This is a particularly vulnerable time of year. The media, society and those around you tell you to be happy. Instead, you may be missing your family or your current situation is different from what you hoped it would be. Perhaps you have wonderful or dreadful childhood memories of this season that have resurfaced, or your expectations are unrealistic and you don't understand why? Maybe Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) has hit you bad and some light is required?

Whatever reason for your blues this season, next year can be better. Get through this difficult time using all help available. The New Year and new opportunity will be with us soon.

What To Do And How To Handle Holiday Blues

More than 17 million Americans suffer from clinical depression every year. That's more than total of those persons stricken with cancer or heart disease. More than 15 percent of these individuals attempt suicide with an increase during holiday season. Sadly, many people don't know that depression can be treated, or are afraid to seek help because they fear that there is a stigma attached.

There is no stigma attached to getting emotional help. After all, if you sprain your ankle you wouldn't think twice about going to a professional. If you "sprain your brain," so to speak, you need to treat that as well. While holidays are an exciting time for most people, remember, especially if you are part of a blended family, divorced or alone, you may be one of many who suffer depression more severely during this time of year.

While everyone experiences bad moods, if you have seven out of ten pretty good days, you are in OK shape. However, you may be suffering from clinical depression if you experience five of following symptoms for two weeks or more, or if they occur almost every day for most of day for any extended time.

How To Recognize A Bad Case of Holiday Blues:

1. Depressed mood most of day almost every day.

And All Those Who Will Someday Be Over Fifty

At age 49, I was walking with man I was dating, ambling along a lovely rural road. In distance we saw a couple perhaps in their nineties walking slowly, holding hands. Studying them on quiet country road, he turned to me and said, "if we are fortunate, that will be us — in bed as well as walking”. I knew I wanted to age with wisdom, and companionship, love and sex. A good man was getting harder to find. A hard man, for whom both love and sex mattered, was getting even harder to find. I married him.

I grew up in a society that stubbornly clung to negative images about elders loving and having sex. The thought of older people making love still tends to stir reactions ranging from amusement to disgust. The idea of couples in their 80’s or 90’s having intercourse remains unfathomable to younger set. Unfortunately, it remains unspeakable to most of those having it as well. Love is an experience that can be quiet or loud, but not carnal. And, if it is physical at all, it is best kept under covers and out of conversation.

I had a paucity of role models for what I wanted. And, I knew from my friends, I was not alone. Since our parents’ generation didn’t have our freedom or our views, they couldn’t model our needs. They didn’t discuss love, relationships or sex. Tripping and falling, my friends and I finally forged our own confusing paths defining love and sexuality for grownups. We found that love didn’t always include marriage but sex and love were a dynamite combination.