7 Sinful Ways To ‘Sleigh’ The Holigays When You’re Sad AF

Drink champagne in bed, alone.

I have a confession to make: I’ve been a depressed lesbian as of late.

Why do you have to add the word “lesbian” to everything, you asshole? Can’t you just be a depressed person? I can feel you internally bark through the cold static-y glow of my laptop screen.

I suppose I could just be a “depressed person” but the lez detail is extremely important. (Also it’s my article and I’ll call myself whatever the hell I please, h-o-n-e-y!).

Did you know that our precious LGBTQ community is three times more likely to suffer from a mental health condition, such as anxiety, depression and substance abuse, than our heterosexual counterparts? Did you also know that “Holiday Depression Syndrome” is a very real thing that LGBTQ people are more likely to experience than our heterosexual counterparts?

So yes, the lez detail does indeed matter. I digress.

I’ve been receiving a surplus of messages from readers this past week, telling me that they’re sad this holiday season, and they just don’t know what to do. Oh, sweet kittens, I get it.

Anytime there is so much vehement pressure to feel HAPPY and SPARKLY and OH SO IN LOVE!, sad queers will naturally be prone to feeling unusually crazy/mentally unstable. Overwhelming feelings of loneliness, isolation, self-loathing, and, most pressingly, guilt are at an all-time high right now. Because if you’re not exactly feeling like your insides are teeming with jingle bells, you’re an ungrateful asshole, right?

The holidays have a very special way of shining a giant, Mariah Carey sized spotlight on your depression.

‘Tis the season of #blessed hashtags and Santa-hat-adorned selfies and all the rest of that wellness porn that taunts us tortured souls.

A few years ago I decided I was going to stop feeling bad about the fact that my mental illness isn’t magically cured by strung lights and Christmas carols, and instead do the holidays my own way.

I chose to have a very Misandry Christmas and a very Hollow Channukah (I’m both Jewish and Christian, a rare religious hybrid that can be found nesting in one of the few liberal suburbs of Manhattan). I decided that instead of celebrating the holidays, I would celebrate the holigays.

 

I decided that instead of fighting the darkness, I would embrace the darkness. I would indulge in the darkness. I would f*ck the darkness the way one f*cks an ex-lover they still secretly love.

Because, listen up, my sad baby girls and bois: We all know that trying to fight the demon of depression only makes that demon angrier and meaner and bigger. On the contrary, cuddling up next to demon, giving it a sweet peck on its demon cheek, makes the demon kinder. Makes it less scary and more manageable.

So here is my sad girl’s guide to “sleighing” Christmas when you’re a depressed as f*ck lesbian. If you’re a non-lesbian reading this who happens to be depressed as f*ck, keep reading, sweet kitten. Welcome to the dark side. Purr. We’ll get through this together. All of us. As a United Force of Depression sleighing our way through December.

1. Buy an extremely expensive bottle of Champagne and sip that bougie bottle by yourself, with a pink straw.

 

Nothing says “I’m indulging in my depression” like guzzling back a bottle of Veuve Cliquot alone in your underwear whilst snapping a selfie and uploading that bad boy onto Instagram. Extra points if you add a super bitchy caption, like oh, I don’t know, “Screw you and your holiday cheer bitch”?

Tripple points if you have the gall to upload that fab picture when your office holiday party is happening, that you definitely RSVP’d but definitely aren’t going to. Come on! Give Peggy and Suzie from HR something to gossip about by the water cooler tomorrow morning.

2. Buy yourself a chic pair of designer pajamas

When I’m depressed (which is often), one of the few cheap highs I’m still able to get off on is the retail high. In short; I like to spend my money recklessly. And it’s a particularly gorgeous act of self-love to spend your hard-earned cash on beautiful, designer pajamas because only you (and your social media feed) are going to be the ones who will ever see them. Like screw buying that $450 Marc Jacobs smock dress for a stupid Holiday party you’ll probably have too much social anxiety to attend anyway? If you’re feeling sad and anxious this holigay season, lez get real: you’re going to be home. A lot. Might as well look and feel chic, right?

So, instead of buying something for your ungrateful, bitchy cousin Lisa, buy yourself something completely unnecessary that no one will ever compliment you on, except for your cat. And really, your cat’s opinion of you is the only opinion that matters.

Extra points if you buy the Beverly Hills Hotel wallpaper pajamas. Chic AF.

3. Buy yourself extra therapy sessions and sob your heart out to your therapist.

As a holigay gift to yourself, see your therapist three times per week the entire month of December, instead of just once. Really use those sessions too, girl.

Talk about all the women who have stomped on your heart throughout the years. Sob about your dysfunctional childhood. Throw your quilted Chanel purse across the room as you rail against the spray-tanned reality star we call “president.” Take your antidepressants out of your handbag and shake them in front of your shrink’s calm face and scream “I’M SICK OF BEING A SLAVE TO BIG PHARMA.” Laugh like a maniac. Weep like you’re in the throes of an unmedicated depressive episode. Let it all hang out on your therapist’s couch. Feel all the feelings you’ve been repressing from the fabulous safety of a professional’s office.

4. Call up that friend or relative who really pisses you off and tell them exactly how you feel.

They say during the holiday season we should tell everyone “how much we love them.” And that’s fine and nice and will definitely make you feel sweet and ass-kissy, but it doesn’t work when you’re celebrating the holigays, honey.

 

During the holigay season, I deem it mandatory to call up that one friend who really screwed you over in seventh grade, and tell her how much damage she has done to your life, thus far. Call your bigoted Aunt and tell her she’s a racist bitch. Call your tenth-grade theatre teacher who never cast you in any of his stupid plays and tell him that he’s a dumb, balding, self-important asshole.

It’s life-affirming for you, and life-enhancing for them. Now they have a compelling story to tell at their basic bitch Christmas brunch.

5. Eat all the carbs, drink all the booze, devour all the cheese.

The best part of the holigay season; the food, the booze, and the cheese, galore.

I want you to devour all of it. The only rule is this: you’re forbidden from feeling guilty.

6. Own yourself. All of yourself.

 

You’re sad because it’s a strange time of year. It’s been a haphazard year. It’s been a heartbreakingly awful year. If that doesn’t make you feel sad, then you’re dead inside, and that’s no fun for anyone.

So own the sadness. Own the depression. Tell anyone and everyone who will listen all about your sadness and don’t ever exhibit a shred of shame or embarrassment for feeling the way that you feel.

In fact, once you express the sadness and get it out of your system, it won’t be so all-consuming. And in your own, twisted, unique way, you will enjoy the holigay season. I swear to Lana Del Rey.

7. Message me.

If you’re still feeling like you just want to pull the sheets over your head and hide in a mascara-tear-stained cacoon of darkness for the rest of December, that includes no Champagne and no mouth-watering carbohydrates, I want you to close your gorgeous eyes. Imagine me sitting on the edge of your bed. I’m wearing a slutty Santa onesie like Mariah Carey did on the cover of her 1994 Christmas album, creatively titled, “Merry Christmas.”

Only instead of red, my Santa onesie will be black to express my solidarity with you and your depression. I have a bottle of Veuve Cliquot tucked into my armpit and I’m bitchily filing my nails.

“Doesn’t the black slutty Santa outfit look more chic than the tacky red one?” I ask you as I bat my faux-mink lashes. My voice is sweet like honey.

You smile and decide it does look more chic, and that maybe you can find the chicness that lurks within the sadness. You grab the bottle of Veuve Cliquot from right out of my arms. I like your style. I look at you approvingly. We guzzle back the bottle together and tell tales of our sadness. You feel much better afterwards. You feel ready to indulge in a very Misandry Christmas and a very Hollow Hanukkah with me.

And if you can’t conjure up the vision of me as your dark angel in my gloomy-chic armour, message me! I’m always here for my tortured kittens.

Happy Holigays! Take your meds! Stay chic! Don’t apologize for your depression! I love you!


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