Coping with Loneliness and Struggles This Christmas: Finding Hope and Endurance

Endurance, Change, and the Corner That Calls My Name

Depression, Lost, and the Holidays.

Coping with Loneliness and Struggles This Christmas: Finding Hope and Endurance

The holidays are often portrayed as a season of joy, family, and connection. But for many of us, Christmas can be one of the loneliest and hardest times of the year. Whether it’s financial struggles, isolation, or the weight of mental health challenges, this season can magnify feelings of hopelessness. I know this because I’m living it—and I’m know I am not alone.

Why the Holidays Can Feel Harder When You’re Alone

The holiday season can be overwhelming for many, especially for those struggling with loneliness and mental health challenges during Christmas. Everyone’s busy playing house or showing off their perfect lives. Instagram filters for their mashed potatoes, curated playlists for their "cozy" evenings. Meanwhile, I’m out here searching for ways to cope with “Holiday Depression” and loneliness this Christmas, trying to believe there’s hope.

It’s not just the grind of survival that gets to me. It’s the silence. I’ve been completely alone for almost two years now, without real social interactions or meaningful conversations with other people. At first, I told myself it was just temporary, that I’d reconnect once life calmed down, but the days turned into months, and now it’s been years.

The Mental Toll of Loneliness During Christmas

The holidays amplify loneliness in a way that’s almost unbearable. Every carol, every glittering light, every commercial about family dinners feels like a reminder of what I don’t have. The loneliness seeps into everything. It makes you question your worth, your place in the world, whether you even matter. Humans aren’t built to live in isolation, and when you’re cut off from real connections for so long, it’s like parts of you start shutting down, piece by piece.

Small interactions—like someone laughing at your joke, asking how your day was, or even just acknowledging that you’re there—start to feel like luxuries. Without them, your mental health takes a real hit. Depression digs its claws in deeper. Anxiety grows louder. The emptiness becomes its own kind of weight, as heavy as the bills, the uncertainty, and the grind.

This Christmas, I know I’m not the only one feeling this way. There are countless others struggling—single parents trying to make the season magical for their kids despite overwhelming odds, elderly neighbors spending the holiday in silence, under employed and homeless individuals braving the cold streets, and those like me who have spent time isolated and alone. The loneliness doesn’t discriminate, and that’s what makes this season so hard for so many.

Holding Onto Hope for a Better Future

But maybe—just maybe—there’s something different in the air. It’s faint, like a distant smell of rain before a storm. A change. The current administration has felt heavy, like its decisions overlook people like me—those who feel forgotten and unsupported.

I’m hopeful because the new administration has promised to reduce the size of government, cut burdensome regulations, and create skilled jobs for Americans who need them most. They’ve talked about restoring fairness and moving away from divisive policies, focusing instead on opportunity and merit. For someone like me, who’s felt invisible for too long, those promises feel like a chance for life to finally get better.

I also have hope that the economy will stabilize. That people will find jobs that pay a fair wage for a fair job, and housing prices will stop climbing into the stratosphere due to the previous administrations hubris. Maybe, just maybe the incoming Trump administration can really Make America Great Again.

Endurance Isn’t Glamorous

Endurance isn’t glamorous. It’s ugly and messy, and it doesn’t come with applause or recognition. It’s waking up and saying, “Not today, corner,” even when you don’t believe it yourself. It’s surviving one more day, one more week, one more season.

This Christmas, I’m holding on to the hope that things can change—not just for me, but for the countless others who are struggling through the holidays. The single parent, the elderly, the lonely, the under employed, the homeless. Everyone deserve a chance to feel valued and connected again.

Until then, I’m still here. And as long as I am, the corner doesn’t win. Not today. Not tomorrow. And with any luck, not ever.

Merry Frickin’ Christmas.

….Roo