyone to go for dinner, try breakfast or dessert. You can also plan it on another day. A celebration with people you love and who love you is one worth having any time.

2. Go out. A lot of restaurants will have Thanksgiving specials and they’re open for people to enjoy the holiday favorites without the hassle of cooking…or visiting toxic family.

3. Volunteer. There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer whether it be at a community Thanksgiving dinner such as at a local VFW, community center, or church or at a shelter in need of extra support. Some communities have meal delivery programs that may need extra help and all those morning 5K’s need volunteers to keep it running smooth.

If you’re in the middle, don’t forget you can do both of these options. Mix and match to make it work for you. The important point is that you manage your mental health and stick to your boundaries because YOU ARE IMPORTANT.

Take care of yourself this Thanksgiving and all holiday season long.

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What It Looks Like: Depression

Content/Trigger Warning: suicide

Sadness is what many people equate with depression, but sadness is an emotion everyone experiences whereas depression is a group of symptoms that can include sadness—not all people experience depression. Many well-meaning friends, family and co-workers recount the tales of their sad times and how they managed the sadness in hopes of supporting a person managing depression. This effort often falls short and can even feel demeaning because it isn’t genuine to the person’s experience.

So what is the experience of depression?

Disclaimer: This post—like all my content—is NOT intended for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only. The only place you can truly receive diagnosis and treatment is with a YOUR professional, qualified treatment provider following the proper assessment(s). Proceed with caution and use this post and all posts for information purposes ONLY.

Sadness, Hopelessness, Helplessness

One of the two main criteria to indicate depression is regular sadness, helplessness, and/or hopelessness more time than not. For example, you may have two really good days out of the week and the other five days feel sad, think hopeless thoughts, and have a sense of helplessness most of that time. There may be unexplained crying because the sadness doesn’t always present itself clearly, particularly when life is going well and there isn’t a perceived “reason” to be sad.

Of course, depression doesn’t need a reason to be there. Life can be great and the sadness still present. Additionally, depression can be present without sadness.

Lack of enjoyment

The other main criteria to indicate depression is not getting enjoyment or pleasure out of what you normally would. You may love to dance—it lifts your mood—but when you go out, you find you’ve been dancing for 30 minutes and just feel neutral, blah, bored.  You notice time with friends consists of less and less real laughs and smiles. Laughs and smiles require effort as you try to play along to mimic your former reactions which you can no longer feel.

I think of this experience similar to when your taste buds are damaged (having had my tonsils out at 22, it’s something I can say was miserable) and you go to eat your favorite food which you know is delicious, but when you take a bite the damaged buds can’t form the taste. After a while, you don’t have much of an appetite because food all tastes the same and none of it is enjoyable. That’s what happens to fun events, hobbies, and interactions with depression. Because depression feeds into itself, if sadness and hopelessness wasn’t present before, it may start to form in reaction to not finding pleasure in anything.

 Lower motivation, energy, and productivity

Perhaps related to the lack of pleasure resulting in a no internal reward, there may be a reduction in motivation to do…well, anything. For some this can be something hard fought against to continue life as “normal,” but it’s a grueling grind. For others this may be so severe that even motivation to go to work, school, get a shower, or eat something is impossible to achieve.

Energy levels may feel depleted which could be due to the reduction in energy-producing functions dropping off such as exercise, eating (discussed below), and planning, in addition to the chemical imbalance in the brain. What a person does throughout the day—work, grocery shopping, cooking, etc.—may slow down. Others notice that you’re moving or completing tasks at a slower pace and you may feel your thinking slow down as well.

 
Appetite Change

As mentioned above, when a person is depressed they may start eating less. They may also start eating more. Appetite and, consequently, weight gain are sometimes part of what depression looks like. It may look like skipping multiple meals due to lacking energy and motivation to cook. Just as possible, eating to manage feelings of sadness or boredom is also possible.

 

Sleep disturbance

Much of what is described above I might suggest is compounded by, or even developed as a result of, sleep disturbance. Similar to the appetite change, problems with sleep can go either way—too much or too little. A person may struggle to sleep due to the negative thoughts and sadness weighing on their mind each night after another day of feeling slowed down, guilty, and hopeless. For another person, sleep may be all that seems possible in between work and the bare minimum of daily tasks leading to three hour naps between 12 hour sleep cycles.

It isn’t hard to see how all of these can work together and cycle depression into a difficult to break pattern of chemical imbalance and sustaining behaviors.

Thoughts of death and suicide

This is the part where I remind you again that this blog and all of my affiliated social media accounts are not monitored 24/7 and I cannot provide support to those who are experiencing suicidal thoughts. Here, where I am in the USA the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is: 1-800-273-8255. For those not in the USA who need resources to reach out to, I’ve linked suicide.org, International Association For Suicide Prevention, and internationalbipolarfoundation for your reference. Local emergency rooms/hospitals can also be safety resources. If you’re having suicidal thoughts, seek help.

With that said, frequent thoughts of death or suicide can be part of the presentation of depression. Of course, this is serious and help is out there to maintain safety as you can see from the above resources. One person could have unwanted images cross their mind of a suicidal act whereas another may think of the idea of death often but not consider suicide. Further still, a person may actively develop a plan for suicide and think of it occasionally, but another person could think about suicide multiple times a day without ever making a plan or attempt.

There are so many ways this can make an impact on the mind and each person experiences it unique to them. Of course, not everyone who is dealing with depression is suicidal or focuses on death. Further, not everyone who considers suicide is depressed.

My Depression Tale

Because depression, like many mental illnesses, is so variable in its presentation, I’d like to end with my story of depression. Looking back, I’ve had recurrent episodes of it. For me, depression tends to come along when the anxiety is worse.

The anxiety will create discomfort that runs me down and makes me tired. The fears I have for the future start to mix with regrets from the past. Regrets I don’t have until depression rears its ugly head. I do sleep more and eat less—that may be the anxiety causing stomach troubles, too. If I enjoy things, it’s for short periods of time.

I notice time spent with others is more taxing because I work harder to present the way I “should.” Of course, that only makes me more exhausted and leads to regular crying episodes—mostly when alone. No one says I’ve slowed down but my thoughts feel like they are. Decision and concentration get harder.

There’s a lot of anger—at myself, my thoughts, the anxiety—that fires off at random. After so long, I start wishing it would stop being so painful all the time as my gut twists, the fibromyalgia and PCOS flair up, and I just keep crying. Images, unwanted and alarming, may pop into my head of self-harm and I say things like, “I wish I would just die.”

Once the thoughts of self-harm and death enter in, I know it’s at its peak. Somehow, usually self-care against all odds and doing the opposite of what depression wants me to do, it starts to ease up again. After coming to the conclusion that’s what I was dealing with, the episodes have been shorter and less jarring. I do a lot of work to quickly address the episode before it gets out of hand.

I keep a vigilant mindset so that I can recognize it before it takes a toll.

I haven’t had a depressive episode in a while now but know it could come back. If it does, I’ll keep trying to move forward, knowing it will get better. In the meantime, I will keep up my self-care, as I’m sure you already know is so important.

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What It Looks Like: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

“I’m so OCD.” “My OCD is kicking in.” “I’m OCD about _____.” You’ve probably heard obsessive compulsive disorder (or OCD) used casually in conversation in one of these ways. Too often, OCD is used to describe feeling particular about something or what Freud may have considered anal retentiveness.

Not only is this use offensive and inappropriate, it also paints an inaccurate picture of what living with this condition is like. Obsessive compulsive disorder is often chronic and can greatly impact daily functioning. It’s not a behavior description or a joke and now we’re going to review what OCD really looks like.

As the name suggests, the disorder centers around obsessions, compulsions, or both. What does this mean?

Disclaimer: This post—like all my content—is NOT intended for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only. The only place you can truly receive diagnosis and treatment is with a YOUR professional, qualified treatment provider following the proper assessment(s). Proceed with caution and use this post and all posts for information purposes ONLY.

Obsessions and Compulsions Defined

Obsessions are intrusive thoughts that are often repetitive and produce anxiety. Being intrusive indicates they aren’t able to be ignored or pushed away. Some other type of thought or action is needed to manage them.

Compulsions are the thoughts or actions that calm obsessions. These are usually bound by rigid rules and feel like something that has to be completed in order to manage the distress brought on by the obsessions. Compulsions can also be preventative; they occur to keep obsessive thoughts away and avoid anxiety.

How They Work

Most people are familiar with orderliness and cleanliness as part of the experience of OCD. You should know this isn’t the only way OCD manifests and, further, may not be something many people with OCD experience at all. There are many ways that OCD presents itself. It’s often very creative and rooted in personal fears and beliefs.

Obsessions, to start, can vary widely but tend to center around something going wrong. It can be as specific as, “I’ve hurt my children and didn’t know it,” or vague as, “something terrible is going to happen.” The thought plays over and over, increasing distress about the possibility of the fearsome event until something is done about it.

Compulsions come into play to relieve the anxiety. If the obsessive thought is the above, “I’ve hurt my children and didn’t know it,” you may check on your kids every time the thought arises. This is a checking compulsion where you consistently have to check on the focal point of the obsession to ensure nothing is amiss.

As mentioned earlier, compulsions can sometimes happen before the obsessions to prevent anxiety. With the example of, “something terrible is going to happen,” you may count to 10 before opening your front door or have to keep pumping gas until the cost is rounded to the nearest 50 cents. If these actions don’t occur, you’ll worry for the rest of the day about the impending terrible event or may develop another compulsion to manage the earlier failed attempt.

What makes OCD a disorder and not just isolated thought and behavior patterns is how it impacts life. Your functioning from day to day is interrupted by obsessions and compulsions. Maybe you’re getting in trouble at your job because you’re making frequent calls to your significant other to ensure they’re safe because your obsessive thoughts have you focused on all the ways they could be killed. Perhaps you’re not getting enough sleep because the obsessive thoughts about unknowingly harming your children have you up several times in the evening to check on them taking up an extra two hours of time after you’ve tried to lay down to sleep.

There are so many ways OCD can invade life and complicate daily functioning it’s tough to touch on all of them but I do want to share some examples to help improve understanding of how it can look in real life.

Further Examples

Starting with the most commonly depicted concept of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, let’s look at a cleanliness example.

You fear germs and being contaminated. You don’t wash your hands until raw or shower four times a day. However, when your obsessive thoughts are triggered by a person being sick at work or you finding a bug bite on your leg, they play on repeat. They keep going, getting in the way of sleep and focus because any moment of quiet brings them slamming into your brain. You check in with loved ones about it and get their opinions, ask your co-workers’ opinions, look up symptoms on the internet which takes up chunks of time from other activities and may prompt worry about you from others. In the end, you have to see a doctor to stop the worry leading to an excess of doctor bills weighing on you financially.

Cleanliness is not the only way OCD manifests and another common example of it has to do with orderliness or having things arranged in a particular way.

No, you don’t keep your bookshelf arranged in alphabetical order and your living space isn’t labeled and categorized. Yet, you do have a photo on your wall of you and your parents that you adjust first thing in the morning before doing anything else (even using the bathroom) and every evening as the last thing before going to bed because if you don’t ensure it is perfectly even, your parents will fall terribly ill. You also have a particular place for three items in your car and if they aren’t by the time you’re on the road, you will get into a car accident. You also count your steps, which must be even before reaching your destination. All of these compulsions slow you down and interrupt your day and focus.

Orderliness is not as straightforward as it seems just as OCD is not often fully straightforward. One way we see this is when obsessions are the main focus of the disorder with little to no compulsions. This is often so with those who have socially disturbing thoughts such as intrusive thoughts about violence to others despite no desire to hurt others and no history of it. These thoughts can be about strangers, family, friends, co-workers…and you regularly engage yourself in a mental battle about your own character and desires. You may have behaviors that don’t seem like compulsions because they are normalized like praying to confess and be absolved. In this situation, it may be often and time-consuming.

This is only the tip of the iceberg for what OCD might look like and, as always, the only way to properly diagnose and treat the mental illnesses I talk about on this blog is to seek appropriate professional help. I cannot provide that here and only write for informational purposes. My hope in delivering this information is to change the perspective on what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder really looks like and how it is not a description of being picky or particular about something.

If there’s one thing I’d like everyone to take away from this, it’s to stop using OCD as a casual descriptor. It’s a serious mental health disorder that majorly impacts function, even more than I’ve been able to describe here. Overall, it is hurtful to those who live with and battle OCD to use the diagnosis flippantly to describe your interest in a clean work desk or special way you like your coffee. Be aware and be mindful.

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Source Cited

American Psychiatric Association, DSM-5 Task Force. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5™ (5th ed.). Arlington, VA, US: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.