Blog #394: The Holidays and My Mental Health (Part 2)
- Jeffrey Snyder
- Dec 12, 2023
- 3 min read
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Picking from Part 1, I’ve made it clear that the 2023 holiday season will be the last I will spend in retail. However, the stress of my mental health during the holidays is also forcing me to come clean about something that I sometimes feel desperate to do, but don’t have the heart to do so.
I am of course talking about times where I got so overwhelmed that I wanted to take the easy way out also known as suicide. I will confess that there are some days where I just want to escape the drama that goes on in life and sometimes, the easiest way is the only way. During the holidays or any day of the week for that matter, neurodivergent individuals feel that suicide is the only option and while some have succeeded, others have not, leaving permanent damages to their bodies as a result.
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I would be lying if I said that there were moments that I wanted to do just that from working in retail. The overstimulation, the dealing with annoying customers and overbearing colleagues was enough to make me do the unthinkable. I’ve learned that in retail, people don’t always treat you with respect almost as if you are a robot or an animal. Same can also be said in other areas involving customer service and neurodivergent/physically different individuals often struggle to comprehend with the world around them.
That is why at this time of year, retail and customer service companies need to focus on the mental health of their employees more than bringing money through the door. This is because if you don’t take care of your employees today, you won’t have any employees tomorrow. One aspect is to not play christmas music over the loudspeakers all the time. At my current day job, its a hybrid between holiday/everyday music.
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But getting back to myself, it hasn’t just been retail that made me have those thoughts. I’ve had plenty of moments in my own family where I just wanted to escape all the drama by any means necessary using the late Robin Williams as an example. I’ve made it clear time and time again to my folks that I wanted to “what Robin Williams did” or say that “Robin Williams had the right idea.” But each time I am talked out of it. I get the point that I still have a lot of work to do on this Earth and I do…much more work to do.
In fact, recently I have thought about doing what Robin Williams did because there are times where I am left with no other alternative because the more, I try to escape the drama, the more it follows me because you get out of holiday workplace drama and then proceed into family drama. I guess that’s just what happens during the holidays and I’m just caught in the middle of it.
You might say that I am not big into drama as I have become more self-aware of myself and my actions. My dad taught me this year to stay in my own lane and sometimes, even that can be easier said than done. When I was younger, I didn’t have much self-awareness around the family members I wanted to bond with when it came to the holidays and trying to tolerate large family gatherings at my house up until I was 19 years old and then at my paternal grandparents’ house until I was 30 years old was more work than play.
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So, if you are reading the second part of this blog, you will see that now more than ever, we need to better support those neurodivergent individuals with mental health around the holidays. And it’s not just during the holidays, but all the other days of the year too!!
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Catch you all later!!
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