{"id":693,"date":"2007-12-07T10:30:49","date_gmt":"2007-12-07T10:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/holiday-blues-talk-to-therapy.html"},"modified":"2007-12-07T10:30:49","modified_gmt":"2007-12-07T10:30:49","slug":"holiday-blues-talk-to-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/holiday-blues-talk-to-therapy.html","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Blues: Talk to Therapy Doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really enjoyed Therapydoc’s post entitled “Bananas and Video Games.” To get to her original post, click here.<\/a> Following are excerpts.<\/p>\n

The Thanksgiving holiday marks the season of joy for some, but for others it can be very depressing. As a matter of fact, you may know that for TherapyDocs all over the world, it\u2019s BUSY SEASON.
\nBecause of the Holiday Blues.
\nThis Doc starts getting busier as soon as the leaves begin to fall and the days get shorter.
\nIn Chicago, if we have a decent Indian Summer, meaning if there are a few weeks in late October and early November with sun and high temperatures, it seems there\u2019s less of an onset of SADS (seasonal affective disorder).
\nI forgot to add someting about the holiday blues to that post on SADS, but I should have.<\/p>\n


\nGoing out of town last week for a vacation, a mere two weeks before Thanksgiving? Sheer sacrilege.
\nWhy are people such emotional wrecks before the holidays?
\nLots of reasons. One of ’em’s money.
\nBut first, a quick story about S. and bananas.
\nWho is S.?
\nS. used to be referred to in this blog as G.D., Genius Doc, writer of BUNK, Medical Myths and Misinformation. The problem is that he\u2019s always hated being referred to as G.D. and I hate to upset him. So from now on we’ll refer to him as S. short for Such a Good Doc.
\nThursday night S. went to the Jewel, the local Albertson\u2019s grocery store, to buy bananas. He\u2019ll do that, go to the store to buy ONE thing. This is not something women ever do and it boggles my mind, but I admire it, like everything else about him.
\nThe Jewel is in a strip mall within walking distance from our house. S. returned home with bananas that were a little green, but okay. I\u2019m not going to make an issue over green bananas.
\nS: You would not believe what\u2019s going on at the Best Buy! (Best Buy’s right next door to Jewel). They\u2019re queued up to get inside for tomorrow\u2019s sale. Do you want to know what\u2019s going to be on sale?
\nMe: Uh, sure.
\nS: The new Play Station. People will be waiting in line all night to get in early tomorrow morning to buy Play Stations for their kids for Xmas. They will be camped out all night long to buy these things.
\nMe: I see.
\nS: Crazy, right?
\nMe: Oh, yeah.
\nMy friends, I have to tell you. We do not live in California. We do not live in Florida. We do not live in Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina or Texas. We live in friggin\u2019 Chicago, Illinois, and we are not having an Indian summer. It is COLD here at night. In November it gets into the 30\u2019s by 10 p.m.
\nI have my thermostat set at 75 degrees.
\nImmediately I understood that this was going to be a very good season for me.
\nExcept that people start canceling their appointments around this time of year (you DO give me 24 hours notice, right?). They\u2019re saving their money, co-payments, co-insurance, what-ever, to buy things like . . .
\nPlay Stations.
\nThey short change S., too, this time of year.
\nBut we\u2019re getting away from the point:
\nWhy do people suffer from Holiday Blues? The holidays are supposed to be happy times.
\nMoney’s big here. No question depression’s also related to other things, LOSS in particular, missing people who are not here and having problems with people who are. But money certainly factors in heavily to the blues.
\nThe “Wall Street Journal” made it perfectly clear.
\nIn Friday\u2019s WSJ (November 17) there\u2019s an article in the Marketplace section entitled: It\u2019s the Publicity that Counts.
\nVanessa O\u2019Connell writes an ingenious piece about holiday marketing to consumers. She says that in 1959 Neiman Marcus began to pitch gifts to those who could afford excess with the first one-of-a-kind luxury item. Neiman\u2019s convinced the well-heeled that they could not possibly do without a . . .
\nBlack Angus Steer.
\nEver since, high end retail stores have been introducing fantasy items this time of year with exorbitant price tags. We too can buy them if we can get our hands on thousands, upon thousands, sometimes even millions of dollars.
\nA space travel venture, meaning a ride on a spaceship, the Virgin Galactic? Only 1.5 million. They\u2019re booked solid, I understand. Sorry, you’re too late.
\nA walk-on roll at the American Ballet? A mere $3,000 is the starting bid. Good G-d, TAKE it!
\nA day at the Super Bowl, accompanied by a National Football League player? Only $100, 000.00. How can anyone resist this?
\nMs. O\u2019Connell brilliantly remarks, \u201c. . . even customers who can\u2019t afford fantasy gifts will want to be associated with such luxury.
\nShe continues: Retailers know that luxury is largely an emotional state, and during the holidays, people are most prone to acting on emotions.\u201d
\nBing, bing, bing.
\nHear that friends? You\u2019re most prone to acting on emotion (as opposed to logic)during the holiday season. And I\u2019m telling you that your serotonin is likely to get locked up in those neurons this time of year. Thus you may be more vulnerable to impulse buying than you would be under normal circumstances, and you may be likely to regret your purchasing later, which will add to your depression.
\nThe journalist is 100% correct. People act upon the need to spend money they don\u2019t have: (1) to make others happy, (2) to save face among friends and family, (3) because it makes them feel rich, and 4) they want to be perceived as rich so that they\u2019re treated as if they\u2019re rich. The saying goes, image is everything.
\nSo everyone rips out the plastic and goes to town beginning the day after Thanksgiving. And it depresses the blank out of \u2018em to do it, too.
\nWhat a world.
\nWhich brings us back to bananas and video games.
\nBananas aren\u2019t exactly a gift, it\u2019s true, but we can consume them. I maintain that a banana, because it is food, is closer to a symbol of love than is a Play Station.
\nFood for sure represents love. When people eat they are commonly happy. They often eat with others and talk, discuss problems or fantasize about dreams. Women lunch. Couples make plans for the future over dinner. They communicate about intimate things.
\nWhereas a Play Station represents staring into a media device.
\nMy grandparents (and my father) were immigrants and came to this country in the twenties. When I was a kid I remember only getting two toys for special occasions: a Ken doll with a bald spot (why Ken, not Barbie, I\u2019m not sure), and a Sheri Lewis hand puppet, Lamb Chop. At some point Mom got us all a Monopoly Game to share which was a tremendous thrill. These were great toys.
\nBut that generation wouldn’t have dreamed of throwing out money on things they could not afford. Their concept of fun was any state that was the absense of work. Work for folks like my parents and their parents meant picking feathers off of chickens or holding eggs up to a candle to see if there was anything moving around inside the shell.
\nFun was something you did outside, using imagination, preferably. It meant moving around, tossing pennies, having contests to see how far or high a kid could jump.
\nI’m thinking that the best gifts you can give your kid are imagination, a back yard, or both. I am sure that one can live without a back yard. But imagination? So necessary.
\nIt can lie dormant unless it is watered, for sure. Parents have to water a child\u2019s imagination, and seed it.
\nAnother great gift is teaching children to love learning. Learning is also fun Good parenting, parenting with care, as I\u2019ve said before, is the greatest gift.
\nAnd it\u2019s not expensive.
\nAm I saying that I would have accepted a banana for Chanukah? Uh, no.
\nBut a new sweater or a little cash? Well, what do you think?!
\nWhat would I suggest to parents who feel they MUST spend more money than they have in order for their children to have happy holidays?
\nWell, actually? I\u2019d say don\u2019t do it, don\u2019t spend the money. Use your imagination to figure out something else, anything else.
\nTalk to your children about values. Spending money on things that don\u2019t last is self-destructive for you and doesn’t really enhance your child’s life very much in the long run.
\nYou being mentally healthy is a gift to them, too. Getting upset about something that really is within your power to control isn’t necessary.
\nYou can tell your children as much if they have the audacity to ask, “Where’s My Play Station?”
\nYou really can say, \u201cYou know, it makes me a little crazy to spend all that money when I don\u2019t have it to spend.\u201d
\nBelieve it or not, they\u2019ll understand.
\nCopyright 2006, TherapyDoc<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really enjoyed Therapydoc’s post entitled “Bananas and Video Games.” To get to her original post, click here. Following are excerpts. The Thanksgiving holiday marks the season of joy for some, but for others it can be very depressing. 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