Thoughts About Thanksgiving

Content Warning: eating disorders, depression

I think I was 12 when I first weighted myself after Thanksgiving dinner to check that I didn't gain any weight. In hindsight, it would’ve been difficult for me to even do so considering I played around with the minimal food I had on my plate and focused only on my thoughts of self-hatred toward my body. Every Thanksgiving since then has been a battle of trying to enjoy myself while ignoring the little voice in the back of my head saying I don’t deserve to.

Family has always been important to me, my parents and I have a strong relationship and they instilled in me the value that family has — which is probably why I always feel guilty for not associating the holidays with many happy memories. It’s not their fault or anyone else’s, because I have had good holidays and I want to focus on those good parts but all I can think about is feeling depressed and isolated in a room of my loved ones. Instead of being present and soaking in the moment, I’ve been worlds away thinking about why I’m not happy and why I can’t just think “normally” for one stupid little day.

It feels silly to put so much pressure on a season, on a time of year, but it’s hard not to when every where you turn are ads and messages focusing on “cheer” and “love” and “thankfulness.” I want to be those things. I want to feel those things without the voice in my head fighting against it.

I’ve been going to therapy since I was about 11 years old and now have been taking medication for bipolar for about two years and I think just in this last summer I started to truly feel the improvement from the work. Maybe I started being more honest with myself and more receptive to the idea that nothing was ever going to magically fix itself, but I can see the distance from where I started and where I am now, and as the weather gets cooler — as much as Arizona will allow — I feel better prepared for this round of holidays and what they’ve always meant to me.

It’s so easy to get caught up in how you’re “supposed” to feel and how you “should’ feel, but the reality is that forcing yourself to feel one way or the other only heightens your stress and creates negative experiences. Allowing yourself to be aware of what is happening in your mind and your body and letting yourself do what you need to do is crucial. It’s much easier said than done, to not put on an exaggerated facade of happiness in order to fit the cookie cutter mold of what the holidays are all about, but in the end it saves you energy to focus on growing and moving forward — or even just staying in the same place because any baby step of progress is enough.

I still look at Thanksgiving like a battlefield in my mind and I don’t know if that will ever go away, but what I do know is that this year I’m going to talk to my therapist more beforehand and try to listen to what my body needs over what my mind wants it to do.

There are a lot of people who feel the same or similar when the leaves change — or the temperature highs dip below 90 degrees — and feel hopeless. But I want to emphasize that it’s okay to feel that way, there’s no need for guilt or punishment for those feelings and there are plenty of resources that can help to start or continue the journey toward feeling a little better around this time.

Morgan Kubasko for Mental Health America of Arizona