Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

A long time ago, when I was in my late teens, I decided that I wasn't going to celebrate Christmas anymore. The pressure to have that perfect day, with perfect gifts, and perfect company, and perfect food, - despite everything else that may be going on in life, was just too much to bear. It was just too depressing when it didn't happen like that, when people rowed, or cried, when there was no money, when you were sick, when friends didn't behave like friends, when people were nasty despite that season of goodwill, when the presents were unwanted, or unrecipricated. I mean, it's just a day isnt it? The world doesn't stop. Depression doesn't stop, or anorexia, or anxiety, or any other type of illness - it doesn't say - "oh look it's Christmas so now I'm all okay again just for a few days and then I'll go back to being shit"

And so, it was just a disappointment, and then you feel worse - because everyone else is having that great time with their jingle bells and their merry gentlemen and their mince pies with 6000 calories of cream on top and their families which aren't broken, listening to Wham and Mariah Carey and not Radiohead and Marilyn Manson.

And this was a decade before Facebook became a household name.........

And so I stopped.

I stopped celebrating it. I stopped doing the things you're supposed to do and I just did what I wanted. Luckily I have ex hippie parents who are kind of anti commercialism and so on, so this wasn't a problem for them. In fact, they have always been kind of happy about it.

So now, I quite like Christmas, I like MY Christmas. I can do the things I like, and want, and that are meaningful to me and I don't give a fuck if it isn't what everyone else is doing.

Funnily enough, half the time I seem to have a better time than the people who are actually celebrating it for real.......