Seasons Greetings, I Mean Depression

I've accepted that I will always feel crappy on some level and forums like this help to remind me that I'm not alone in my despair. Therefore, holidays don't depress me as much as they used to.

What helps: skipping Thanksgiving. This little bit of selfish control, not spending turkey day with family, helps my sanity; Finding another grump, Hank hates relative obligations more than I do so makes me feel cheerful in comparison; Drinking on Christmas Eve, after present opening we always go to a dive bar. Much fun.

Christmas, however, is full of nothing but bad memories, and bitterness, and feeling even worse for feeling like shite while everyone around you gabbles on and on and on about what great fun it is and how happy they are. There's nothing like other peoples happiness to bring your own despair into focus.

Added to which I'm in no real mood to celebrate this year, except in so far as it's almost over.

Time off work is good, though.

New Year is traumatic as my 'someone somewhere is doing something better and having more fun than me' neurosis goes into overdrive, I cannot commit to doing anything in case I get a better offer at the last minute and end up pissing everyone off and doing something rubbish. Last Year being a notable exception.

But you have to remember that a lot of that is people putting on a brave face. "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Thanks, Samantha, you're probably right. Lots of people are probably "keeping up appearances for the sake of the kids".

So with due respect, Ms Grinch, I would suggest if you're not happy with the way we do things here then you should go and start your own discussion board which you can control as you please.

And I speak as someone who has got less reason to celebrate this Christmas than anyone else on these boards.

Got it?

For fucks sake. This is my little misery party and I'll cry if I want to without you trying to make me feel guilty about it.

There, now you've gone and made me even MORE miserable.

I don't like pseudo-fascist commercialism any more than Kate does, I suspect, but it's just nice to be with my family (or Laura's family, as was) and not actually have to do anything but just revel in the company.

As L's family of course isn't an option any more I will be spending this Xmas/New Year with my mum in dear old Lanarkshire, and am thoroughly looking forward to it.

If there is something which genuinely depresses you about Xmas, something in your background or life which makes it unbearable, then for fuck's sake just talk about it. Don't come on with this "I'm a freaky character" shit routine - just express what you have to say honestly and without frills.

If you really feel that your life is so inadequate that you have to use these boards to seize some imagined element of empowerment ("Carlin" - for Christ's sake; who do you think you are, Anna fucking Wintour? Just because you're going to be published in ET's fucking fanzine and are in some crappy failed indie group?), then I have to tell you you're not going to do it here.

And I sincerely hope we're not going to get this kind of crap from you if you deign to turn up on Saturday.

I replied twice because there's a difference between "I hate Christmas" and "I hate Christmas and I think people who don't are faking it and/or crap" - the latter invites a defence, whether you like it or not.

I replied a third time because I'm a pedantic shit-stirrer, but I'll leave you to your grinchdom now and go off wassailing ;)

We parted rather mutely, but on reasonably cordial terms. But, you know, if they want to close ranks, that's their business. All that I can say is that L deserved a better family.

Whereas my mum came straight down from Motherwell on the Wednesday, stayed with me for a whole week, made sure everything was OK, more or less kept me alive - she's the only one who's stood by me all the way through this.

Sorry if this sounds a bit sour, but sometimes that's how things pan out.

Christmas drives me nuts as a central Londoner because of the huge glut of people who do not know where they are going and their sheer mass. The fuckwits never know where they are going but during this time of year there are four times as many of them. My Christmas carol goes: 'move it or lose it! move it or lose it!' and you can hear me doing this on Oxford Street any old time.

Saturday will be fun, of course. And why not?

But your petty personal attack on me was uncalled for, and quite frankly, just rude. I don't care what you've been through, it's no excuse to be an asshole to a stranger.

This does not diminish the multiple perfectly valid reasons that I do not like Xmas which have nothing to do with the past or negative experience thereof or anything else.

1) I don't consider myself a Christian. Why should I spend so much time fetishising a Christian bastardisation of a pagan winter festival? My mum, the priest, is very keen on the "Put the Christ back in Christmas" idea. I agree. Christ in Christmas, fine idea. Means I, not being Christian, don't have to deal with it.

2) Winter Consumerfest Orgy Of Consumerism. I mean, YUCK! As Suzy mentioned, the crowds! The sheer fucking spending frenzy. People driving themselves into debt for this 10-minute present opening frenzy for their spoiled brats.

3) Family shit. Marcello, for all his personal attacks on me, brings up the valid point of fractured families, his fractured through death. When you see people around you celebrating their families and their togetherness, and all that crap, it DOES rub your loneliness, your alienation, your own fractured lack of family in your face. That causes a great deal of distress. Every friend going off to spend time with their family or their lover just heightens the fear of spending the day by myself in a bedsit in Islington. Every year at the last minute, one of my friends throws an "ex pats stray round-up" type party at the last minute, and these are the things that give me strength - a whole *room* full of people stranded away from their families, all hating Xmas and having a good time in the process.

I feel left out by Xmas celebrations. I just do, for all those reasons above, and more. I thought maybe there would be other people on this thread who felt the same way, I was looking to hear from *them* not people telling me that I'm wrong and it's great.

I do not understand the mass orgy of spending though, people who get crazy like that and buy things for everyone and buy LOADS AND LOADS of things and buy things for people they don't even talk to half the year cos they "should" should all be shot to death. I hate family obligations, I am trying to detach myself fully from them and just do what I want to do. It makes things much more fun and lovely.

But holidays are what you make of them. If you don't have family nearby or don't want to be with them then spend time with extended family. That's such a loose term anyway. After all Dec 25 is just a day.

There are thousands of people in my neck of the woods alone who take issue with this statement, I'm sorry to say...

As far as the Catholic Chursh is concern btw - the immaculate conception happened on December 8th. Yowsa. There's a gestation period (Apropos to nothing).

Taking stock is both a good and bad thing. For a lot of people on this board (Marcello, Kate & Tim being obviuous examples) this has been a pretty lousy year. For others its been great / ambivalent. Let's hope Saturday shows us the tolerance which we occasionally online have for each others nutsness.

Why didn't you just say that to begin with instead of trying to be arsey and trying to impress? Then you actually might have got somewhere with this thread.

OK, now that we've gone round the houses, let's discuss why your situation is like this, if you feel like doing so. Do you not feel comfortable with, for example, seeing your family, or are they too far away or estranged from you? Or are there other, maybe more profound, reasons?

Of course I'm not insisting that you talk about this - you don't HAVE to - but, you know, it would I think be more helpful than trying to project an abstract persona which doesn't convey the compassion which you clearly crave. Which is, of course, not a bad thing.

I'm also more than happy to apologise for any undue intemperance which you may have felt stemming from my previous post to you.

Right. See how much better we get on when we're being honest?

You're so keen on the idea of "false personnas" that you never stopped to think that maybe this Scenester Kate image which you and Doompatrol and Andrew Williams have all taken such issue with is perhaps a defense against *exactly* this behaviour? The moment any of us *does* drop the Personna and say something real and out of character, a pack of dogs sniff the blood and close in for the kill. Certain posters pretend to idolise artists for their "soul" and their "pain" and their "madness" but the moment any of *us* dare to reveal the same thing, it's open season.

My father lives in California with his (incredibly hostile) mistress. My mother lives in NY with my mentally ill brother, who, although he is medicated to the gills at the moment, has a history of turning any Xmas dinner or celebration into a warzone. Three grandparents are dead, the fourth is now in a nursing home in Africa because her maid (the village witch doctor) tried to poison her. I have one set of cousins in Canada, but my uncle is a blistering right wing reactionary who thinks I'm a godless lesbian communist and my aunt is an invalid.

So you will EXCUSE me if I have a little trouble getting into the Christmas spirit. I'm not welcome in any of these houses, even *if* I had the nerve to get in a plane again, which I don't.

Is that what you wanted to hear, or are you just going to continue to take the piss out of me because you object to my occupation?

I don't have a lot to celebrate right now. In the past year, I've lost my job (yes, technically I quit, but due to the recession I've not been able to replace it); I've lost my flat; I've been trapped in a hellish, abusive relationship from which I only barely escaped with (most of) my posessions; I lost a whole circle of friends due to the lies told about me by that relationship; I've been in hospital twice; I lost a baby I desperately wanted.

The *ONLY* thing I have left right now is my band, and even that is on pretty shakey ground right now. Yet if I talk about that band, which has been the only thing keeping me alive through most of this, I get dismissed as a scenester, as an indie wannabe, a hack - by sad little British indie boys too afraid of success to create their own.

This has turned into a pity party, which I never wanted it to. I don't want peoples sympathy, I don't want their fucking pity. What I wanted was some sort of friendship and community, and I've finally realised I'm never going to get it here.

But there comes a time - that few people on this forum will have experienced because most of you simply aren't old enough - when you become aware that your 'best years' are behind you, and that you have little or nothing to celebrate or bask in (and even if you do, the concept itself becomes redundant...unless you're very shallow). Then, if you have children, you take solace in trying to make them as happy as you can.

So please be good to your parents at Christmas. You probably have no idea what they're going through.

Can we stop with this "British indie boys who hate success" stuff? You're damned if you do, damned if you don't as far as I can see. If you DO like the Lollies Doomie accuses you of being a cynical British succcess-hating scenester hack. If you DON'T like the Lollies *Kate* accuses you of being a cynical British success-hating scenester hack! I mean goodness knows I am a cynical British hack but it's not nothing to do with my opinion of the Lollies (who "give good live" as the phrase goes).

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

I'll take that as a "don't come," then, DG.

But then you'll be a personnel manager in ten years' time. I'm sure of it. This is your MBA equivalent, isn't it?

You know as well as I do that I got St Claire absolutely BANG TO RIGHTS. People who infect this board with negativity and refuse to back it up when challenged deserve everything that's coming to them. And of course when muggins here turns up to point this out - whether it's anti-semitism or anything else - it's always me who is lambasted and threatened. What's the matter, can't you take the truth? And note it was only when pressed that Kate gave us the real truth - something I would be more than happy to sympathise with her about at any time, be it now or 2053.

I don't have enemies anywhere except those who choose to be my enemies and refuse to see the goodness and wisdom which actually exist within me.

Consider the Poptones thread which I started as a throwaway one-gag, 5 posts maximum-type thing. Now Doomie took it on and made it into something different, far more telling, far more profound and far more honest. He had his viewpoint but was able to provide full and concrete evidence to back it up, and he defended his views eloquently and admirably. I'd break bread with the man anytime.

And I will tell you, pal, that my mischief and scampery do more to keep these boards alive than any aesthetic Axminsters of dead, dreary debates or hello-birds-hello-sky Tomasery. OK, except for Dunedin. Any of whom I'd likewise break bread with anywhere anyplace.

Ah, DG, what's happening? We got on OK when we met back in June. That was the last good week - before all the shit started.

Am I fucking up or is the world fucking me up? Answers on a postcard please.

Think I'll take a good long break from these boards. I was planning to do that after MS' inadvertently eejit post last week but Anthony's "lonely" thread demanded a response.

Burnout Carlin, burnout.

I think I will devote the rest of my life to working out the meaning of this.

My world's fallin' apart . . .Oh and I think it's gonna rain.

Heehee, Virgin Mary is a cat! Anyhow, quite frankly I think all that particular fable proves is that Mary's husband was a damn fool. I mean, what kind of man believes her excuse for being pregnant? A damn fool, that's what.

Anyhow.

I'm sorry, but Marcello, shut up. Loads of people have had shitty years this year, not just you. I fail to see how Kate "didn't back up" her negativity. In fact, she's barely done anything at all other than say she's not happy this time of year because she feels lonely and she doesn't like the commercialism and the shoved-down-throat- religion she sees. Hypocricy and all that. I fail to see how you of all people can go balls out on someone else for being too negative when you've posted a thread threatening to commit suicide not that long ago - everyone has their right to say whatever they want to about how they feel without being kicked in the teeth over their reasons not being "good enough". If you can't be anything but rude about the subject, don't say anything at all - your behavior on this thread is completely unwarranted.

And I say that as, as everyone knows, Kate's Biggest Fan Who Has Never Fought With Her At All.

Anyways, upthread someone (god there's too much to read, apologies for forgetting who said, maybe di?) said that they didn't like it that people bought Christmas presents because they shouldn't need a special reason to do it: you're totally right, I give people things whenever I feel like it myself, and I think everyone should do it. I also think there's far too much of an emphasis on consumerism - isn't a nice card with well thought out messages or a batch of cookies or a night out on the town or something similarly personal as good or better a gift than a bloody Playstation? That's how I feel about it, personally. It's just too much an emphasis on what a person spent rather than what they thought of it. For example, my fiance can barely afford to buy me anything, he was working a VERY low paying job for a while and only just switched to a higher paying one, he's got very little money after paying his bills, but I also know that this Xmas will be far better than last where I got plenty of gifts but not one that seemed even remotely thought out or meaningful (in fact, the one that did seem "thought out" ended up having a completely spiteful and nasty reason for being bought). Lots of $$$ being spent isn't necessarily good and I'm glad more and more people are realizing it!

I hope in the end more people accept that and start giving more personal and meaningful things, and start doing things for people all the time, not just because they "should" at Xmas. With my family, the problems which I gleaned upon on the card thread, I'd rather just once that they were thoughtful and nice to me at some point during the year, or just invited me round or something, instead of dragging me out during December (a bad month at work and then pile on holiday planning...argh, stress) to buy me something cos, well, it's Xmas and I'm "family".

I used to get real depressed at Xmas, Kate, you know. And my birthday, too. I've got my mom and dad, who always did things for me, best they could at least since we dind't have much of anything, but that's it. I have an enormous, enormous extended family on both sides, I mean unreasonably large, to the point where *I* have no clue how some of them are related to me. And have no reason to know, cos none of them evne so much as send a card come holidays or birthdays most of the time. They don't call, they don't bother. They all live out in Long Island but no one really even bothers to contact me at all since I moved back to the city from school, even though they're like an hour away. I have one aunt who I talk to quite a lot, and that's basically it. Out of A HUGE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE. And I made a big effort, I'd go out there to see them and all that. And it used to really upset me that I'd not even get a call on Xmas. And then comes round 9/11 this year, and you know what? Not a goddamned one of them called me to see if I was alive or dead til days and days later. They even admitted to my mom that they didn't TRY to get thru. The only people who contacted me were that one aunt I mentioned, my mom, and my friends. Then I realized something: my friends are my family. My real family is virtually completely dead to me. I feel no obligation to ever see any of them again, with a small handful of exceptions. Cemented further by some info I got over Thanksgiving about an extremely dodgy situation...they don't exist in my head. And now I don't pretend to be happy about the holidays anymore. I actually look forward to this year.

*shrugs* It's weird, but it was always so stressful, these are people who don't care if I live or die, but would fight over where I'd go during the holidays because I "should" go see them. Ugh. Now I feel 100% better.

DG: this is nitpicking. You know the history as well as I do (and I'm talking about ALL your points).

Then again, I've decided that you're actually not a very nice person. Not that I specifically give a fuck but my "What's happened" was heartfelt. If you can't see that then I feel sorry for you and your language ("Carlin" again) merely points to the fact that I was right - in ten years' time you WILL be a professional manager in whatever capacity and talking in this fashion to any staff who might have the misfortune to serve under you. And you know that I'm right; once you've gone through the standard early-20s slacking which all of us go through (or will go through or have gone through) you'll straighten out like everyone else.

The only person on this thread I do actually give a fuck about is Kate. I was saddened to read about all the shit she had gone through, DG, but as Doomie said re. me, there's not a lot I, or anyone else, on these boards can do to help her beyond platitudes. I don't know Kate so I can't do anything else. I expect she probably never wants to know me, but if she's still reading (as I suspect she is) then my friendship, my support and my compassion are all here at your disposal. They are on unconditional offer to you. If you want them, then fine. If you don't, then that's fine too - it's entirely up to you. But they remain here, for you.

And people like Mark S and Robin and a few others know that I'm speaking the truth.

If people want to come on and feel bad and depressed, then fine. Only don't go slagging off and criticising other people/institutions/things which don't necessarily fit into your own worldview - and, what is worse, using the smokescreen of "I hate Xmas 'cos it's commercial" to hide what you REALLY think or really want to say.

I honestly believe that the best way of dealing with problems IS to get them out in the open. Otherwise they fester like - well - tumours. And I see no reason why I should apologise for attempting to extract the seed of humanity from the compost of pretence.

Thus if Kate had come on and said "I hate Xmas because my life is in a mess and here's how it's in a mess" - I never suggested this was compulsory but it would help me, as a human being, to help her, as someone who clearly needs help.

And I speak as one who is not necessarily innocent of doing any or all of the above.

That's the difference, Katie. I'm honest. I'm a human being floundering around and scared. I'm not being helped particularly but I WANT to help.

Is that too much of an offer for people to accept?

My good friend CoR finds Xmas a bind because one of her uncles and/or cousins always bops another of her uncles and/or cousins, without fail.

If we agree, we agree; and if not, then we just won't. No point dragging this out.

I apologise to anyone on these boards whom I have upset, but then I guess that just proves my oft-quoted belief that honesty isn't the best policy all of the time.

Those who can see, will see; those who shut their eyes, will be blind to all save that which they perceive as being.

And I love you all. And that's the truth.

having said that, i'd like to reiterate what Mark S said. please everyone come along on Saturday, and lets drink, eat and be merry and above all be thoughtful towards one another. we don't need a festive excuse to do that.

I don't need ANYBODY to tell me which of my reasons for liking or disliking anything are valid or invalid. You don't fucking know me. You CLEARLY don't know what or how I think. I don't need any friends who are going to pick and choose which aspects of my personality they will accept and which bits they will dismiss as "smokescreen". A true friend accepts ALL of me.

Your apologies (always accompanied by further insults) and your offers of sympathy (but only for aspects of my life *you* choose to accept) are a patronising joke.

Thank you to everyone else who has spoken in my defense on this thread. I really appreciate it, especially the people who surprised me with their support. :-)

holidays have depressed me for some years now, and i'm not sure why. and feeling the way i have for the last few weeks i can't adequately explain it either. i'm a big pile of mental and spiritual mush right now, which will probably only be exascerbated as xmas time approaches. last xmas was blighted by the loss of alex a few weeks before. this one will be better, of course, but only in a relative and appreciable sense.

that's my contribution to the thread. oh, that, and i agree with ethan. 100% now. marcello obviously needs some time away from boards and some time in therapy. WE are NOT your therapy, i'm sorry to say. laura's death has become far too easy a crutch, and far too soon. i lost someone i loved for close to eight years three weeks before last christmas. and i still - tried - not to treat my loved ones, friends, and yes even accquaintences like shit. we muddle through. just take it off board. please.

but of course, as a vile holocaust revisionist and whatnot, everything i've said above is void.

I had the first pleasant Thanksgiving in my LIFE last month -- no relatives at all, but a couple of good friends who couldn't get to their families. Doug & I made the dinner, which was PERFECT (turkey for everyone but me, plus potatoes, excellent stuffing, etc). The friends loved it. We stayed up late watching stupid videos afterwards. BEST EVER!

To all and sundry -- I'm with Sarah and Mark S, I love all you people. That may just be a platitude, Marcello -- but it's true.

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