For some, the holidays become a serious test. Psychologists have explained what it depends on.
A cracker, a Christmas tree, lights, children’s parties and soulful gatherings with friends are just one part of a large social agreement called the New Year. For some people, this holiday is a milestone, it makes you think about what in their life did not work out from the word at all, and exposes those problems that on ordinary days are diligently hidden under the mask of everyday life.
Our colleagues asked experts why people break up en masse on New Year’s Eve, get depressed and take a long time out of the winter spree.
unhappy under the tree
Psychotherapist Igor Lyakh explains: it is in relation to the celebration of the New Year that there is a great social agreement with the corresponding myths and ideas. This leads to disappointment on the eve of the holidays and New Year’s Eve itself.
“The mythology of the New Year involves summing up the results of the outgoing year and discussing wishes for the year to come. Two important ideas that are hidden around the New Year’s celebration strongly influence perception and sensations.
“As you meet the New Year, so you will spend it” and “with whom you meet it, you will spend it with” — these are ancient, historically formed ideas. Both force young people in a couple or relationship to think about what they want for themselves in the year ahead. We can say that the ideas that are in the unconscious collective affect the individual consciousness,” says Igor Lyakh.
Partings and divorces on the New Year itself or before it are a natural process
People think about the quality of life they had in the past year, and sometimes they come to completely disappointing conclusions, the psychotherapist believes.
This is especially true for a situation where a person is prone to infantilism in relationships and age regression, that is, the perception of himself as a small child that is worth taking care of. It is these couples who usually take stock, come to the unfortunate conclusion that they have not been taken care of enough, and start looking for a partner who will take better care of them.
Even if there is complete order in personal life (or it simply does not exist), people get depressed before the holiday and begin to think that they need to change something.
Traditionally, the number of suicides increases during the holidays. “The New Year as a social act makes you think about many things: about who you are, how you spent this year, how you feel about yourself. Unfortunately, for some people, this really becomes a reason for going into depression.
It is customary to say that this is especially true for people with low self-esteem. But, on the other hand, it can be said in the same way that this is typical for people with excessive demands on themselves and others. They have severe emotional experiences, including those accompanied by some form of antisocial or self-damaging behavior,” the expert explains.
Sometimes we drive ourselves into an anxious and nervous state — by the desire to observe all the rituals and do everything in the outgoing year.
“Our celebration of the New Year contains a great symbolic load,” says the psychotherapist. — This burden is perceived by many people as a requirement to do something special — both in relation to themselves and in relation to other people.
A lot of procedures, from the simplest fortune-telling to all stages of preparation: put up a Christmas tree, remove the Christmas tree, receive guests — for some people it becomes too much and serious stress. In itself, the desire to leave everything bad in the past year makes you think about this bad thing. Often these thoughts turn out to be a reason for a change in mood, because of them, some people even cancel their celebrations or are so nervous that the celebration took place, but someone else celebrated, and not you yourself.
Such hyper-responsible behavior is typical for some women who are very strict about social rituals, are very afraid of being bad for someone and getting social condemnation for insufficient social activity.
This year, there will be even more people whose expectations from themselves, the past year and relationships did not come true. To get rid of this, according to the psychotherapist, there is only one way — to master the skills of consciously switching your attention and concentration to the “here and now”.
“Here and now” at the table we are full, friends have come to us, our relatives treat us well … And we turn our attention to the future, the psychotherapist explains. Any experience, including a bitter one, is some of our acquisition — a new resource that we can adequately dispose of and not repeat such mistakes next year.
“One of the most serious mistakes is to rely on a sense of grandiosity and expect everything to work out by itself. Next year we will have to do something, and then there will be a chance that our actions will lead to the fact that next year will be much better than the previous year,” the expert concludes.
Post holiday syndrome. How to recognize and what to do about it
New Year’s holidays are good for everyone, except that they end sometime. Few people manage to get out of the December-January race without losses, where everything starts with preparation and anticipation, then comes the climax and denouement, and the cycle is completed by lying at home and solemnly going to work after the holidays.
“Psychologically, a person relaxes, falls out of the usual working rhythm,” says psychologist Irina Mamaeva. “On a physical level, he feels heaviness in his stomach, weakness throughout his body. In the case of a strong violation of the daily regimen, insomnia or, conversely, increased drowsiness may occur.
The person may feel lazy and apathetic. There is another psychological cause of the syndrome: on holidays, we can forget about business, work and problems. We can afford to relax and fill this period with pleasant events.”
After the holidays, we again face the old problems and find ourselves in a series of gray everyday life.
Post-holiday syndrome can feel like irritation and anger for which there is no particular external cause. Depression, insomnia, apathy. Feelings of disappointment and resentment. Feeling the meaninglessness of life and the endless groundhog day.
According to the psychologist, a great way to defeat the blues is not only to write your wishes to Santa Claus (and therefore shift the responsibility for their fulfillment to him), but also to take the initiative into your own hands.
Become the creator of your own life: set goals for yourself at least for the next three months. So we save the brain from uncertainty. This will help keep you from falling into a pit of depression and meaninglessness. It is not necessary to immediately write a million goals for five years in advance, and then suffer from guilt because nothing has been done.
It is enough to set two or three realistic goals for the next quarter
In order not to suffer after the holidays, it is important not to have too high expectations: they thought of a prince, a house and a new car, and received a set of dishes as a gift. Dreaming is good, but you need to relate dreams to your current reality.
Irina advises: “The surest way not to be sad after the holidays is not to wait for the holidays as manna from heaven and not perceive them as the only opportunity to relax, but to fully relax every weekend. Also, small joys and surprises can be arranged for yourself and others not only once a year, but much more often.