Abused Offer Tips to Fight Holiday Blues

The experts tell us that depression goes up--way up--during the holiday season. Holidays are about families, and they can be a chilling reminder when our family life isn’t doing well. So let me pass on some anti-depression tips:

Bake bread. Tons of it.

Volunteer.

Visit a convalescent home.

Give someone a flower.

Don’t wait for a hug. Go hug someone.

Take a step. Somewhere, doing something, to get away from your problem.

These aren’t my gems of wisdom. They come from women I met at a recent luncheon who either live in a local domestic abuse shelter or did at one time. Most of them assured me they have lived holiday depression.

Take the young woman sitting on my right:

“My husband beat me up, really bad, on a Christmas Eve. I was so scared I just ran. Christmas Day, I walked into a shelter thinking life was just one big black hole. But no more. Now the holidays are a reminder to me that I survived.”

The pre-Thanksgiving luncheon was put on by Mimi’s Cafe in Anaheim, part of the restaurant chain’s Second Chance program for battered women. The entertainment for the day was a self-defense presentation by Annette Oullette, a karate third-degree black belt with her own studio in Huntington Beach.

I showed up thinking maybe these women could offer some insight into shaking the holiday blues. They warmed to the subject quickly.

“I’ve been under treatment for depression for five years,” said one woman. “The holidays really are the worst. You feel so all alone. But now I’ve learned you build a support network, even if it’s just two friends. And they get you through it.”

One woman was fighting double depression. Besides her abusive relationship, her son will be in a drug rehabilitation program during Christmas.

“I bake,” she offered as her way to shake such blahs. “It’s cheap, and you’re doing something you enjoy for someone else. It really works.”

That’s when many of the other women spoke up.

“Stop dwelling on your problems,” one said. “Think what you can do to help others with their problems.”

Sister Louise, director of Bethany, a second-stage living center for single women who have suffered domestic abuse, echoed that. Many people she’s counseled, from all walks, have gotten through holiday depression through volunteer work.

“Thinking of others, isn’t that what the holidays are all about?” she suggested.

Not that all of these women are beyond depression. One woman who admitted to me the holidays are still rough is going through her second 45-day stay in the Women’s Transitional Living Center. And because of two violent husbands.

“At least I came back to learn more,” she said. “That’s my message to your readers: If you are depressed, take steps to do something about it.”

Organizers of the Second Chance program saw the holidays as a good time to show these women how to empower themselves so that others can’t control them. Oullette demonstrated aggressive moves designed not only to get away from an attacker, but to leave him heaving in pain.

“Hurt him first; he’s there to hurt you,” she said.

One of the luncheon guests suggested aloud to Oullette: “If only we’d known these moves before we married the guys who put us here.”

That brought gales of laughter from everyone. And I immediately thought, now there’s pretty good advice for fighting holiday depression. Laughter. Lots of healthy laughter.