Blue Christmas

Life is good. So why do I feel so bad?

Last week, two long-term projects landed on the same day.

I published my book: How the Fourth R Works – What to Do When Life Doesn’t Go to Plan. And I moved into a new home, one I designed and built over two years.

A book born. A home born.

On paper, it should have been one of the happiest days of my life.

Instead, depression turned up. Quietly. Efficiently. Right on cue.

Nothing about it made sense. Christmas is coming. Family is on the way. The projects are done. Compared to many people, including my friends Lindsay and Craig Foreman, arbitrarily detained in Iran for nearly a year , I am profoundly fortunate.

And yet it felt as though the bottom had fallen out of my world.

Depression doesn’t respond to logic. It doesn’t care about gratitude lists or achievements. When it shows up, it narrows everything. Thought slows. Energy drains. Even the smallest things feel oddly impossible.

What it sharpens, though, is memory - but only the wrong kind.

Suddenly the old cupboard gets opened. You don’t deserve this house. Who will want to read your work? Your career is over.

For me, the worst part of depression isn’t the sadness.

It’s the fear. The fear that this time it’s true. That you won’t come back. That this version of you might be permanent.

I know intellectually that isn’t the case. My episodes are shorter these days. I’ve worked hard on that. But when you’re in it, that knowledge feels completely inaccessible.

Another cruel trick of depression is that it makes you selfish - not out of arrogance, but out of depletion. You have nothing left. All you can see is your own pain.

Lying there, I remembered something I’d written in my book.

Resilience isn’t always about doing your best in the way you usually understand it. Sometimes it’s about doing your best for that day.

Even if that “best” is only a fraction of what you’re capable of.

So I did something small. Something deliberate.

It was my ex-mother-in-law’s birthday. She’s been struggling with her mental health, so I reached out. I shared a little of how I was feeling. I reminded her, and myself, that she wasn’t alone.

One of depression’s biggest lies is that we are uniquely broken. That everyone else is coping better. That there’s something wrong with us.

There isn’t.

Many people will face this Christmas not with lights and sparkle, but with a quiet heaviness they can’t explain. Depression has a habit of arriving at the worst possible moment and draining the colour from everything.

That small act of kindness shifted something. Not dramatically. Not instantly. But enough to crack open a window.

Some days, your best isn’t impressive. It’s just honest. It’s basic thoughtfulness.

And that’s enough.

Slowly, without fanfare, the fog began to lift. Enough to remind me that movement is possible. That this, too, would pass.

I’m not fully “back”. Recovery doesn’t work like that. It’s slower. Quieter. It requires patience and rest.

And it reminds me, again, that happiness doesn’t come from rearranging the outer world. It lives much closer to home.

So peace on earth. Goodwill to all. Even myself.

If this resonates, you’re not alone.