No.

Of course not. I'm a millennial on anti-depressants, working a zero-hours contract job with no hope of ever owning property in my lifetime, living in a developed country with solved problems but a populace too spiteful to ever implement the solutions.

Nope, not ok.

Doctors told me I have autism a year ago, I told my family, they thought I was delusional and insane and tried to force me into a mental asylum in the middle of nowhere.

Got all my stuff, put it in my car... got mugged, car got stolen, spent a year homeless. Credit ruined, everything I have ever owned is gone, and the best part was all the rest of my friends and family either didnt believe me when I told them what was happening to me, thought I was insane... or were too busy to handle all my drama right now.

At least I can write on lemmy I guess.

I must be one of the few people on this platform who is genuinely okay and doing all right.

Yes and no.

Like, am I stressed as fuck? Yes. Am I fed and housed also yes.

Honestly, not really. I experienced something traumatic on Christmas eve of 2017 and have never completely recovered. I'll probably never get back to where I was before that.

It really used to be my favorite day of the year but now it's just raw and awful and I have to keep up appearances so I'm not a miserable person to be around. I really don't want to be that way, I'm generally a pretty easygoing, easy to get along with kinda guy so I hate the shift that I make.

I'm actually doing really well (but I'm getting some survivor's guilt from that)

Sadly not. I still have no friends, and no one to talk to. I recently escaped from being literal forced labor for a gang, and am now trying to put life back together without telling my family.

My family are all very catholic, and they'd want my head on a stick if they knew I was stuck working for a gang, despite it being against my will.

Christmas is gonna be hard, because I'll have to resist the urge to let out those emotions, as they're the only people I talk to. Still looking for a good friend :(

Just got the news last week that my dad, who was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer in October, might have 5-7 months left. Plus my mom is slowly dying from COPD. I’m trying to stay positive and spend what might be the last Christmas we get with them. But to say I’m not feeling the happy new year vibes is an understatement. Only death and more depression coming in 2024.

I'm not OK. I'm not super un-OK, but this time of year puts me in a dark mood.

I promise I'm not trying to be edgy in saying this, but I fucking HATE the holidays. Everybody puts so much pressure on things being a certain way, especially because it's a religious holiday. I'm atheist, my mom is catholic, my dad is Jewish but agnostic, and my husband's family is some sort of Protestant. I wish I could treat it like a secular holiday, but my mom wants me to go to mass with her, my MIL wants us all to sing carols (fucking why, life isn't a Hallmark movie!), and a polite "no thanks" doesn't cut it, so no matter what I do I'm disappointing someone. I've gotta negotiate with both sides as to whose house we're visiting on each day, and I just don't know.... Every year the stress just gets to me, I can't wait for the holidays to be over. I count down the days until the 26th. The cold weather and lack of sun don't help either.

Also. I just turned 42 this week. Every birthday I've ever had has been xmas-flavored - I can't escape it even for one day. I have a labral tear and femoroacetabular impingement in my right hip which need to be fixed surgically and have been making it really hard to squat and deadlift. And despite being diligent with sun protection, my dermatologist removed yet another mole - this one came back as "moderately precancerous" and they need to do a larger excision. She also suggested I get laser treatments to remove a few age spots on my face. I feel like I'm too young for any of this shit.

I just want a pause button.

My girlfriend of 2 years broke up with me on Sunday, she’s the love of my life (have known each other far longer than 2 years). We have a child together, I don’t know what to do about it.

I’m trying to talk to her and discuss how we can work through it, I don’t know if it’s going to work.

Keep your fingers crossed for me I guess?

I also haven’t eaten or slept properly since, I’m starving but I can’t actually put food in my mouth.

My mom died a week and a half ago. So no.

Fuck no, I have 4 years of industry experience and my industry is basically falling apart. I haven't been able to find work since March. Even construction labour jobs requiring no experience wont call me back. If I cant make something work soon I might just decide to french kiss an electrical socket.

How are you, OP?

No, but that's ok

2023 has been a calamity for me. I lost my best friend and business partner to cancer in March. Then, the mourning. The burnout. The psychologist. The antidepressants.

I then had a diverticulitis, ended up at the hospital. I reacted badly to an antidepressant, ended up at the hospital. Had a problematic mole in my lower back, got it removed, sent it to biopsy... Didn't remove enough, remove the rest, and the wound isn't healing properly and got infected.

Just since Halloween, I started coughing with lots of secretion, until my asthma came back first time in 15 years, and I coughed so hard for a month and a half, I ended up cracking a rib.

Then I got an acute middle ear infection, that lasted 2 weeks, the pain was excruciating.

Now, I still can't hear from that ear it's clogged. I stopped coughing. My antidepressant is doing an ok job.

I just want a break from life. I had to take 2 weeks off work completely early in December for my physical and mental health. First time I have to do that in my life.

No. I drink every other day at least (not wasted, but a good buzz), I have no friends anymore cause they've all got familes and responsibilities, or they've left the frozen wasteland that is northern Canada. I'm 30 and I live with my mom and brother cause she works part time and couldn't afford to live on her own, and I couldn't afford to live on my own either even though I make $22 an hour, which also means no decent woman would consider coming anywhere near me. My mom is amazing but it fucking sucks being a 30 year old man and having a room right across from her.

My rent went from 1800 in 2017-2022 for a 3 bedroom to 3 fucking grand for a much worse 3 bedroom because we got renovicted from our old place. The new landlord is basically a slum lord, no doorknob on the downstairs bathroom, no heat in my room, no fan and mold growing in the upstairs bathroom, toilets that clog constantly, shit insolation in a city that can get as cold as - 40C during the dead of winter, no door at all on my brothers room, lots of garbage left in the backyard from the previous tenant that was supposed to be removed by the landlord within a week of moving in (now a year and a half later) and a shit local government that just a month ago gave subsidies to landlords as an apology for rent control being implemented.

On top of that it feels like the world is moving increasingly towards fucking people near the bottom of society like me more and more as I get older. I have basically no hope left. I work my ass off at every job I have, rarely it pays off with promotions and small raises, but I've yet to get a truly good increase that raises my standard of life significantly. I try my best, I truly do. One of the few things I can be proud of is that I'm consistently known as a great worker, but it's a roll of the dice whether you're gonna get a boss that values that or just tries to take advantage of your work ethic. Feels like no matter how hard I try, I can't move forward. I get a better job with more money? Oh rent has massively gone up, groceries and gas have gone up, fucking everything has gone up in price. I get more money and every fucking greedy piece of shit has their hands out demanding more money for the essentials of life so I just languish in permenant fucking mediocrity.

I've gained 30 lbs over the last year due to drinking and depression, I built an awesome new pc last year but I barely use it for more than watching videos cause nothing gives me joy anymore. I used to at least be able to get some amount of joy out of playing games, but now nothing makes me happy. I literally wish I could get cancer so that I can die free of guilt. I'm not suicidal, I could never do that to my parents and brother. But every day I wish something would happen that takes me out of my miserable existence. I hate the world and I hate my pathetic fucking life.

Not really. Shitty political climate in India. Unemployed since I've graduated, suffering from a medical condition, but I've not told my parents as I don't want to stress them out. And yeah, poor mental health. Feels like I didn't learn any shit from my crappy, tier-3 university. Just handed over a fucking useless paper they call a degree. Also losing my mane in my early 20s, does that count?

No. My life is shit and nothing can make it slightly better. At this point I do dumb shit and create messes for myself just to spice it up, otherwise it’s the same boring, sad, routine

No. Crippling anxiety and depression for over 15 years. I feel my life is ruined, and I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

For the first time in years....yeah, I'm OK.

I've got my husband, and I've got in-laws who love me, and my friends and the members of my family who still talk to me recognize that I like having g small, quiet holidays so they haven't forced me to attend any huge superspreader events.

Tonight I'm buying ingredients for gingerbread cookies which I haven't made since I was like 7, and I'm going to make my dad's snickerdoodle recipe now that, after over a decade of tears and estrangement, he's accepted the fact that I'm trans.

Things are nice. They're not perfect, no, but they're nice.

I have no family and no friends. Just sleep through Christmas Day. Pretend like it's not happening.

And this guy usually live streams on holidays so he gets lonely people through depressing holidays.

It's funny because it seems like the universe is saying, "Hey Slurpee. Why don't you become an alcoholic? It'll be fun." Not that I drink habitually or a lot. It just seems alcohol is being pushed everywhere I go.

Work sucks because I have to do it. I imagine all the shit I'd have time to do if I didn't have to work, both things I need to do and want to do. When I get done with work for the day, I feel too traumatized to do anything. So I put myself on autopilot until I can turn the world off and go to bed.

I got a bit of satisfaction last week when I went to an event where I got to sit on a chair and do nothing for an hour. And that's all that was expected of me.

Oh, and a bucket of hammers from lemmygrad called me a Nazi, which would be laughable if they weren't so serious about their "beliefs".

Lately when someone asks me if I'm okay, my response is something akin to, "I'll neve be okay again, but I'm alive so I guess I'll suffer through it."

My life has never been particularly bad, I've always had people around me that tell me they love me and care about me, but very rarely act that way. Throughout it all I've always found someone to lean on that actually shows some level of concern, but as I get older, those people have drifted away from me, physically and sentimentally.

I've never felt more alone in life than I do now, even with a person or two that might actually care, I know they have their own lives that take precedent over me, and thus I will end up alone anyway.

I can't do anything to fix it, because factually, I can't do anything right or commendable. Even when I'm doing things I've done flawlessly in the past, I find a way to screw up somehow and make my whole life worse, and my support network (what little there is) shrinks every day.

So I'm stuck in place, crying myself to sleep every night, hoping to whatever people call 'God,' that I won't wake up. Then I cry even harder because there are people and things that I care about more than myself, but which I will never be able to do anything for.

I refuse to kill myself because of my sentimental debt to them, but if I can do nothing to help or honor them, then why shouldn't I just end it all, and hope that fate treats them better than it has me? If I'm doing nothing right by being alive, what does it matter if I'm dead?

I hate the world, and generally, but not in totality, I hate people. I hate my life and I hate myself to the very absolute core of my existence. I just want all the pain to end.

No, but thanks for asking. I haven't been 'okay' in 9+ years.

Not really, but since I'm not going to find any solutions here and people have it worse, I'll leave it at that.

Probably the closest I've been in 15 years at least. Antidepressants have been a miracle for me

I'm much better after having negotiated a 4 day workweek AND a pay rise for myself, effective next year. Quite the christmas present.

No.

I'm a mix of OK and not-OK.

The good: I'm excited with Xmas + New Years' Eve. It's just family but I always get hyped up. Learning how to paint oil on canvas. Got nice gifts for my family, "nice" not as "expensive" but as "things that they'll enjoy".

The bad: lots of things to do. Juggling the will of five people and two cats for the festivities, as I'm the one cooking most of it. (Yes, the cats will get treats. Yoghurt for one, shredded chicken breast for another.) Work is also extra hard those days.

The ugly: I hate summer. Insect thinks that my desk is a love hotel, my feet get swollen, 13:00 and I turn into mush, my cats get more nocturnal so late night/early morning they're "MEOW, MEOW" = "stop sleeping and play with me, stupid human". At a certain point in my life I seriously considered buying a house in the Alps so I didn't need to deal with summers any more.

Ok? Yep. Great? Nope.

We had a death in the family a couple months ago and he was our "Santa" who hosted our family Xmas Eve dinner for years. It's gonna be a rough one this year.

How are you holding up, OP?

This is the sixth Christmas without Mom.

She was my link to the family. I don’t hear from anyone except my sister and dad. I miss them all.

Thanks for asking, but I don't have an easy answer to that one.

Not really. I'm estranged from my family and this is a hard time of year to be that way, but unfortunately my mother has a personality disorder and thinks people are furniture to be rearranged to her dysfunctional liking. One Christmas she had a psychotic episode and told me it's my fault my brother is gay (because I showed him how to use the internet in the 90s), a fact that makes her insane with rage even though he was gay long before that lol. It's never a happy memory really. And she's apparently doing everything she can to ruin his relationship inch by screaming inch, even though he doesn't talk to me either because he's completely controlled by her, and I feel terrible about how awful she's going to make this holiday for him. He deserves better even if he's spineless and under her thumb, he deserves a chance at life not controlled by her.

Personality disorders are no joke. They ruin lives and destroy relationships. I don't recommend staying in a relationship with someone with one. It's not their fault, but when they cultivate their behaviour you are not safe in a relationship with them. They're dangerous people.

My husband's family is no better, his mother is a narcissist that views family time as a chance to pit her children against each other for the sport of it, and terrorize her only grandchild emotionally. I refuse to go near her.

It's just a lonely time.