This time of year is usually extra difficult for me. The days are shorter and the weather is often dreary, which triggers my seasonal depression. Also, visual and auditory stimuli become more intense as it’s the holiday season. Even though holiday decorations and Christmas lights can be beautiful and special, it is a lot to process and can become overwhelming.
And then there’s the missing loved ones, whom we miss all year long but even more this time of year. During this time when gathering with family and loved ones is often extra important, their loss also becomes more prevalent. For me, it’s the absence of my grandmothers, Oma Doortje and Oma Tina; my grandfathers, Opa Gerrit and Opa Frans; my uncle, Oom Frans; and my great-uncle, Oom Jan. I’ve never gotten the chance to meet Opa Frans and Oom Frans, as they had sadly passed away before I was born. However, that doesn’t make me miss them any less, quite the opposite, it sometimes feels like that makes me miss them even more.
And then of course there’s Loki and Princess, who are dearly missed as well. This will be the first time in 8 years that I have to go through the holiday season without Loki. I actually dread having to do this without her, without my rock and best friend. On top of missing her greatly, it’s also a massive change. Instead of having my Loki with me, I now have my first holidays with Gomez and Malou. I love them a lot as well, but it’s just so difficult to deal with. And this isn’t the only big change from last year.
I’ve moved to another organization, which was a positive yet huge change for me. It also means that I’ll spend the holidays amongst a new group of people, whom I am still getting to know. And for the first time in 6 years, I’m not celebrating with my work friends and the animals from my previous job. I still miss them all very much and wish we could all still be together.
A few weeks ago, I started with a group resilience training, to improve my skills for setting, feeling, and protecting my boundaries. We also hope that it will help me get past the incident where my neighbor assaulted me. We still live in the same building, but in January I’m moving to an apartment down the street. I’ll still be with the same organization and within the same group. It’s been a difficult few months and the training has brought my anxiety back. I was told this is quite normal, because I’m working on what happened and on making myself stronger. It’s normal for all these feelings and flashbacks to become more profound again, but it should also be a temporary setback.
All these changes cause this year’s holiday season to be even more difficult than usual. Due to my autism, change is often very difficult to deal with and to process. Even the seemingly unimportant change my parents made, from a real Christmas tree to an artificial one, is a difficult one for me. I prefer predictability and structure, like the majority of autistics. Yet, this year, a lot has changed in my life. It’s been a lot, even when changed were positive. During this period, the end on the year, they all come flooding back. This is often a time of reflection, causing me to feel all that has changed more profoundly. Where the changes were hard when they occurred over the year, I now feel them all together as I reflect on it all. I’m not necessarily doing this on purpose, it just happens. Nevertheless, like every year, I am going to try my hardest to enjoy the holidays with my family.
My apologies for the comment section down below being in Dutch. This can, unfortunately, not be altered to English.
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