‘Tis The Season: Authors Talk Holidays is a special seasonal feature on Pop! Goes The Reader in which some of my favourite authors help me to celebrate the spirit of the season and spread a little holiday cheer. So, pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate and snuggle in by the fireside as they answer the question: “What does the holiday season mean to you?”
About Nita Tyndall
Nita is a short Southern queer with very strong opinions about the best kind of barbecue (hint: it’s vinegar-based.) They are a 2017 Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat Fellow in YA literature. Their YA novel, Who I Was With Her, about a bisexual girl dealing with grief, will be published by HarperTeen in the fall of 2020. In addition to writing they also translate fiction and poetry from German to English. They live in North Carolina with their partner and a very fat cat.
Content Warning: Suicide and Depression
Sometimes, like George Bailey, around the holidays my will to live wavers.
I debated whether or not to write this post, or stick with the original one I’d had planned about how great the Muppet Christmas Carol is. But then my mental health took a turn for the worse and I realized I had to write this, even if just for myself.
I’ve had depression for most of my life, even if up until 2013 it wasn’t diagnosed. It’s something I’m still learning to live with, with a combination of medications and therapy. But this year, it caught me by surprise as the seasons changed. I don’t know why, but my mood always darkens the same way the days do, and always sooner than I expect. This year, because my medication changed, I found myself staring at the mouth of the abyss more often than not. This year too is the first year I’ve lived in the same space as my partner Hannah, who has more often than not borne the brunt of my mood swings.
Christmas is normally my favorite time of the year. Growing up it’s always been my favorite holiday, my favorite time to spend time with my loved ones and family and watch Christmas movies, from the silly ones (thank you Netflix for the gift of The Christmas Prince) to It’s A Wonderful Life. What’s normally a heartwarming, if sad, story took an entirely different turn for me this year as I saw more and more of myself in George Bailey.
George Bailey, who tries everything and does everything and yet nothing seems to go right. George, sacrificing what he wants to make others happy. George, stuck in a town he’s longed to get out of.
George, body tense and poised in anger when the knob of the stairwell comes off yet again in his hand. George, yelling at his wife. At his kids.
Me, yelling at Hannah. At myself.
George, standing in front of the bridge contemplating whether or not to jump. Me, huddled under the covers, contemplating staying there forever.
I know I’m not alone. Depression rates spike around the holidays, as do suicide attempts. But it’s hard not to feel alone when I’m crying at the drop of hat or calling out of my job because I cannot get out of bed. My suicidal ideation this year has been stronger than in the past. It is not active, but the thought is there, like a particularly annoying Christmas tune that I cannot get out of my head.
It’s worse because I know what’s causing it and I know there is no cure, even though I am doing everything it feels like to lessen the depression. George’s generation didn’t have words like depression but I see myself the lines of tension in his body when he pulls the knob off the stairwell, lines that mirror my own.
George cannot see how wonderful his life is, even when to an outsider it looks obvious how many people he’s helped, how much his wife and family love him. I can see the parts of my life that are good, that are worth fighting for, but they feel so far away.
This year I am trying harder than ever to find light in the darkness, in the chaos that can be my retail day job during the holidays. In coworkers who make me laugh and bring in lunch and share those we’re all in this together looks. In a partner who sticks by me no matter what my moods are. In the little SAD therapy light I have plugged in on my desk, in people who are excited about my book, in the joy of my German classes.
George ultimately does see that his life is worth living, worth sticking around for, and this year, I’m trying to, too.
I want to live again. I want to live again.
If you are feeling this way, if you are in the abyss with me, please know you are not alone.
National Suicide Prevention Line: 1-800-273-8255.
En Español: 1-888-628-9454
For the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing: 1-800-799-4899
Title Who I Was With Her
Author Nita Tyndall
Intended Target Audience Young Adult
Genre Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Publication Date September 15th 2020 by HarperTeen
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon.com ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
In which a closeted bisexual teen girl loses her secret girlfriend in a car accident, and finds herself mourning the loss of a person and relationship no one around her knew existed, and completely unable to talk about it with anyone.
