Bipolar Disorder and Thanksgiving Part One…………..

 

Let’s Make Thanksgiving Great This Year!

 

 

There is a commercial on the radio where I live here in Portland, Oregon that always makes me laugh. It says… ‘Beware of the holiday horrors! Buy all of your holiday presents now, the day after Thanksgiving and save yourself the stress of waiting until the last minute!”    Oh, it sounds like torture to me! When did Thanksgiving become so much about Black Friday sales? In case you didn’t know, Black Friday is a sales day after the Thursday Thanksgiving here in the United States. It’s called Black Friday because it’s a day businesses can make enough money to balance the books instead of being in the red!

 

As a person with bipolar disorder or a person who cares about someone with the illness, there’s a good chance you have had some difficult holidays in the past.

Thanksgiving is a family holiday based around a traditional dinner held in honor of the dinner served between the people who ‘founded’ the US and the people who found the country way before any British showed up- the Native Americans. The food usually includes the following: Turkey, stuffing or dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, pies such as pecan or pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. Many families have a Thanksgiving dish they remember growing up. For me, it was my grandmother’s homemade corn bread dressing.  I had many wonderful Thanksgiving holidays while growing up – mostly in Alabama.

As I got older, the holidays became a fun time with friends.

And then…. they just became too much.

Is it the same for you? Maybe you don’t want to cook, don’t have the $200 to spend on a dinner for eight. It might be you don’t like your family! And finally, the hardest is when you don’t have anywhere to go. It doesn’t mean you don’t have friends- it might just happen they are all with their families and yours is out of town.

It may be that your family is here, but the atmosphere is stressful. I’ve seen a few snarky faces at Thanksgiving. It’s hard to have to be happy and united for a day.

It’s a lot of pressure.

Start thinking now of what you want your Thanksgiving to be like this year. You get to decide.

Julie

PS:  Thanksgiving can be wonderful, but it’s usually challenging when bipolar disorder is an unwanted guest.   That’s why we have to plan ahead!

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