Some Holiday Thoughts
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| Fri, 12-23-2005 - 12:05pm |
Ok So I was just reading Traci's post about going holiday shopping and how she couldnt stand it for very long and it got me to thinking. Yanno, I have NEVER been able to handle the malls or crowds or too many people at my house or too much change in general, dya think its a BP thing? I also think that the pressure from everyone (family, friends, tv, radio everywhere)to make Xmas a happy time of year really puts a horrible strain on all of us emotionally, not to mention we want to make it a happy time for our kids, which adds to that tremendously. Then throw in some inconsiderate family, some well meaning but hurtful friends, some ignorant salesperson, a bank teller who doesnt smile at you, any number of other things that just set off rage or depression or any other feelings we have.
Over the years I have learned to deal with it in different ways, this is actually my first Christmas season on meds, so I have developed some interesting strategies for all of this.
FIrst and foremost, ONLINE SHOPPING! Yeah you might pay a little bit more for shipping, but usually this time of year if you buy enough they offer free shipping, so the trick is to buy from some place like amazon.com or general store type place where you can get everyones gifts at once. I have had to use this many times, for many different reasons, for one I cant stand crowds so I never could shop anyways during xmas, and adding the kids screaming to that mix caused a rage that I dont even want to get into. I also cant drive, so I had to wait around for someone to drive me to the mall to do the shopping, or to drag any number of packages home on the bus and find time to wrap them and everything, and when you shop online, you leave them in the box they came in until the night before xmas and
then wrap them and stick them under the tree, or whatever other arrangement you need.
Second, this is just my way of doing it, so it might not work for some of you, but I just flat out avoid going to the grocery store during any time but early morning or very late at night, I would get my friend to come over and drop me at the grocery store at midnight on a Friday or Saturday and watch the kids while I shopped for an hour, then all my shopping was done for 2 weeks and I didnt have to deal with the crowds.
Third, avoid people who stress you out. I know that sounds retarded given the recent crap with my family, but until this year I just didnt even talk to them for most of December and rarely showed up for xmas and whatever. I even didnt show up to my own birthday party because I didnt want to deal with them(I had forgotten about it, but by the time I remembered, it was time for the party and I didnt want to make my friend drive me across town to something I really didnt want to go to anyways).
After I accepted Islam I tried to make better ties with my family because we are supposed to do that, so this year I tried to make peace and to have a good time with the family for the holiday, and look how it turned out, hell even thanksgiving, which has nothing to do with religion ended up screwed up because of my family,well partly because of them. I was physically sick to my stomach yesterday from all that crap. So just avoid it alltogether. If you dont want to do something, then dont do it, regardless of how everyone else feels. You have to live your life and they live theirs, if your not being there really matters in the long run, they will make other arrangements to spend time with you.
I was just thinking about how long its been since I was in a mall. I went on February 15th and once in September for about an hour, just to look around in the middle of the day. I know alot of you cant really go to places like that during the times that other people are at work because you work too, but in my opinion, going early in the morning before work or after the kids are in bed if you have someone at home with them, is way better than stressing yourself out about things you can work around.
Anyways, those are just some of my ideas for de-stressing the holidays(and the rest of the year too)
Rebekah

