When the Holidays Feel Heavy: A Gentle Guide to Caring for Yourself This Season
The holiday season is often portrayed as a time of joy, connection, and celebration. But for many people, the holidays can feel heavy, lonely, and emotionally overwhelming.
This is one of the reasons I choose to work as a therapist during the holiday season. Winter is often when holiday depression, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and family stress are at their peak.
The Holidays Are Often a Time of Grief
For many people, the holidays bring grief to the surface. This can include:
Grief for loved ones who have died
Grief for estranged or unsafe family relationships
Grief for traditions that no longer exist
Grief related to disability, illness, or loss of independence
If the holidays feel painful instead of joyful, you are not doing anything wrong. Grief during the holidays is incredibly common, even if it’s rarely talked about openly.
Your feelings make sense.
Holiday Loneliness, Disability, and Ableism
For many disabled and chronically ill people, the holiday season can feel especially quiet or isolating. Some gatherings aren’t accessible or safe, and sometimes participation simply asks too much of the body or nervous system.
If you’re spending the holidays alone, not because you want to, but because it’s what’s possible right now, your experience matters. Grieving the absence of safe, accessible connection is a very human response.
You still deserve care, tenderness, and a sense of belonging, even when traditional holiday spaces don’t feel available or welcoming.
Seasonal Affective Disorder and Winter Mental Health
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a real and well-documented form of depression linked to reduced daylight. Living in regions with long, dark winters, such as the Pacific Northwest, can significantly impact mood, energy, and emotional regulation.
Feeling sad, low, or disconnected during winter does not mean you’re weak or ungrateful. It means your nervous system is responding to environmental changes.
It’s also common to feel conflicted, like your sadness isn’t “valid enough” when there is so much suffering in the world. But pain is not a competition. Global injustice does not cancel out personal suffering.
We are part of nature. Seasonal shifts affect you because you are human.
Gentle Self-Care During the Holidays
If you’re navigating holiday stress, depression, or grief, here are some gentle ways to care for yourself:
You do not need to force holiday cheer
It’s okay to opt out of traditions that feel unsafe or exhausting
Rest is productive, especially in winter
Comfort matters: warmth, soft lighting, nourishing food
Connection can be small and meaningful, one person, one session, one safe space
A Closing Reminder
If the holidays feel more like survival than celebration, you’re not alone. This season is complicated for many people, even if that isn’t always visible.
Be gentle with yourself. Winter asks us to slow down, turn inward, and tend to what’s tender. There is nothing weak about honoring that.
If you’d like support during this season, therapy can be a place where you don’t have to pretend, explain, or minimize what you’re carrying. You deserve care, especially now.
