Christmas Holiday and Mental Illness/Asperger’s
Christmas time can be especially difficult for those suffering mental illness, because the struggles don’t take a break for Christmas. I try to navigate a maze with an overwhelming stimulation of sight and sound. My structure is dismantled because of shopping, gathering and socializing. Longing for a more simplistic Christmas without the pressures of selecting the perfect gifts or creating that amazing meal. This outward pressure of the commercialization of Christmas is overwhelming for anyone but especially exhausting for those with mental illness.
Longing for the simpler meaning of Christmas causes me to want to hibernate into the new year. I want to avoid all things Christmas. Feelings of guilt and shame fill my mind because as a Christian - I should want to celebrate the birth of my savior, Jesus Christ. New Year’s Eve is out of the question: by then I’m too exhausted to think. Instead I have a simple evening and go to bed. No watching the ball drop or gathering with family or friends.
Christmas and New Year’s Eve can be a frightening time for me. Christmas morning is difficult, because others may see me as ungrateful. It is hard for me to regulate and express my emotions. I never get extremely excited, but thankfulness is important to me. Emotions are like an uncharted labyrinth and I don’t have a compass. New Year’s Eve is more like any other day. You would never find me at party, but at home watching a movie after a special meal than early to bed. It may be boring, but it is my normal.
Celebrations like New Year’s Eve put me in a surreal and frightening alien world in which I have no way of navigating or relating too. I am not equipped to function in this social festivities. As a student, I only went to one high school party and it was a strange maze I didn’t understand. In college, I never was invited to parties, but it didn’t brother me. I didn’t miss out. For me social parties are meaningless, endless small talk which is a foreign language to me. In graduate school, I did go to many artist talk/dinner parties. Those gathers had meaning and no small talk, but I still seemed out of place with my peers.
I start to dread the lead up to Thanksgiving, because I am not a big turkey person. I really wished the pilgrims killed a wild pig and then my family would have ham. We are third generation German American; our family wasn’t here, and Germans love the pig. Then there is Black Friday: I dread my sister warning to shop in the wee hours of the morning. Shopping with her is interesting, one – I am not too keen on large crowds, and two – she shops like someone with ADD. The large crowd creates a claustrophobic panic where I am trapped within a mass of people grappling for that prefect gift at 4 am. Chaos is all round me. Is this the meaning of Christmas? Hanging outside some big box store on the slim chance of getting a great deal on materialistic junk that within two years will be replaced? Christmas should be about God’s prefect gift of Jesus; and gathering and making memories.
My dream Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve celebration is to send out Christmas cards, have small dinner gatherings with family and friends, make special gifts for friends and family, serve others, and worship the birth of my Savior with the church family at McLean Bible Church. I push past the over-commercialization of Christmas to get back to what Christmas is about – the quietness of that night 2,000 years ago when love came down and walked among us and ultimately saved those that accepted His free gift to reset our relationship with His father. Focusing on this amazing grace gives me peace during this crazy surreal frightening time for me.
I want to invite anyone who has not accepted this overwhelm special gift from our God through His Son’s death and resurrection to accept that gift now. If you want to learning more about this special gift, please email/call me. I love to share this good news of the Gospel with you. The Gospel can turn hopelessness into hope, because hope was born on Christmas when Jesus came down to repair our relationship with His Father, so we can have everlasting life without tears and hurt.
Important questions for those afflicted:
Do you find yourself that the most wonderful time of the year is more of a nuisance than sincere? More chore than festivities? More commercial than fellowship?
Important points for friends and family:
1. Don’t call their mood out, especially within a group.
2. Don’t use statements with have you tried/you should try.
3. Don’t ignore them completely.
4. Don’t critique them, even in a humorous way.
5. Don’t act as if they’re ungrateful or selfish.
6. Don’t stay silent. Speak up for them if someone is being rude.
7. Don’t take it too personally.
Jesus always had compassion for those around Him, and as Christian we are to immediate Him.
He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
– Isaiah 40:11