Focus on family and friends this Christmas...

Welcome back to our Coming Out Crazy Christmas stress coverage to help you through this 2009 holiday season and ease you into a New Year and a New Decade!

Yesterday I mused about Christmas partying and social stresses and I hope you'll contribute by adding your thoughts in the comments. Remember, I'm a bit of a novice in all of this, being Jewish.

Today, on Christmas Eve, I'm focusing on family and friends.

If you have lost a close member of your family this year, all your family Christmas traditions will seem tinged with memories and a subtext of sadness. It's natural, but poignant and very difficult the first year. My heart goes out to you. 

Then, there are the family gatherings. If they're few and far between, only a couple of times of year, they can have their challenges, too.

Compared to Christmas cocktail parties, family Christmas parties pack special stresses. 

Consider this comparison. Venue is everything. Christmas cocktail parties are not for serious conversations. Dinner parties often are.

Christmas cocktail parties are often all about superficials. Appearances. Especially crowded house parties where no one can move or carry on a meaningful conversation. Or where everyone's drinking, as they are wont to do at this time of year and trying hard to have a grand old time. Maybe even drinking to mask their anxieties about seeing people they haven't seen for a long time. It's always a little nerve wracking.

A trick I've learned is to focus outward, instead of inward. Ask questions. Be curious. Interested. This is very flattering and puts anyone in a good frame of mind.

As a teetotaller, parties at this time of year make for entertaining but socially isolating party viewing. There's not much significant social interaction. But most people go to Christmas parties to relax and "let go" – not for "significant" social intercourse. "Insignificant" intercourse, perhaps.

Christmas dinners are different. They're either tonight or tomorrow. Perhaps all weekend. They're potent and concentrated. Even if there's a general feeling of goodwill in the air and most of the time, people are happy to see each other.

Except if you have family issues – old hurts that haven't yet healed. Or if all the "old records" play. You know what happens when you return to the family roost. You may be 35, but somehow you start behaving with your siblings like you're 14. Old rivalries die hard when you're back in the nest. 

Then, even a Christmas dinner can be an emotional minefield.

How can your gird your emotional loins for this stuff?

All I can suggest is to keep smiling, be polite, stay closer to the mistletoe than the bar and beware of the eggnog. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and loosens tongues. I've learned the hard way that at family functions of any kind, often I have to walk on eggshells. It's not always easy, rarely fun, but it's safe. 

Keep in mind that Christmas is just for one day a year.

Finally, there's always the food. Food is a great help. Keeping your mouth full prevents you from saying things you may regret or that may be misinterpreted. (Unless you tend to talk with your mouthful. This is not recommended. Family lore will dine out on you for years if you do.)

At Christmas Dinners, whether sit down or buffet, it's all about the food and trust me, I know about food-oriented fetes. Every Jewish Holiday is really all about the food, except Yom Kippur. That's about fasting. But Erev Yom Kippur and Breaking the Fast are all about food. Passover Seders are all about foods without flour. (Fluffy matzoh balls, for example. God help you if they're like little golf balls. The family will never forget it.) 

If you are spending Christmas Day with friends, that might prove a little easier.

For me, sit-down Christmas dinners are a breeze compared cocktail parties and buffets, no matter what's on the menu. Seat me at an exquisitely set table with my name on a little card and nine others around me, even if they're people I don't know well, I'm happy. I'm temporarily at home. I can easily engage, converse and find emotional and gastronomic fulfillment. I become rooted for the evening and that's good for me.

Everything tastes good at Christmas, too!

Especially the meaningful conversation that can be sampled around the Christmas table. This is my kind of fun. Not cocktail talk. I have no skills at small talk. I'm a big talker. You can discuss the issues of the day at a Christmas dinner. You can be clever and quippy if you wish. You can celebrate the growth and development of the resident children and watch them mature with each passing year. After all, isn't Christmas all about the children? They're wonder. They're joy.

In the back of your mind you know that much of the world is taking a short, 24-hour Christmas break. (Except for people who work in essential services working for double time and a half, if they're lucky. And soldiers, who never can relax.)

It's a comforting feeling. I have attended the same Christmas dinner for the last 26 years with my closest friend, her family and friends. All the same usual suspects, year after year. Children who were six and eight are now married young professionals. I love seeing them at Christmas.

In 1999, when I met and and then a year later married Marty, he was instantly included and adored. Christmas night is the one night every year we always anticipate with relish. I enjoy having someone to hold my hand on the icy streets, though we're rarely seated together at this beautiful meal. It's always lovely to have a partner at a party and for me, this is a very new experience. It only took me 50 years. 

These days, I have other social issues. Because of my serious hearing loss, my two behind-the-ear hearing aids are problematic at parties of any kind. They amplify everything, so a social gathering of more than 10 becomes isolating. I hear only noise. But, I'm a great listener and I lip read brilliantly. So, life is good.

Give me a Christmas party any day over sitting at home or in a psychiatric hospital room, alone. I've done that, too. Health really is the greatest of all gifts. I choose to minimize the importance of stress. To focus on the positives. It's all in the attitude.

Ultimately, I am very grateful for all I have. For my family, Marty's grown daughters, my relative health and most of all, for you. What a gift you are in my life. What a gift this blog is. A whole new world has opened up to me. The Toronto Star and my new friend and fine editor Brandie Weikle who has offered to publish my posts all through the holidays, while she's off work and at home with her young boys.

How lucky can you get!

So, tonight, Christmas Eve, I wish you all well. I wish you health and friendship and companionship. I wish you the most important life force I can think of – the gift of hope and recovery.

Merry Christmas and don't forget to click on the official NORAD Santa Tracker. Your children will love it and the child in you will love it, too. 

Think fun. It's only one day a year. You'll be fine. I know it.

Tomorrow always comes. See you next week!

Smile. It helps. Smiling is contagious.

With affection and gratitude and all the best for the season,

sln

'Tis the season to party. Aaaaargh!

Today, it's Erev Christmas Eve. The Hebrew word Erev means "the night before," and it's a succinct way to say "the night/day before the night/day before," if you get my gist. A nice cultural blending, too.

Still...

At 1:31 a.m. this morning, when I slipped into bed, it occurred to me I really have no idea what Christmas stress is, since I've never experienced it at full-tilt. 

The only day newspapers never publish is Christmas Day, so the only day each year, the only day news rooms are dark is Christmas Eve. That's changing as we go digital and the Internet never sleeps. Nevertheless, I've always been a Christmas orphan. I've always worked through the holidays so my non-Jewish colleagues could enjoy them without the added pressure of work. That's pretty traditional in the the newspaper business. Though that's changing in this digital age where the Internet never sleeps. To add to that, my family is never around. They're always "down south" or at a cottage, as they are this year.

So, for more than 20 years, when I was single, I celebrated the Christmas Social Season on my own or with friends. By proxy, I was privy to its stresses and some of its silliness

'Tis the season to party and socialize – except if you're not a party animal... then what?. 

With parties come a certain amount of anxiety. For me, anyway. I'm never terribly nervous speaking in front of audiences, of any size – from 12 to 1,200. On radio and television. It doesn't matter. I love it.

But invite me to a cocktail party, and do I ever get my knickers in a twist any season but especially this season when expectations are so high.

I'm a bit party-phobic. Maybe you are, too. Well, welcome to a safe place for party-phobes. The other name? Social Anxiety Disorder, but that doesn't need to apply if it only relates to social gatherings like cocktail parties at Christmas, so forget the label for now. You know I hate labels.

I used to dread parties. Now I don't in the same way. I've learned a few things. So today and tomorrow, I'm going to muse on the stresses of socializing, particularly at this time of year when the pressure's on to have a good time. Plus how and why I've been able to recover, somewhat. I'm no expert.

As the holiday season swings into high gear, as social gatherings loom on your calendar between Christmas and culminating on New Year's Eve, do you find your stress-o-meter rising?

If you haven't any plans, that may stress you out, too. You may be feeling isolated with an empty dance card. That's an awful feeling. I've been there, too. There was no happy medium. And there's nothing worse than being a "sympathy guest" – issued an invitation at the last minute simply because you ARE alone. 

This is a tricky season. Everyone is filled with good will and trying to be. There are so many types of events. Family gatherings. Social gatherings. Business parties. All with their own cultures and expectations. Their own peculiar politics and stresses.

One areligious synonym for the Christmas season is celebration. It means party-time and for too many of us caught up in today's consumer and commercialized lifestyles, with all its implicit and explicit expectations, "party time" can also mean "show time" – all razzle dazzle and bling bling.

Put on a happy face and gird your emotional loins for the onslaught. Some trick when you're not in a party mood, but you're obligated... how's that for pressure.

In one of last week's posts, this prescient comment came in, proof this subject is weighing heavily on people's minds. This comment says it all, eloquently:

"What is really going on with the holidays? 

"Have you ever not been able to breathe for whatever reason (running, stress, being underwater) and then come up for air and panicked? You're breathing but you're scared and it hurts. 

"This is what Christmas is. We're more busy, and then in a moment we breathe. We're scared to breathe and reflect upon what's going on in our lives. 

"Hell, we'll have to tell acquaintances and family we only see at holidays what's going on in our lives. It's stressful. 

"This is the first Christmas I'm experiencing without being manic or depressed. It doesn't feel like my first breath because I've taken three-day-weekends and breathers along the way. I'm nervous about the parties, etc., but I know I can handle it. Maybe if we are so go go go until Christmas it is a more enjoyable experience."

Social gatherings are supposed to be about fun (and family, if you have family in the vicinity), but everyone has a different idea of what fun is. Family and fun don't necessarily go hand in hand.

What if fun is close friends, small groups, conversations with no crosstalk and the security of knowing you're loved for who you are – no matter what you're wearing or how you look. Feeling loved. Feeling secure. 

I'm no party-animal. During all my single years – my first fifty – I was your classic wallflower. Never the type of person people were drawn to at parties. I was the girl standing alone on the periphery watching and trying to smile. (Or in a little gathering of wallflowers.) Clutching my club soda and lime, I felt intensely awkward, yet wanted to look like I was having a good time. 

All I really wanted to do was go home.

Surprised? Don't be. I spent my adolescence and much my young adulthood in residence at what was formerly The Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, now the College Street site of The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, or other psychiatric wards about town. Never learned to flirt. I felt like an oddball in social settings. Especially where alcohol was featured.

Did I mention that I'm a teetotaller? Never developed much of a taste for alcohol. It tastes like medicine and I've taken my fill. (Still do.) Furthermore, I don't need drugs to get high. I can do that all by myself. No artificial stimulation needed. Then, up, up and away I go, off to a mental ward, again.

So parties worried me. There's nothing more isolating than watching a group of people getting looped when you're stone-cold sober. 

I'm not thin. I never felt I ever looked "hot" – just out of sync with my generation – an old soul. 

Add all this up and you can imagine how social gatherings, especially at this time of year, were always preceded by major cases of the jitters. Sometimes, I'll confess, I'd call the host at the last minute and say I couldn't come because I wasn't feeling well. Terribly bad form, but that's how frightening parties were for me. I couldn't face walking alone into a room filled with smoke (back then) and boozing. I couldn't face being ignored for a whole evening by everyone other than my coupled friends and their kindhearted other halves. 

Men didn't notice me. No matter what I wore or how thin or not I was or even if I smiled. 

I wasn't confident in those situations. I felt I wouldn't fit in and that became my self-fulfilling prophecy.

To be continued tomorrow...

Remember, Coming Out Crazy is not planning on taking a break this Christmas – though one never knows. I want to be up and running twice a week, as usual, so you can stop by, comment, share, muse, celebrate or vent. You don't have to feel alone or abandoned. I'll be checking in regularly and doing my best to keep up with your comments – I know I'm still a bit behind, but I'm catching up slowly. 

Cheers and sweet dreams tonight. Oh, one more thing. Tomorrow night click onto NORAD's Official Santa Tracker and follow "the big guy's" global journey. The countdown has already started. This is one of my favourite Christmas activities. 

See you anon...

Be well. Take it easy. And breathe.

Chewing the fat about Fat Talk...

On our first week at Weight Watchers, I lost 2.8 lbs. and Marty lost 4.6 lbs. 

On our second, I lost .4 lbs. and he lost .6 lbs. – the morning after a seven course dinner the night before.

As of last Sunday, week six, I had lost 6.8 lbs. and he had lost 7.6 lbs.

So on we plod, turning every meal into an exercise in higher mathematics, discussing weighing, measuring, calculating and counting the calories, fat grams, dietary fibre and points-values in every mouthful we eat. 

He refuses to measure. I weigh every milligram. He loses like a dream. I struggle. We're doing this for health reasons. High blood pressure and cholesterol. Yesterday, we joined the Fitness Club at our local Community Centre. We're adding regular exercise to our healthier eating regime. 

I'm a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers. I've fallen off the wagon too many times to remember. Yet, even at my goal – 128 lbs. – I still felt fat. I always feel fat. That's how I see myself. Even in a size 6.

This brings me to the subject of Fat Talk. All that diet talk I was just doing? It's a form of Fat Talk. And it''s a bore. I've got to stop!

A few weeks ago, during the Second Annual Fat Free Talk Week I was so stressed out, I couldn't get my head around posting about my life-long weight problem. Or my negative body image.

Today, I'm feeling better. So, I'm revisiting this spiny issue now.

Do you know I have never met a woman who likes her body? Tall. Thin. Elegant. Beautiful. They all have some problem with the way they look.

Fat Talk promotes our collective negative body image. It dangerous.

Are we all doomed to feel Rubenesque in a thin-obsessed, air-brushed, digitally-manipulated, Photoshopped world? 

Being aware of Fat Talk and stopping it demands more than one week a year. It's a huge issue. It's everywhere. You can't avoid it. It insidiously feeds mental and emotional health issues that devour our sense of self-worth. Worse, it can be deadly. Increasingly, the lives of children and teenagers are threatened by eating disorders.

Obesity is deadly, too. Fat and Fit? How do you begin to like the way you see yourself in your mind's eye?

I'm the Queen of Fat Talk – I Fat Talk to myself all the time. Whether the scale says 128 lbs. or  242 lbs. As a chronic Yo-Yo dieter, I'm always in flux. Losing or gaining. Never maintaining. 

Fat Talk is my constant internal dialogue.  

"Do I look fat? Oh, God, look at that bulge showing. I feel like a blimp. I don't want to see that person. The last time I did, I was 40 lbs. thinner. What will she think? I look like a whale. A petite whale. I can't stand the way I look. Keep smiling, Sandy, maybe that will distract people from your hugeness."

That's what happens when you've lived for years being assaulted by external "Fat Talk."

"You have such a pretty face," people would often say to me in my youth. At 16, my father bribed me with a new car, if I'd lose weight. Another time, with a trip to New York and a new wardrobe. I dieted. Lost. Regained more. Felt worthless. Unloved. Hideous.

These days, one of my students says at the beginning of each class, "I have to ask. How much weight have you lost now? You're looking better every day." That's perfect example of Fat Talk.

Stupid me, I tell her. And the whole class. What's worse is that I feel flattered. I like it. I've been socialized and brainwashed into believing that if I'm not slim or slimmer, I'm deficient. No good. Fat and Ugly. Always "fat and ugly." 

I do this to others, too, reinforcing a damaging value I detest. 

When I like someone, I don't see extra pounds. I see the person I like. I see their eyes. Their smiles. All the characteristics I love about them. Yet, when we engage in Fat Talk consider the consequences.

Someone says, "You've lost weight. You look great!" What they're really saying is that you didn't look great before. Your value as a human being is gauged by your size. Your shape. Your thinness. That's the implication and it plays havoc with your self-esteem. 

You can't escape advertising, marketing, Hollywood, and the media. But you can devalue it. Beauty is relative. Arbitrary. Who makes the decision? 

You can become more aware and Stop Fat Talking! To yourself. And to others. You can help begin a paradigm shift. Starting with yourself. 

Change the record. Break it. Don't only comment on what someone looks like, comment on other facets of their character, accomplishments, intellect, skills, activities and abilities. Be positive about people and about yourself.

On November 2, PsychCentral launched a new website called Weightless.

It's "about well-being, not weight; about fostering body image regardless of your size. It's about exposing women's magazines and so-called experts, when they're touting unhealthy tips and promoting restrictive standards," psychologist John M. Grohol wrote in this introduction.

So now, besides all the global awareness raised by Dr. Carolyn Becker, the founder and one of the researchers of the Reflections Body Image Program and the sponsor of the Second Annual Fat Talk Free Week, you can begin to work on your own body image issues. You can begin to re-educate yourself every day.

You can start to feel good about who you are, just because you're you! 

Let's face it. The holidays are approaching.  Party Time. Socializing. Every event revolves around food and everyone wants to feel beautiful. For too many years I cloistered myself at this time of year because I felt self-conscious about the way I felt I looked. No more.

I'm starting now. Let's all start to stop the Fat Talk.  

There's so much more in this world to talk about, don't you think?

My newest truths about food and mood...

Okay. I know what they say. Diets don't work.

If you take the "t" off the word "diet" – what you have? Die.

Anyone who's struggled with his or her weight all their lives knows all these cutesy cliches. We now know our weight is genetically predetermined, but that doesn't help. We still have to lose weight to be healthy. Genes or no genes.

The bottom line is, if you want to lose weight to be healthy you have to consume fewer calories than you burn.

That means either continuing to eat they way you like and spending 23 out of 24 hours seven days a week working out ... or cutting back on calories. 

And if you want to live long, it helps to eat a healthy diet. As Susan, a friend and one of my regular commenters mused yesterday:

"Why is it that all the good things in life are fattening, and stuff like carrot sticks, eewww."

It's not fair, but as my psychiatrist, Dr. Bob, often reminds me: "Life isn't fair." 

So, I'm now on Day Six of my first week of Weight Watchers. I'm dieting. They call it a lifestyle, but not yet for me. Right now, it's a diet.

I know I'm not going to lose weight on a diet of toasted whole wheat baguettes slathered with sweet butter. Or egg white omelettes loaded with melted cheddar. Or chocolate covered almonds. I'm feeling a craving coming on. 

The point is I'm in the midst of changing my habits. It takes a long time.

A lot longer than they tell you at a Weight Watchers meeting. 

My friend psychologist John M. Grohol found a new source of information about changing habits "across the pond" at University College London – from scientific psychology researcher Jeremy Dean and his PsyBlog. 

In a recent post, How Long to Form a Habit? Dean says it takes on average –  66 days to change a habit – with no guarantee this new habit will stick. He cites a July 2009 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology. 

It's complicated. Depends on the habit. Eating habits are probably among the hardest to change permanently along with quitting smoking and giving up alcohol or breaking a drug addiction. (What's the difference between an addiction and a habit, I wonder?)

If I could abstain from food altogether, it would be easier than moderating what I eat. One chocolate covered almond is harder to eat than none at all. 

At Weight Watchers they tell you it takes 31 days to change a habit. Marty will love this news. According to Dean, we're in for another 60 days of struggling to change our eating habits. If I announce this at my Sunday meeting, I'll be pelted with two-point snacks.

Here's my problem. 

I take one (1) 200 mg tablet of an anti-convulsant called Epival/Tegretol/Carbamazepine twice daily to stabilize my manic tendencies. It works for me. 

I also take eight (8) other different drugs, including three (3) different immunosuppressants, to keep me alive with my transplanted kidney. 

My complex daily cocktails of drugs don't exactly ease the weight loss process. 

Monica, pointed this in a comment to yesterday's post: 

"It could be your med making you hungry. I gained 100 lbs. while on Epival/Depakote, and I met a man in a bipolar support group who had the same experience. He lost it all when they switched him to Topamax. Me, I'd manage to lose 20 or 30 lbs. but then I'd start a new med and gain it all back. 

"Since I started Truehope and got off all my meds my appetite has plummeted. I eat a fraction of what i used to eat. I just am not hungry all the time any more.

What works for Monica would kill me. I need my drugs to survive. 

We're all as chemically different as we are emotionally different.

I'm going to struggle to lose my weight and reach my goal, again. 

For 60 more days – to change my habits – and every day after that.

Life isn't fair. It's life. That's the point.

Speak soon.

Have a Happy, Homey New Year!

So, what are you doing for New Year's Eve?

Better question. Do you really care?

When I met my husband, Marty, and we were dating, on the second date, he asked me out for New Year's. I thought he was a little cracked.

It was July.

Later, he confessed that he didn't want to take any chances of someone else slipping in ahead of him.

He didn't know that there was no one beating a path to my door. Never, ever before had anyone ever asked me out for New Year's Eve. I was 50. 

This has never been a problem. I have never felt deprived because I have spent 50 New Year's Eves on my own, usually alone, or with one of my dogs. Often, I feast on a big bowl of popcorn and entertain myself with an old movie, or better still, a good book.

On several occasions, I've spent a few hours kibitzing with a friend on the phone. Occasionally, I've watched on TV as "the ball dropped" in Times Square, but more often I'm sound asleep long before midnight.

The point is, I have never been particularly excited about celebrating New Year's Eve the way most people traditionally do. Making merry. Dressing up. Dining out on exorbitant, outrageously-priced, often mediocre restaurant fare. Drinking too much. Whooping it up with a bunch of strangers. Pretending to be having a grand old time.

For one thing, I don't drink.There's nothing more boring than watching a bunch of people get silly and inebriated. 

What's even worse, is that everyone is trying so hard to have a good time. The expectations always outstrip the reality. It's usually a big disappointment according to most people I know who "go out on the town on New Year's."

Isn't is just another night of the week? Especially when it falls on a Wednesday?

I suspect, although I could be wrong, that many people may scale back on their New Year's celebrations this year and perhaps re-think how to spend this night. Just as many people have carefully reflected on the meaning and values of Christmas gift giving and refocused on the people they love and care about more than the presents they may have, in years past, cost them outrageous amounts of money. 

You cannot help but give this some thought.

Marty, if you want to know, has never "taken me out for New Year's" because I've never wanted to be "taken out." I prefer small intimate gatherings at home and that's how we have spent our eight New Year's Eve's together, thus far. This will be our ninth. We either have a few people in or visit friends. At most, there are four or five couples. This year, there will be six of us, not all "couples," either. Six good friends.

We have a pot luck dinner which is always more delicious than anything you can buy in a restaurant. This year, Thai food is on the menu and I'm making Pad Thai. 

What's best about spending a quiet New Year's with friends at home is the feeling of warmth, closeness and camaraderie.

There are no extra-special expectations and we're never disappointed.

If you're a list-maker, here is a list of 10 good reasons to reframe your New Year's Eve and celebrate at home:

1. It's warm.
2. The price of drinks is right. 
3. Ditto for the food, which if it's home made is far better than anything you'll find in any restaurant.   
4. There are always second helpings. 
5. There's no chance of colliding in your car with a drunk driver.  
6. You can go to bed at 12:01 a.m. or at 11:59 p.m. – and skip it altogether.
7. You don't have to get all dressed up – no tuxedo rentals, no sequins – you can spend the evening in your p.j.'s all night. 
8. You can sing  Auld Lang Syne at the top of your lungs even if you can't carry a tune.
9. You can go onto the Internet and really celebrate New Year's – around the world, in every time zone. You'll be up all night. You'll be New Year's Eve'd-out but it might be fun, for a change!
10. In the quiet of your home, you can spend a few solitary moments reflecting back on the past year and think about how you can make 2009 a little better, in whatever way that's meaningful for you.  

I wish you health, most of all. Peace of mind. Happiness of heart. Calm. A year of sweetness. In Judaism, we celebrate New Year's in the fall. We cut up apples and dip them in honey,to symbolize a sweet New Year. You could try that, too. If nothing else, it tastes delicious.

Be well. It is an honour for me to be able to spend time with you here. To communicate with you. To share with you. See you in 2009!

Down for the holidays...

This year, you may not be anticipating the holidays like you have in the past. Or, if you usually find them stressful, 2008 may feel like it's pushing you right off the stress scale.

Many of you probably and understandably feel a little depressed. The economy is gasping and rasping. Headlines are painful to read. There's no ho-ho-ho or good cheer in the news. How can you feel joy when so many people are losing their jobs, entire industries are tottering on the brink of bankruptcy and stores are empty. Rumour has it that even Santa is tightening his belt in his North Pole workshop and has laid off 10 percent of his elves. 

About 1.1 million Canadians are diagnosed with depression every year, and 35 per cent of those diagnoses are made in December, according to social psychologist Dr. Richard Earle, managing director of the Canadian Institute of Stress. 

But not all of these cases are serious, chronic, big "D" depression. Some are temporary. 

"We all slide in and out of depression and anxiety and other moods all the time. Much of this is caused by uncertainty in our lives and sometimes that uncertainty can even be energizing."

But at other times, it can be overwhelming, especially during the holidays when too many uncertainties collide, as they seem to be right now. When words like "Recession" and "Depression" have economic clout as well as emotional punch, what then?

"We're all on a stress roller coaster right now with all the pressures of shopping and preparing for the holidays, especially this year," Earle said. Living with so much uncertainty is becoming commonplace and it wears on your psyche after a while.

Add all your concerns about your family and how to handle gift-giving when money might be tight, entertaining and other holiday traditions that might not be quite as lavish as in the past. In the back of your mind, you may be feeling overwhelmed.

Earle has a few good, common-sense suggestions for ways to override some seasonal stresses by re-framing the way you choose to celebrate the holidays. 

"You can spend a lot less money and still make your gifts special by personalizing them," he said. "Be creative."

Make cards, design your own gifts, pay more attention to thoughtful gifts, and gear down your expectations of a "perfect" Christmas, he suggested. Be realistic and responsible. Focus on family, friends and the fun of getting together – not the presents – sharing time together. 

If you're going to give gifts, make them experiential. A movie or a play, a scheduled coffee or lunch date, a dinner party (and make it a potluck) in January and February, after the holidays, when there's nothing much happening.

Earle said that for some people, however, these uncertainties can be so overwhelming that certain behaviours may warrant a visit to your family doctor, especially if the following signals last for two weeks or more. It's a good idea to take stock and keep an eye on how you're feeling:

 

• having problems with sleep – either sleeping too much or not enough

• experiencing chronic aches and pains more frequently or severely

• muscle and joint pain

• feeling unable to enjoy everyday pleasures

• feeling unable to concentrate or focus as well as usual

• having fatalistic thoughts

One myth about the Christmas season is that suicides peak, but according to Tara Parker-Pope's Well blog at The New York Times, "suicides are more common during warm and sunny times of the years, studies show. There is no evidence of a holiday peak in suicides." 

If you're feeling depressed, Earle stresses that you don't need to see a psychiatrist.

"If someone has a panic attack, it doesn't mean they have an anxiety disorder. It means they've had an anxiety episode. There's no reason to catastrophize a feeling or experience that is stress-related," Earle said.

When you visit your family doctor, who has an overall picture of your physical and emotional health, he is far more likely to be able to spend some time with you, Earle said, "in talk therapy or cognitive behavioural therapy, and be able to help you in re-framing your situation so you can begin to feel better.

"As well, your family doctor may prescribe a medication, which I consider a tactile tool – not a life strategy. By staying in touch with your family doctor, there's a good chance you can get through any seasonal depression, and only take that medication temporarily."

Don't forget the special people in your life who can listen to you. Really listen. Make time to spend a few quiet moments with them. Be good to yourself. There are all kinds of strategies for weathering the holidays and spending quiet time with someone who cares about you and understands you is, perhaps, the best gift you can give yourself.

You deserve it.

The Workplace Catch-22

Workplace accommodation for people with mental illnesses is a real Catch-22.

Say you have an accident and lose a leg. You need to heal, be fitted with a prosthesis, go through rehabilitation and learn to walk again. Perhaps you’ll learn to use a wheelchair. Eventually, you’ll return to work – probably be welcomed back – and receive accommodations.

No questions asked. Everyone will bend over backwards to ensure you transition well into your new life, help you adapt to your new way of doing things and adjust to your new challenges.

Say you’re applying for a job. If you’re well qualified and in a wheelchair, why shouldn’t you have as good a shot as anyone else at landing that job?

But what happens if you have a mental health issue? If you’re good at what you do, well educated and trained, what do you do?

Announce in a job interview that you’ve had some emotional problems and may need some accommodation from time to time? Try that, and you’ll probably be shown the door before you have a chance to whip out your resume.

All colleges and universities offer students with any number of physical, developmental and emotional issues accommodations, but that simply doesn’t happen in “the real world.”

That’s wrong. Unfair. Unjust. Discriminatory.

You rarely hear the thousands of success stories about people thriving with their mental health issues because people simply don’t talk about them. They hide them. Pray nothing happens. Live with their secrets in fear.

How many CEOs drink excessively? How many managers white knuckle their way through a workday and fall apart at night?

It’s easier to hide a mental health issue than a prosthetic leg or a wheelchair, but no less important to ensure that talented, well-educated, creative people be given equal opportunities to contribute to society in any way they can. That means in the workplace.

This is the great Catch-22 employees must face.

You can’t receive appropriate accommodation unless your employer knows how you need to be accommodated. And how will they know if you don't tell them?

This is a human rights issue.

You should be able to be honest about a mental health issue without fear of never being hired. Or worse, being fired. And employers should be able to look beyond it. There are so many people with gambling, drinking and drug abuse problems who slip through the cracks because these addictions – and they are serious, dangerous mental health issues – are for some reason considered “acceptable.”

Why should a mood disorder, an anxiety problem or any mental illness that’s well controlled be less acceptable?

It's wrong. Unfair. Unjust. Discriminatory.

Someone who’s worked hard to recover and maximize their health – physical and mental – is a better bet in the workplace. Better equipped to cope, communicate, listen, empathize, work hard and be a great team player. If given a chance, loyal to the end.

Try telling that to an employer. Most of them see only potential problems. Never potential successes. The Toronto Sun hired me, knowing I had a mental illness, because they saw my potential and wanted to give me a chance. Now Seneca College has done the same thing.

I didn’t hide anything. Why should you have to if you’re applying for a job? Be honest and up front. Explain what you need to help you do the best job you can do. A good employer welcomes such information.

There is no question that a healthy workplace - mentally and physically - is a more profitable workplace.

Nobody's perfect. We’re all vulnerable. Life isn't a linear path. Things happen. There are bumps along the road. We all have problems, and we all deserve a chance to prove ourselves. To work hard and succeed.

Emotional and physical health issues should be treated equally in the workplace. Everywhere.

How can we make this happen? By opening our minds. Overcoming our own fears and ignorance. Educating ourselves. Throwing out the old stereotypes and myths about mental illnesses – and treating people as individuals. As human beings. With enormous potential.

And beautiful minds.

Jumping for Joy

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been guilty of two of the seven deadly sins.

Gluttony and Sloth.

Well, I guess that’s exaggerating a bit. I just love to eat and I hate to exercise. Deadly combination.

This is typical of me. I’m an all-or-nothing-kinda-gal. I’m either losing weight, at which I am very good, or gaining it back, at which I am even better. And lightning fast. I’m a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers, with about 80 lb. to lose. I have never, ever maintained a weight loss for more than a weekend.

I’ve run a 10 K though I came in seventh from last. I’ve pumped all kinds of iron. Walked and run on treadmills and elliptical machines. I’ve boxed. Stretched. Skipped. Power-walked. With trainers and without trainers. I've lapped 44 lengths of an Olympic pool every morning at 5 a.m. before work. My wardrobe spans size six to infinity.

I’ve also wasted more money than I care to imagine on lapsed, unused gym memberships.

Conservatively, I’ve gained and lost at least 2,000 lb. in my lifetime. More than 907 kilograms.

If Yo-Yo dieting was an Olympic Sport, I’d be a multiple Gold Medalist.

So, why am I telling you this? Why am I jumping for joy?

This week, Liz Spikol, Philadelphia Weekly senior editor and one of my favourite bloggers, alerted her readers to a Vital Signs item in the Health section of The New York Times.

Exercise, it seems, isn’t all its cracked up to be when it comes to alleviating the symptoms of depression.

Now, you know, depression isn’t one of my problems. Mania is.

So this shouldn’t matter to me, but I’ll tell you why it does.

In my addled mind, it simply proves that the medical establishment doesn’t really know what causes depression or how brain chemistry really works.

It shows me the brain is not necessarily where the mind is located or vice versa.

Psychiatrists hate it when I suggest this. But, since I've been in psychiatry longer than my psychiatrist – Dr. Bob was finishing Grade 13 when I was first sent to a psychiatrist in 1960 – I figure my close to 48-years of experience has validity.

Psychiatry has been the through-line of my life. I have my ideas. And I try to follow the research, but at the same time, keep my eye firmly in the Recovery camp, too.

I do not believe psychiatric diagnoses equal Brain Disease! I do believe the mind is a holistic concept that encompasses all one's life experiences, feelings, traumas, perceptions, emotions, education. Everything.

I do not believe psychiatry is very scientific. Psychiatrists would love this to be so, but it really isn't. Yet. At one time, psychiatry and neurology were one branch of medicine — neuropsychiatry. Then, in 1948, that specialty was split into neurology, the science. And psychiatry, black magic, I like to call it.

There has been progress, and I'm not an anti-psychiatry advocate. I do not believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Freud introduced the practice of talk therapy.

I am critical. And I have an open mind.

Also, I know that prescribing of drugs to control behavioural symptoms proves nothing about the cause of these symptoms. It just controls behaviour.

Tylenol can soothe the pain of a headache, but does it tell you what the cause of that headache is?

The other reason I'm jumping for joy is that it seems what I've always believed is actually true.

Being fat doesn't necessarily mean you're unhealthy.

And being thin doesn't always mean you're healthy.

This week, this is big news everywhere, but Liz Spikol's blog The Trouble With Spikol, about mental health links to another of my favourite bloggers, Well, also from New York Times health writer Tara Parker-Hope. Liz posts a great picture, so have a look.

We're all different. I think that psychiatrists are desperately afraid of difference. They read it as "abnormal," which means nothing to me. I've never conformed.

I wish everyone could celebrate their "specialness," instead of trying to "cure" it. Forget what the psychiatrists tell you and their gobbledygook labels and language.

It's all madness. I like Shakespeare's take on it. All his Fools were mad and spoke the truth in his plays.

Be yourself. Try to find something that makes you feel good. Even if it's a walk in the park in the sunshine.

Licking an ice cream cone.

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.