Once again Christmas
is upon us and the same as every year I have entered into a bipolar love hate
relationship with the festive season. Now I don’t want don’t appear frivolous
towards Bipolar disorders as I am well aware of the damage they can cause to
both sufferers and the persons close to them. But bipolar is really the only
way to express how I feel about the festive season.
I, like many
foreigners live far from home and due to circumstances it is impossible to get
to visit old friends and family. This week I put up the Christmas tree and as I
was decorating it, the only feeling I could describe was one of melancholy as I
ruminated over the past year, opportunities missed, friends and family missed.
Cultural differences also make me sad as the culturally shared concept I have
of Christmas is different to Christmas as celebrated here in Spain.
There’s nothing
like positive festive messages to get my back up and start me grumbling and
complaining about Christmas. “364 days a year of doing each other over and one
day in the year for love” or “it’s all about commercialism” are two of my
favourite cynical retorts about the Christmas period. You see I always hated Christmas
from my younger days when all the shops were closed the dealers had gone away
to visit family, it always bored me.
Like any good bipolar
disorder my swings are fast and extreme as I go from hating Christmas to loving
Christmas, from a type of extreme melancholy to an overwhelming feeling of
happiness and contentment. It is in this phase of my bipolar swings that my “attention
spotlight” will home in on, goals achieved, relations maintained and moments
shared with loved ones. I love the idea of Christmas, putting up the tree,
decorating, Christmas dinner and laughing with friends and family. Of course
this is an idealised version of Christmas that has nothing to do with reality.
My Christmas feels
real; a mixture of melancholy and wellbeing; a contradiction of over indulgence
in times of austerity, but I myself am also a contradiction and I’m happy with
that. I can love and hate at the same time, that’s OK it’s allowed. The same as
for me Christmas can represent the worst and also the best, and that’s OK too.
To all my
friends, family and patients. Merry Christmas and a Bipolar New year.
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