Anxiety Over the Holidays
A great many of us would agree that our lives would improve with relief from this condition. Many mental health organizations, report wide spread anxiety Some report that only one third of us with anxiety, over 13 million, seek or receive treatment. What is to be done?
Scott Neumyer’s Story, “I used to love Christmas. Every Christmas Eve, my parents, sister, and I would take a short, 10-minute drive to my grandparent’s house, eat until we were stuffed, walk across the street to church, and sing a few Christmas carols with the small congregation before going back to exchange presents. Just the idea of piling into my mother’s tiny, red Dodge Omni around that time of year was enough to evoke the smell of pine trees and the minty taste of candy canes.
If all that sounds a little too It’s a Wonderful Life, that’s because it was. Our family ritual was the classic, white picket fence suburban Christmas, and I loved it. I vividly remember telling my parents that I loved the holidays because being together with everyone just made me feel happy.
The last 10 years have been a very different holiday story. If those first 25 years of Christmas gatherings resembled It’s a Wonderful Life, the last decade has felt a lot more like Bob Clark’s classic Yuletide horror movie Black Christmas.
Why? One simple word: Anxiety.
A little more than 10 years ago, normal, everyday situations – like going out to eat or standing in line at the post office – turned into nightmarish scenarios that left me drenched in sweat with a pounding heart and blurred vision. I was diagnosed with panic disorder. I’ve spent the last decade learning, battling, and coming to terms with the fact that my life is a cocktail of anxious thoughts, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and agoraphobia. I’ve taken the meds, done the cognitive behavioral therapy, and read more books on this one topic than most people do in their entire lifetime.
I still struggle every single day, but I’ve learned to live, work, and parent with my anxiety. And I’m proud of that. But the holidays test me every year. (Scott Neumyer , Anxiety Makes the Holidays Harder, the four ways I get through “The morst wonderful time of the year”, Psychology Today)
The challenge-New Year’s Eve
“Each January we make our annual resolutions. We vow to lose weight, exercise more, eat better, etc. Important stuff.
We all resolve to become better persons; happier persons.”
But how?
“Would we be happier if we were less anxious? Some 40 million of us suffer from anxiety; that state of uneasiness and apprehension- the worrying about an event or situation. January can be the month you can resolve to be the one to seek treatment. Making this New Year’s resolution can be the best thing that you can do for yourself.” (Matthew Hunt, Anxiety and Depression-New Year’s Resolutions, CounselingonDemand.Com)
This is where Counseling on Demand comes in. You need not go through this alone.
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