What’s the most important gift you could give this holiday season? The Greek philosopher Aristotle said that anyone who can’t or doesn’t need to partake of society “is either a beast or a god.”
Crisis workers tell us that at this time of the year, depression and suicide risk is highest. So what can we all do to reduce holiday melancholy?
I’ve never seen it in the index of disease in medical texts, but loneliness should be listed in big print. It’s an illness that sooner or later disrupts the lives of many people.
Chopin, the great pianist and composer, must have been deeply depressed. He complained in a letter of feeling “alone, alone, alone — though surrounded.”
It is indeed a hardy soul who rejects companionship during the holidays, or any time of the year.
We often make the error of believing that the rich and famous are immune to depression. But Winston Churchill, British prime minister during the Second World War, suffered from his “black dog of depression.”
Repeated thoughts of self-destruction were never far away. During the Second World War, Sir Charles Watson (later Lord Moran) was Churchill’s personal physician and constant companion. Watson later published a book, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1945-60. It was criticized by the medical establishment for divulging personal information about a patient. But Watson defended the book, arguing Churchill was a public figure and a part of history.
The book depicts how Churchill’s “black dog” was always nearby. He told Watson that he feared self-destructive urges when standing near the edge of a train platform when an express train was passing through. On another occasion, he worried about standing by a ship’s railing and looking down into the water. A sudden compulsion would end everything.
Only weeks ago, I wrote about Anthony Bourdain, the famous TV personality, wealthy, a world traveller with many friends. He ended his life by hanging.
Dante, the Italian philosopher, may have answered one of the reasons for holiday depression. He wrote: “There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.”
Although this holiday season brings laughter and celebration for many, it is also a time of isolation and desperation for others, a moment bemoaning dreams that ended in failure, or loved ones no longer sitting around the dinner table.
Is there anything that we, the fortunate ones, can do to ease this melancholy at holiday time?
For many years I have kept a prescription pad that contains several telephone numbers. It is not a list of events I have to attend over the holidays. Rather, it’s a list of patients and friends I want to call who had lost a loved one, or have encountered other emotional difficulties. These are never easy calls. But the fact that an old friend remembered them and has not simply faded away often eases their loss.
You do not need a doctor’s prescription. But it is a prescription of sorts, and the best present you can give a lonely friend: Pick up the telephone and make the call.
This is the 43rd year I’ve had the pleasure of wishing you a healthy and happy holiday season.
Online: docgiff.com. Comments: [email protected]
