Radio Silence

Why I disappear in December

The holiday season has never been easy for me. Even years like this year, when everything is going pretty good in my life, I tend to feel the entire years worth of sad and fear in the week leading up to Christmas.

I used to think I had one reason for that, but I’m starting to understand that I have actually have two reasons for it. Or maybe it’s really just the second reason and I’ve always used the first reason to explain the feelings because most people don’t accept the real reason.

So, the first reason. It just seems like sad things happen to me in the week before Christmas. When I was 5, my cousin passed away on Christmas Eve. For a good portion of my life, I used that “trauma” to explain my Christmas mood. As an adult, I suffered the most severe loss I’ve experienced on December 20th.

Well that explains it right? Deep wounds that overshadow everything because of the reminder of them during this time of year. Oh woe is me.

Yes, sad things have happened. But that childhood trauma that I thought was the root of it all? I gotta be honest and tell you I was not that close to my cousin. He was severely disabled, a 16 year old buried within the body of an overgrown baby with no ability to communicate. The extent of my relationship with him was riding my big wheel over to their house every once in a while and feeding him.

And yes, I did experience a genuine trauma during the holiday season in my 30’s, but that doesn’t explain why I was annoyed by the whole Christmas thing well before I reached adulthood. I still remember at age nine, I was far more interested in getting a few more hours of sleep on Christmas morning than opening presents, and my family had to bug me to get out of bed and get started on the holiday.

But in our culture, trauma is the root of all bad feelings, right? If you feel lousy, you can dig deep into your childhood and find some offhand remark that someone said to you at some crucial juncture that you can claim reshaped your entire development and created the mess you are now. I know I’ve subscribed to that for years and did a whole lot of soul searching to find that one little tiny thing that I can deal with and heal from to cure all that I am today.

But ya know what? Sometimes the feeling lousy comes first and we just hunt for a cause to explain it so we can accept it. I think I need to be really honest with myself this year. The dislike of the season and feeling lousy came first, all the explanations came second.

I’m pretty sure I’m autistic. I’m currently in the self-diagnosed and working to get a doctors confirmation phase. But I’ve also heard that people who aren’t autistic have no desire to be identified as autistic, so if you’re self-diagnosing and identifying as autistic, odds are you’re correct. So here it is, the real problem, and look at how many paragraphs I had to get through before I could admit what I’m about to admit.

No matter what your religion, no matter how you live your life, it is practically impossible to maintain a routine during December in America.

That’s it. That’s my problem. It sounds so STUPID when you say it out loud! My problem is that I want to sit at my desk and read social media and make rocks like I do every day and I get really agitated and waves of panic and dread when that routine is disturbed. And thanks to a lifetime of people demanding I turn my frown upside down because it’s !*!*!Christmas!*!*!, I tend to just want to be alone and wait it out so I don’t inflict my irritation upon a world of shiny happy people.

At work, everyone is preparing to take their vacations during the holidays while trying to wrap up year end deadlines before they go. Then they are gone and there’s about a 2 week period where not a damn thing can be accomplished. Yet you either show up every day to a big ass waste of time, or use up your PTO when you have nothing to do with it. The place where you get your morning coffee either has weird hours or is closed. Any errands that need doing are going to have to wait because everything is closed and the stores are packed and horrible so there’s no way I want to be in them anyway. On the radio, Nirvana and Alanis are replaced by choirs and Bing Crosby. TV shows that you routinely watch go on hiatus, the usual internet chatter dies down or changes tone, and serious discussions about real things seem inappropriate. At home, we’re taking up big chunks of room real estate with a tree and other decorations that if I actually liked them, they would be decorating my house all year. All season there’s shit to do after dinner like go and see the lights, or let’s decorate the tree, or let’s do this thing or that thing, and argh!!!

Now I’m a mom with an understanding that my children are not nearly as jaded as I am and it’s up to us as parents to provide them with a special day that they’ll hopefully remember fondly. Instead of joy and love, I feel a sense of fear and dread that I’m not going to do enough. That they are going to feel some dramatic sense of disappointment when they open their gifts and the holiday is basically over after 15 minutes because I don’t know what to actually DO with the day.

Then add on top of all that how trite basic platitudes feel to me. Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas. Those are autopilot well wishes with no individualized meaning to the person you’re speaking to, so it annoys me to say and hear those things. I’m the person who has to at least attempt to be clever when signing the office birthday card because otherwise the whole practice is bizarrely impersonal, yet we are forced to do it anyway. In this country, you have to send out some sort of expression of holiday cheer within 24ish hours of Christmas since that’s the primary acknowledged holiday. Even if you say the all inclusive “happy holidays”, everybody knows that you’re saying it because it’s Christmas and they can see thru your little charade of inclusiveness. And since I don’t know all of the holidays, and don’t have the time or interest to say happy merry whatever day it is today, and I genuinely don’t want to exclude anybody…

So yes. I tend to go radio silent around the holidays. It’s not on purpose. It’s not because I’m depressed and need someone to send a wellness check to my door. I’m just agitated the entire month of December, impatiently waiting for the world to get back to normal, and doing my best not to ruin the season for everybody else.

Y’all cool if I just end this post here? Or do I need to turn it around and do a cheery send off? In the spirit of honoring who I truly am rather than what social convention asks of me……