Staff Perspective: Post-Holiday Blues – A Common “Seasonal Depression"

Staff Perspective: Post-Holiday Blues – A Common “Seasonal Depression"

Seasonal Affect Disorder. Growing up in the dim-lighted part of the Northwest, I can attest that this is a very real thing to see especially around the first months of a new year. But whenever I've heard this diagnosis or term, my mind instantly goes to a completely different type of seasonal depression - the Post-Holiday Blues. Since my time in the military, I convert everything to a three-letter acronym, so the PHBs they are and they are truly abundant. Although depression after the holidays may make sense to many within the behavioral health profession, I've always been surprised how others are mystified about why they occur. For those who are more prone to depression for whatever reason, I think the PHB's should almost be expected.

I was recently talking with a friend who is prone to depression and usually down this type of year. As we talked about the joys and disappointments of the season, I mentioned the PHBs and how it made perfect sense that she was so depressed that she didn’t want to get out of bed for the past few days. “Why?” she asked. I admit I was surprised by the question, but then had to remind myself that I viewed the world through a psychologist’s eyes. Drawing on great metaphors I’ve heard in the past, I explained:

Imagine having a foot locker at your feet. As life gets hectic, you get to shove all of the inconvenient crap you don’t have time to think about into this box and out of the way so you can focus on the circumstances that must be immediately managed – the fire burning right in front of you so to speak. When dealing with the cacophony of tasks that November and December bring, both at work and on the homefront, it makes sense that you don’t have the time and energy to deal with other issues that may be always present or just under the surface – like ongoing tension with a family member or past disappointments and unmet expectations. You have the stress of current holiday frustrations and disappointments you are trying to manage and avoid. So, when these other issues come up, you shove them in the box. You have once a year meals and events to plan, after all! People who have a lot of such issues end up tossing a lot into that foot locker, and it gets quite full. Much of what goes into that foot locker, in fact, is a good portion of the stress and anguish the current holiday is causing. Have to figure out a family seating plan for dinner? OMG, we are going to have to invite THAT person in the family! That will cause SO much stress and frustration!! I can’t deal with thinking about that, I have to get the dinner menu together, so I’ll just shove parts of that stress into this little box over here. We are amazingly good at downplaying and delaying current angst to deal with more immediate crises in our lives.

Ever tried to shut a bulging box? You have to lean on it to keep it closed, sometimes quite forcefully.

What happens, then, when you finally get the chance to finally relax after the fast-paced stress of the holidays are over? Your body relaxes and you aren’t leaning so hard on the box anymore. That’s when all of that stuff that was shoved in the foot locker comes spilling out. Front and center. Overwhelmingly so. With as much intensity as when it was shoved in the box. Demanding attention.

“Wow, that makes a lot of sense” said my friend. She had never considered this idea before, and her usual PHBs came into light. “I always thought I shouldn’t feel this way and like I was ungrateful or something.” Which leads to the problem with unnoticed PHBs – they tend to multiply with our negative self-talk wondering why they are occurring. The “should’s” and “shouldn’t’s” rear their ugly head and exponentially make our blues worse.

People would benefit from understanding this phenomenon more widely. It may even help alleviate the intensity for some people given they would be more understanding of themselves when PHBs happen. This explanation isn’t just for the holidays. It works for sudden-onset intense negative symptoms after just about any prolonged stressful situation. I first heard the foot locker metaphor in relation to post-deployment depression and onset of trauma symptoms that is common for service members to experience. All the excitement and hype of going home where they aren’t fighting to survive anymore, and once they get there they relax and all of the combat experiences that they could not afford to spend time processing comes tumbling out of their foot locker. The “why” explanation made a lot of sense to those men and women I worked with and helped them stop being so hard on themselves for having more emotional problems now that they were back home. So why not apply this to the multitude of depressed people right after the holidays? Perhaps that will help them avoid compounding their PHBs with unnecessary blame and guilt.

“Okay, so what do I do about the PHBs?” Good question, my friend! It starts with understanding and addressing any unhelpful thoughts, such as “I shouldn’t feel this way.”

After that? The options are as broad as the different reasons that the holidays may trigger distress. And that is definitely a blogged opinion for another time.

Happy Post-Holidays, everyone! Or, on second thought, “May your Post-Holiday Season be a more peaceful one!”

The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.

Debra Nofziger, Psy.D., is a Military Behavioral Health Psychologist and certified Cognitive Processing Therapy Trainer with the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Located in San Antonio, TX, she develops, maintains, and conducts virtual and in-person training related to military deployments, culture, posttraumatic stress, and other psychological and medical conditions Service members and veterans experience.