I'm afraid I've become what I never wanted to be

[Siwsan]

1. I suffer from really harsh holiday depression. It's particularly bad this year

While I've never been a big holiday person, I used to put up a tree and lights in all of the windows. I don't do that now because of my fur babies but I don't miss any of it.

Things just went down hill starting in 2013 when I went through a week long power outage during Christmas week and suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. By the next holiday season my mom was deep in to Alzheimer's and my sister's cancer was destroying her. On January 1, 2015, my 98 year old aunt fell and broke her hip so I had to leave my sister's bedside to handle that situation. Eight days later my sister died. Three weeks after that I lost my mom. That was the end of my ability to enjoy any aspect of the holidays. I end up in tears, more days than not. Today is one of those teary days.

I really don't want to participate in any gatherings, from Thanksgiving through New Years, but do out of courtesy for my family.
My house is the most convenient so I clean, cook, prepare, set the table, dish out the food and clean up, afterwards. Everyone has a great time. I try to keep my disposition appropriate but it's exhausting. When out of town family comes to town, they stay with me so I don't even get that alone time to decompress.

I don't do gifts. I figure all of the work I do and the food and drinks I buy are gifts enough. Don't get me wrong, my family contributes, too, but the majority of the work falls on me.

So I get it, my friend.