The Holiday season is always the worst.

[Maeeve]

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are all coming up. Neighbors are putting up decorations. Seems like someone is having a party or gathering from the moment November starts. It's supposed to be family and friends and fun and fellowship. For me it's just wishing it was over already.

My father passed suddenly when I was 12. His birthday is near Christmas. My mother died from cancer on Thanksgiving morning when I was 19. It was not unexpected but I can't get through the day without missing her terribly.

I'm 38 now and I always believed that things would get better with time. But thanks to anxiety, panic, post-traumatic stress, and agoraphobia it seems like nothing ever gets better. I dread the last two months of the year. It seems as if they do nothing but serve to remind me just how alone I really am. Even though I am a wife of 17 years with a beautiful 15 year old daughter.

I've been housebound for a year so gatherings are not an option. I haven't decorated for the past 2 years and most likely will not do it this year either. The decorations just make me cry uncontrollably. Every day during the season is almost torture. I just have to take it day by day (sometimes hour by hour) and they seem to drag on forever.

Sometimes I just wish I could hibernate for 2 months and wake up when it's all done.:weep:

[theharvestmouse]

I struggle with it as well, I used to love christmas, but I hate it now, all the family get togethers, another year of being the only one single and having always been single. I'm 31 now.

[luci]

I dread the festive season also.... I have a little boy of 6 but he goes to dads on the evening of Christmas and I'm alone again. Facebook is full of those perfect little family gatherings and I feel like an alien.

[Maeeve]

I struggle with it as well, I used to love christmas, but I hate it now, all the family get togethers, another year of being the only one single and having always been single. I'm 31 now.

I've been married for 17 years. We filed for a divorce 7 years in but he begged me to call it off and I relented. The past 2 years we have basically been roommates. A marriage of pity on me and convenience for him. His whole family lives nearby and runs every holiday at one of their houses. I never feel welcome or wanted. That could just be my perception. But now it doesn't matter since I can't even get out the door.


I dread the festive season also.... I have a little boy of 6 but he goes to dads on the evening of Christmas and I'm alone again. Facebook is full of those perfect little family gatherings and I feel like an alien.

Hearing and seeing all my neighbors family and friends come and go for parties is hard. No one has any idea what it's like. I try to encourage my daughter to go with her dad to the family gatherings but at 15 she's very much got her own world going on. Either way I'm usually alone.


I hate that I can sit in a room full of nice fun loving people (or just my husband and daughter) and still feel completely alone.