Timely read to handle holiday depression and anxiety

I read, perhaps at the right time, Anna Cristina Tuazon’s article “Holiday blues” (Safe Space, 12/21/2023) as my 76-year-old father started showing signs of weakness, which was why these holidays were not as merry for our family. There is never a good time for anyone—especially a septuagenarian with comorbidities—to get sick. But to fall ill during the supposedly most joyous (and hectic) season of the year is the worst time.

When something unfortunate like this happens during the holidays, it can be even more emotionally burdensome, for not only are you faced with a loved one’s health problem, but you also feel the need to still keep your spirits up in unison with everyone’s seemingly requisite festive mood in celebration of Christmas. Thus, you try to push away any feeling of depression and anxiety, even though it’s normal to be depressed and anxious in such a situation. As I write, I recall specific instances over the past two weeks where I deliberately smiled more, spoke more audibly and enthusiastically, and amped up whatever cheerfulness I could muster in the presence of relatives and friends to counter the negative feelings within me.

I shared the link to the aforementioned piece with a few people with whom I swapped not-so-cheerful holiday stories these past several days, hoping that reading it would also give them a feeling of comfort and relief as it gave me. Having said that, I would like to thank Miss Tuazon for her piece which was well-written, insightful, compassionate, and empathetic, as usual. She has become one of my favorite new-generation Inquirer columnists, together with Gideon Lasco and Inez Ponce de Leon.

I’d like to thank as well Dr. Ma. Lourdes Hilario and nurse Mindainne Trixie Ablang and her fellow nurses at the Capitol Medical Center’s emergency section for attending very efficiently last Dec. 27 to my dad, whose weakness—it turns out—was caused by COVID. My mother, brothers, and I are grateful as well to family and friends who expressed concern for my dad, giving us a feeling of comfort and encouragement.

Seeing my dad regain his strength and become more responsive by the day, I fervently hope that 2024 will be a much better year on all fronts for our country and the whole world.