Grasping Hope
Silver Member
Hello fellow travellers. I decided to sign up looking for some support. I won't tell much of my story just now. It's long, complicated, and quite bizzarre, and honestly if I were to go into much detail I would be immediately recognizeable, so I choose discretion.
What's in focus for me right now is the severe depression I experience every year at Christmas. It's getting worse year by year. There is no other thread that quite addresses this.
It feels like a black pit that drags me down starting a few days before Christmas and going into January. It's almost a physical thing. Every December I try my best to stave it off as long as possible, but it catches me eventually. It's terrifying being here. I feel physically sick, terribly alone, with an intense sense of doom and danger that I can't get away from. The 25th is the worst.
I can't stop crying. I want very, very much to die; this is year round, not only now, but it gets especially bad at Christmas. While I don't plan on acting on that wish, it's still very, very intense. Honestly most people would have acted on it long before now.
Christmas used to be important to me. Back when I had an extended family, I was the main one making it all happen. Now I no longer have that, and none of my friends are into celebrating, or else they have other plans. When I venture to tell anyone just a little of how hard this time of year is, I get one of two reactions: "oh, I know what you mean, so many commitments" or "oh, I know what you mean, all the commercialism." For me it's neither of those. It's the focus on what I desperately wish I had, the common assumption that everyone has it, the blindness to anyone who is hurting and left out. It's the whole world taking a break from routine, when routine is a big part of what keeps me going. I don't have a therapist, but when I did, that's when they are on vacation. Everything is closed, so I can't so much as go out for coffee or to the library for distraction. People I follow online are similarly gone. I've tried to find places to go, to get away from all the reminders, but for one reason and another none of my ideas have worked out.
There may be more that I don't remember. I'm an SRA survivor, as far as I've remembered for the first 12 years of my life. I don't remember any Christmas rituals, but I'm sure they happened. I do remember what seems like the leadup to one. Going out to the woods with my family in a rented car to cut down a Christmas tree, then on the way home stopping on the highway because another car was stopped blocking our path crosswise. Being rushed with my mother and sister out of one car into the other, my dad still driving the rental. Then being rushed from a street down into a tunnel, which comes up in many of my trauma and programming memories. But not what happened after that. Satanic cults sacrifice babies at Christmas, sometimes from young women they induce to give birth at that time. I remember other ritual dates, other sacrifices, but not Christmas. But I can't see how it would not have happened, in 12 years in the cult. So it's likely that some of the sense of the black pit, terror and doom has to do with that, but it's in my body, not conscious.
I have a few friends I can talk to a little, but no one really gets it, and they all have their own lives. I don't want to overwhelm them and drive them away, either. While I'm grateful to have even that, I still feel very, very alone, anguished, and frightened. I already know what would happen if I went to the hospital: not very much at all. Unless I were to actually tell them "I'm going to kill myself if you let me go home" (which I don't intend to do) they keep you a few hours and send you home, saying "follow up in the community." I do have medication, but it's not enough when it gets this bad. So I grit my teeth and try to bear it, even though I was up half the night writhing in anguish and praying to die.
I just wanted to reach out to people who might understand this even somewhat. Sometimes just a little validation helps me shift, if only temporarily. Thank you for listening.
What's in focus for me right now is the severe depression I experience every year at Christmas. It's getting worse year by year. There is no other thread that quite addresses this.
It feels like a black pit that drags me down starting a few days before Christmas and going into January. It's almost a physical thing. Every December I try my best to stave it off as long as possible, but it catches me eventually. It's terrifying being here. I feel physically sick, terribly alone, with an intense sense of doom and danger that I can't get away from. The 25th is the worst.
I can't stop crying. I want very, very much to die; this is year round, not only now, but it gets especially bad at Christmas. While I don't plan on acting on that wish, it's still very, very intense. Honestly most people would have acted on it long before now.
Christmas used to be important to me. Back when I had an extended family, I was the main one making it all happen. Now I no longer have that, and none of my friends are into celebrating, or else they have other plans. When I venture to tell anyone just a little of how hard this time of year is, I get one of two reactions: "oh, I know what you mean, so many commitments" or "oh, I know what you mean, all the commercialism." For me it's neither of those. It's the focus on what I desperately wish I had, the common assumption that everyone has it, the blindness to anyone who is hurting and left out. It's the whole world taking a break from routine, when routine is a big part of what keeps me going. I don't have a therapist, but when I did, that's when they are on vacation. Everything is closed, so I can't so much as go out for coffee or to the library for distraction. People I follow online are similarly gone. I've tried to find places to go, to get away from all the reminders, but for one reason and another none of my ideas have worked out.
There may be more that I don't remember. I'm an SRA survivor, as far as I've remembered for the first 12 years of my life. I don't remember any Christmas rituals, but I'm sure they happened. I do remember what seems like the leadup to one. Going out to the woods with my family in a rented car to cut down a Christmas tree, then on the way home stopping on the highway because another car was stopped blocking our path crosswise. Being rushed with my mother and sister out of one car into the other, my dad still driving the rental. Then being rushed from a street down into a tunnel, which comes up in many of my trauma and programming memories. But not what happened after that. Satanic cults sacrifice babies at Christmas, sometimes from young women they induce to give birth at that time. I remember other ritual dates, other sacrifices, but not Christmas. But I can't see how it would not have happened, in 12 years in the cult. So it's likely that some of the sense of the black pit, terror and doom has to do with that, but it's in my body, not conscious.
I have a few friends I can talk to a little, but no one really gets it, and they all have their own lives. I don't want to overwhelm them and drive them away, either. While I'm grateful to have even that, I still feel very, very alone, anguished, and frightened. I already know what would happen if I went to the hospital: not very much at all. Unless I were to actually tell them "I'm going to kill myself if you let me go home" (which I don't intend to do) they keep you a few hours and send you home, saying "follow up in the community." I do have medication, but it's not enough when it gets this bad. So I grit my teeth and try to bear it, even though I was up half the night writhing in anguish and praying to die.
I just wanted to reach out to people who might understand this even somewhat. Sometimes just a little validation helps me shift, if only temporarily. Thank you for listening.
