Holiday Blues, Oohs, and Bad News

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

As usual, there is much media attention of how to cope with the winter holidays and New Year in America. Here are some of the typical psychological challenges:

• Not feeling part of the holidays, whether from social isolation or the loneliness epidemic, and perhaps having religious, spiritual, agnostic, or atheist beliefs outside of Christian Christmas and Jewish Hanukah.
• Having a significant 2024 year of the blues, of losses or triggers that you are still grieving and need to grieve to avoid falling into the new diagnostic category of prolonged grief.
• Seasonal affective disorders in Northern areas with decreased sunshine.
• Anxiety about the upcoming New Year for one reason or another.

Interestingly, this expected psychological stress exists within America’s sentimental and traditional holiday songs.

For me personally, December 23rd is an important anniversary date, the 3rd anniversary of the birth of Pacey, my Pacemaker, which both provides me some security amidst uncertainly. I rub it as a token of appreciation.

However, this year may be particularly striking because of some unusual “oohs.” “Ooh” can be defined as an exclamation of a range of emotions, including surprise, delight, and pain, all of which can be separate or mixed.

One such “ooh” is designating December 25th as Chrismukkah, which is a combination of Christmas and Hanukah because it is also the first night of the Jewish 8 days of Hanukkah. Some like the unusual confluence, unusual because Hanukkah comes and goes according to the Lunar calendar. There are some common roots of the 2 religions, conveyed at times in what are called the Judeo-Christian values in the United States. The 2 holidays origins are in miracles, winning what appeared to be an unwinnable war against the oppressive Greeks, followed by lit oil lasting 8 days instead of 1, and the birth of Jesus. However, this celebratory day of some combined religious concerns leaves out others during this time of so many global external and internal Civil Wars.

In my mind, the poster person for the confluence is singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, born with the name Robert Zimmerman. No wonder that Chrismukkah is the release date of the movie about him titled “A Complete Unknown.” Part of what is unknown about him are what are his current religious beliefs, if any. Born Jewish, he later was baptized after a reported mystical experience with Jesus, came back to a more Orthodox Chabad Judaism, and flirted with Buddhism and other religious beliefs.

Second in the unusualness is that we are in a liminal time which is conducive to the “oohs.”Liminal space and time refer to a transition of uncertainty. Here that would be the time between Election Day to Inauguration Day, January 20th.

Certainly, there is the “oohs” of delight for the supporters of President re-elected Trump, promising major changes. The other side is trying to recover from the traumatic loss and move on.

However, there is much painful “oohs” in the recent news, too. Most striking are the shootings covered in the media, starting with the murder of the health care executive in broad daylight. Yesterday, there was a homicide/suicide shooting in a Madison, Wisconsin Christian school, with the now terribly ironic name of Abundant Life, where a student and teacher were killed and the female student shooter shot herself. Motive is being explored. Yes, it was a rarer female perpetrator, as there was about a week ago in a Christian school shooting in Orville, California, and last year in Nashville. Are these rarities just by chance or the beginning of a meaningful trend needing to be analyzed? A new record of 83 school shootings for 2024 so far this year was also set yesterday.

As usual, there is Kwanza from Christmas to New Year. The celebrated traditional African values may provide some solace and guidance for us all.

We in psychiatry are ethically bound to try to address the gun violence and safety concerns, as well as the traumatic aftereffects. For all, it is important to fall back on realistic tried and true positive personal and interpersonal ways of handling undue stress during the holidays.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.