As much as I love the holidays, this isn’t always the happiest season. With the days shorter, the light more scarce, and the wind more harsh, most faces around me grow more closed.

I see my friends getting sad. 

This week, a very close friend of mine wrote a powerful piece on depression — Riding It Out — on Disrupting Dinner Parties. I’d strongly recommend reading it all — here’s a section of it:

“I’m scared that my depression will turn me into someone who is not worth loving.

I’m scared of who I become under its influence. Someone who binge-watches vampire TV shows, who never comes out of her room, who can’t bring herself to call her friends or go dancing or write blog posts. Depression strips away all the external markers of my personality. It strips me of my ability to do any of the activities that validate my sense of self-worth, while simultaneously filling my head with a litany of my own worthlessness.

I’m scared that I will ride it out, make it through to the other side, and look around to find that I have lost all of my friends.” Continue reading →