Healing Through The Holidays Transcript

INTRO:

What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Horth House. I'm your host, Aly Horth. Hey! How's it going? Typically, this is a podcast for anyone that has grown up without one or maybe both of your parents and how the lack of that relationship can impact the other relationships you have in your life, whether they are platonic, romantic, with other family members, or the relationship you have within yourself. We talk about how to grow and how to improve through these situations and honestly, how to laugh through them. So, today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I am going to dive into how to handle your mental health and how to handle grief around the holidays. Unfortunately, I know a lot about this. I have suffered from seasonal depression quite a number of years. I'm going through grief right now from losing three people this year, two of which passed away within a month of each other, and they were both really significant losses. And I've been through the trenches this year. I've been through the thick of it, into the thick of it. I've been in the thick of it lately, and it's been brutal. So, I know there's other people that have been out there and that feel the same way. I've had friends that have lost siblings and have lost children this year, have lost family members, have lost parents. I know there's other people out there that feel the same way. So, I figured, why just sit with my sadness and be alone with it? When I sit with it, I understand it, I can recognize it, I can move through it, but why not just give the information I'm learning to other people as well? Because it is resourceful. So that's exactly what we're going to do today.

Before we get into that, there's a few little things we need to COVID on. Ho. Ho. Horth-Mas. Okay, welcome to the Horth Pole. We are now in Horth-Mas mode. This year in the Horth House, my stepfather decided that he was going to purchase an escort. My stepfather ended up hiring an escort on accident. He was trying to buy my mom clothes for Christmas. It's like a cute story, but he messed up. So, my stepdad's looking for all these things for my mom and finally puts all these things in this cart, and he's ready to go and goes to the checkout. And when he goes to check out, there is like a pop-up screen that comes up and says, oh, click here to pay instead. My stepdad thinks like, oh, okay, cool. That's legit. That's what it is. He clicks on it. He puts all of his credit card information, and he gets a call from the bank, and he has a $295 charge on his credit card from somewhere in the middle of the United States. My stepfather lives in California, okay? And I am crying, laughing. I'm like, is this a joke? I love my stepdad very much, but this man sometimes moving on enough about him. Every other episode is about my stepdad. I hate this daddy issues. Wow. Bringing it back full circle here. Anyway, so, yeah, my stepdad accidentally bought himself a $295 Escort, and I hope he enjoyed it. He didn't get anything out of it, but I hope the person that did take his credit card information had a good night. I hope you actually enjoyed it.

Next on the agenda is, I have been having massive panic attacks the last few weeks. I have been going through my own mental health shit, actually. I don't really know how they started, to be honest, but they just kind of popped up for the first time in, like, six to eight years. And I've had panic attacks before. I had them years ago when I was in college, and I was just really overwhelmed by things, and I was really stressed out. I didn't really know how to process, you know, my emotions or anything. And I would have massive panic attacks, and I didn't know what they were. I didn't know what they were called. I didn't know how to name them or anything. Now, I've done therapy, and I've worked through it, and I've learned a lot about my anxiety, so I kind of know how to name it now. And I had one panic attack. God, I think it was, like, on a Wednesday night or a Thursday night or something. I was driving home from a hockey game, and I had one when I was on the freeway, and I start, like, blacking out, my fingers are all tingly. I had to, like, pull over, and I'm, like, hysterically crying. I got home safe, everything was fine, and then I just sat down and I knocked the fuck out. So that was great. Speaking of anxiety, let's talk about it for a minute.

My parents bought a kitten, okay? They adopted a kitten recently, and that's great. Cute little kitten. It's destructive as hell. Already broke a lamp. He jumps into the Christmas tree all the time. He's bumping through things like, he is destructive. He's a kitten. He's fun as hell. My dog loves him. It's great. The issue I have is that I am highly allergic to cats, okay? I know some of you all are cat people, okay? I see your Instagram’s. I like your pictures. I can't stand cats, but that's for my own personal reasons. Aly, why don't you like cats? They're amazing. They're the best pet. You barely have to do anything with them. Okay, well, first, that's partly why, because I'm a very active person. I need an active animal. Okay? That's the first thing. The second thing is, when I was a kid, I had I think it was maybe before or five years old when this happened. I had a little orange, like, tabby cat. I loved her to death. Her name was Betsy. She was named after one of my best friends growing up. Okay? Loved her. She was super, super sweet. So, I'm petting her and my mom tells me at one point, hey, Aly, stop doing that because she's going to end up scratching you. And I tell my mom, “oh, she's not going to do that. She's my best friend. Like, we're best friends. Mom, Betsy loves me. She would never scratch me.” So, of course, what do I do, being like the child that I am, thinking, I know everything. I keep petting the cat, okay? And I'm petting her and I'm petting her and petting her. And I don't know how old Betsy is at this point, probably like a year or so, this bitch ends up clawing me. She full blown scratches me from my temple all the way down to my chin, okay? I'm bleeding. It's a whole thing. I was so upset. It's like stinging. Because if you've ever been scratched by a cat, you know, it's not really deep, but it's like surface level and it fucking stings. Okay? This cat did that to me, and after that, I swore him off. I said, no way, if my best friend can turn on me like that, oh, hell no. I am done with cats, okay? My dogs have never turned on me. The worst thing that's ever happened with me, with my dog is that when I was four years old god, four years old apparently was a traumatic year. But when I was four years old, my dog was stolen by my neighbor, and my dog was a golden retriever, and he would always, like, dig holes underneath our fence, and my parents would, like, try to block it up or whatever, but they never did a good job. And so he got back underneath there, and I'm watching from this little window in our front family room, basically. And I'm looking out the window, and my parents were, like, asleep. I don't know what they were doing. I think they had had, like, a fight the night before or something, and I didn't want to wake him up or bother them. And my little brother had just been born, so I knew it was like a baby. I don't know. I was very considerate of everyone else when I was a kid. I wasn't really, like, the destructive, loud ass kid. I was just like, oh, I can't make noise. Everyone's asleep. Okay, whatever. So anyway, so I'm sitting at this window, and I'm watching our neighbor, like, call to my dog and be like, come here, Rusty. Come here, bud. Come here. Come here. Come on, boy. My dog ends up going to him, and the guy never saw me, and so he walks away with my dog and goes off. I didn't know who he was as a kid. I had no idea because I'm so little, I couldn't make the correlation of, like, oh, I've seen him here. I know what this is, and this is where he's at. I had no idea. I was probably, like, four years old when this happened. I didn't tell my mom that this happened until I was, like, 19 years old. And my mom's like, why didn't you tell me? I'm like, I had no idea how to explain that to you. That I watched it happen because I thought I would get in trouble, that I watched my dog go away instead of making noise. And it's, like, one of the things that traumatized me the most as a kid. So, yeah, my dog didn't scratch me or hurt me or anything. He just left me for someone else. It's cool. And now we're going to talk about other people that have left me in my life, like my father. All right, great transitions. We are killing it today. Okay. So how do you handle the holidays when you don't have a parent or when you are grieving when you're going through a loss? When you're trying to handle life? It's difficult.

BODY:

Okay, so here we  going to talk about something and I don't know if I'm going to regret talking about this or not, but here we go. And I'm not going to edit it out. So fuck me. Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy holidays and enjoy this little trick. I am grieving this year. And I am grieving two things. One, I am grieving my best friend who passed away in August, who had a rough time. And two, I am grieving the fact that I should have had a baby this year. Now let's talk about that. We're going to get into small details about it. And I'm literally shaking because I'm so fucking nervous to talk about this because I haven't really told anyone. I've told maybe like five people in my life that I was pregnant. At one point this year. I was pregnant. I found out towards the middle of the year. And then in July I had a miscarriage. And yeah, that's where we're at. It's been fun. So today I went to about 15 fucking baby stores to go look for this one stupid giraffe. Because my parents to bought one for me and I wanted to buy like a little extra because for whatever reason I was feeling nostalgic and I was like, let's buy something for the little babe that should have been here, okay? It'll be so fun. I can't believe I'm putting this on the podcast. I'm so going to regret this. Whatever, it's fine. Here we are. Here we are. Here we are. Oh, and you edit this, right, Aly? I do. And I'm not going to edit this. So enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Oh God, I'm shaking. Okay, but anyway, so yes, I went to go find this one stupid giraffe. I think I went to, I want to say anywhere from like 15 to 20 fucking baby stores today. And you know what? All the things were cute. I was taking pictures of all the things for the future kids. But at the same time, I was holding up the fuck together. I didn't cry and nothing. And I was very proud of myself until about 20 minutes ago. And mind you, I went shopping about 6 hours ago. And about 20 minutes ago, I started breaking the fuck down and bawling my eyes out. And then I thought to myself, okay, I'm sitting in front of my recording stuff right here. I'm not going to move. I'm like, you know what, fuck it. I'm going to record the podcast when I'm grieving. Because why? Because this shouldn't have to be a secret, okay? I have been dealing with this for like a time. I said I wasn't going to get into this, but here we are. I have been very ashamed and embarrassed to talk about the fact that I was pregnant at one point because I'm not married and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the fucking things, okay? And that's because why? Because people talked shit about my mom not being married and having me and all the crap that came around that. And I've been told that I'm a bastard child. Fun fact, actually, I had a boyfriend, unfortunately. Loved the guy very much, but unfortunately, his family did not like me. And I'm not even joking because I was a bastard child, aka a child out of wedlock. Full circle here. It's been rough. So I have been, like, debating this for months if I was going to talk about this, and then I got to the grief episode, I have tried to record this probably 15 effing times. Every single time, I've been like, you know what? How can I talk about this without actually talking about what happened? There's no way. Because, like, yes, I'm dealing with my best friend's loss, but the thing I'm handling is the fact that I don't have a baby right now, and it's a little bit frustrating, okay? I have been incredibly triggered by every pregnant woman that walks by me. All the things it's been a rough, like, six months, everyone. Okay. It's been a rough six months. I'm not going to lie. We'll get into the whole story one day. I'm not here for it right now. Right now, we're focusing on Christmas, on Horth-Mas, on the holidays, everything. Aly, focus. Okay, got it. Got it. Let's focus. Let's go back. Wow. Everyone's like, Aly was supposed to have a baby this year. Like, can we just pause on that? Like, what the fuck? Yeah, I was it's it's rough. Okay, so if you are dealing with grief or having to handle hard times this year, then go ahead and listen to the following things that I have come up with as a little gimmick to deal with the bullshit that is this holiday, because I don't want to have this holiday. Okay? I did make a stocking for my baby because I thought it would be really sweet and kind, and I was actually looking for the giraffe because I want another one because I wanted to put it in their stocking. But, you know, life is life. Here we are. All right, so a few different things that you can do, one of which is connecting with your friend. You can do it virtually, or you can do it in person. I think we all kind of learned this during quarantine and COVID. Like, FaceTime and Zoom are a person's best friend. They really do help. Obviously, it's a little bit different being not in person and just having it virtually over the computer or the phone, but it does allow you to be somewhat in the situation or in the moment with the people that are around you or on the FaceTime or Zoom with you. Right. So we have that. And then I think the other thing would be that you can always as bad as it is, you can always invite yourself or ask if you can go celebrate with your friends or celebrate with their families if you're alone or you're feeling alone. I know this year my friends know what I'm going through and they understand that I have places to go and everything, but there's no doubt in my mind that if I told my friends, hey, you guys, I'm going to be celebrating by myself, would you guys mind if I come and stay with you? Or can I stay with your families and come with you or something? There's no doubt in my mind. At least three of them would be like, of course come with us. Of course, you can. Come on. And I would love it. So I think that's great. When I was 19, I actually had five of my best friends come over to my house and celebrate Christmas with me because I celebrated with some of my family, but it just wasn't the same. And so I was like, hey, can you guys come over? Or whatever. It was a blast. We ended up staying up all night and we partied and we had so much fun. And honestly, I know that Christmas was hard for me and I know the build up for that Christmas was hard, but the thing that I think is kind of funny is I don't remember much about that Christmas except for, like, I had so much fun with my friends. Obviously with everyone's situation, it's a little bit different, right? Like, you can have friends that you're wanting to celebrate with. Maybe you're grieving a friend like I am. I can't exactly call my best friend and be like, hey, bro, want to come over? Like, hey, can I FaceTime you? Nope, can't do that from the grave. Whoop. That's bad. Sorry about my humor. If it's not your thing, I apologize. This is a little bit of a rough episode. Another thing you can do is focus on things that make you happy. Bake, cook, do a puzzle, play video games, start a new show, and binge the fuck out of it like I'm talking. Yeah, sure. You could do Wednesday. That's five episodes and that's 5 hours of your life. Sure, you could do that. You could do bridgerton. That's like three seasons. What? Two seasons? No, three seasons. Now you could also do ah, what else do we got? What else do we got? You could do, like, Brooklyn Nine. Nine. Well, how many of you seasons are there? Like 13. Modern Family. There was like 13. Oh, hell yeah. Just go for it. Just go all in. Go all in. All right. Anyway, you can also go on, like, a morning walk or a hike if you wanted to. Maybe take, like, a stroll or wander, like, walk around, like, aimlessly in your neighborhood. I've done that before. It's kind of weird to explain. It kind of sounds like, okay, aren't you, like, a little creepy? Just, like, walking about and you have no idea where you're going? Yeah, maybe a little bit, but it's actually pretty fun. I mean, pour yourself a drink before you go and just walk around and have fun. I enjoy it. And I'm not promoting drinking out in public, you guys. I'm just saying drink before you go. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Carry a tumblr. But walk around and, like, enjoy the lights, enjoy the scenery. Just enjoy just being out in the fresh air for a minute. One thing I love. Okay. There's two things I love about this time of just walking around and just seeing all the shit is one, you see the parents and, like, the couples that are fighting and, like, frantically, like, looking about for the batteries. Or, like, you know, having to run to the store without the kid noticing because, you know, Santa forgot the batteries and the kid's toy, and he has to play with the toy. Otherwise he's going to have a full blown meltdown. And God forbid he has a meltdown on Christmas like every other kid. And so, you know, they're they're frantic about it, and then they're fighting about, like, whose problem it is when really, like, they could just shut up and then go to the store and they would be already back by now. But that's not my problem. Not my monkey, not my circus. But then the other thing I love is that if you walk around anywhere from, like, three to let's call it like, 6630, if you walk around anywhere in that time frame around your neighborhood, there is a solid, and I mean solid chance that you are going to run into your friendly neighborhood distant relatives who are the stoners. Not only will you be smelling all of the fantastic food that is being made and created all throughout the neighborhood and you're going to be craving all the different styles and smells, then you're also going to be getting secondhand high from all of the teenagers and the adults that are walking around the neighborhood smoking a joint or a blunt before dinner because they got to go on their afternoon or evening walk before dinner to check out the lights and, like, bitch, it's still bright outside. Why are you walking? It's, like, 04:00. Why are you going outside? There are no lights. The street lights aren't even on. What are you talking about? I don't know. I got to go and walk by. And then they come back and they're like, yeah, the lights were super cool. And I'm like, oh, yeah. Okay, cool. Wow, moving on. Anyway, so you're likely to get second hand high and then also know what you want for dinner that night. So, you know, think of it as a plus. Number three, you can always use your pent up sadness and aggression and, you know, grief and promote it to other people in the form of volunteering. You can always volunteer. I think that's one of the best things that you can do when you're feeling down or you're just not feeling like you're giving, it's kind of a hard thing to explain. But if you feel like you're not giving anything to anyone, maybe you're just down on yourself because of what's going on, like whatever you're grieving through. Or if you're dealing with your own mental health issues and you're just down on yourself. One of the best things I think you can do I used to do this all the time is like, go volunteer. It really will help. People are so, so grateful of anything that they get around the holidays. But to you, it might just be like, okay, it's just the day that I'm volunteering because everything sucks, okay, I hate this. My dad's not here. My kid's not here. My best friend's not here. All the things, wow, I didn't even realize I listed off all the things that I have in my life. Wow, there we go. That's unconscious thinking right there. Wow, that was rough. Anyway, but like I was saying though,

Participant #1:

but like I was saying, it might just be a day that's really shitty to you and we'll wake up tomorrow, or you wake up in a couple of weeks and everything will be a little bit better. Just because it won't be the holidays, but you're going to be volunteering. You're going to be giving out food. You're going to be helping out, doing something to give back. And whoever you are giving back to, that's like their Christmas treat. That's their holiday treat. That's their gift they're getting. And that's their only gift they are getting. It might just be a fresh bottle of water, clean water for the day, a pair of shoes, a pair of socks, a pair of underwear, a haircut, a shower. These are the things that people take for granted that other people can help you do. Now, obviously don't start, like, inviting strangers into your house to be like, hey, I want to take a shower in here. That's not going to really work out for yourself. Okay? You know what I mean? Obviously work through programs and whatnot. I'm just being silly. But for real, if you really do help people, it will make you feel better. And of course, there's always like this age old question of is it selfish to be volunteering because you're doing it for yourself? Who cares? Who gives a fuck if it's considered selfish because you're like, volunteering to help yourself? Who gives a fuck? You're helping them and are you feeling better? Yeah. Okay, cool. Then it worked. What's the point? Move on, game over. It doesn't matter. That's the way I see it. I'm like if I'm helping out and I feel better about myself because I'm helping someone else because they feel better and I'm putting a smile on someone's face when I have depression and I feel like I have no purpose. And then I'm seeing this little homeless person look at me, or this person that's in poverty and in a shelter or an abuse center or whatever, and they're smiling because of something I'm doing for them or I'm helping them, or I'm just making their day for a second. That means a lot to me and it also means a lot to them. So, yeah, if it's considered selfish to help other people because it makes me feel better, then fuck yeah, I'm selfish as all hell. I love it. I love helping other people. It makes me feel better. Hello, look at this podcast. Yeah, I'm helping other people, but I also just love the sound of my own voice. Oh, I wish that was a lie. Anyway, moving on. So volunteer definitely helps. I think it's something that you can do to turn your sadness into a positive and definitely try to kind of put a positive spin on a sad day. And especially if you do it on one of your first holidays. Like, really distract yourself on that first holiday that you're, you know, experiencing grief and whatnot. Because that's genuinely like one of the worst ones and I think it's the worst one. Like, yeah. Am I sad that, like, my baby is not here this year? Sure, they would still be in my stomach right now, so it wouldn't really be a problem. But like, yeah, I'm grieving the fact that, like, I'm not going to be getting baby clothes and baby gifts this year and I'm getting gifts for myself and for the podcast. I'm like, that's cool, but I wish I wasn't doing that this year. I wish I was like having a baby. I'm like getting stuff like that and I wish I could put like a snowman on my belly and be like, hi, look, I'm pregnant. But I can't do that. So here we are. But my whole point is that, yeah, it's hard this year because it's the first holiday I'm going to have. And yeah, next year might be hard because it's like, oh, it would have been my baby's first Christmas. Yeah, it might hurt next year, but this is the first year I'm grieving with it. I'm dealing with it. So I'm trying to distract myself and do everything I can to celebrate with my family and do what I can, but also to distract myself and make sure that I'm okay. At a point I have to be like, look, I don't give a fuck about any of you. I have to focus on me because why? Because I'm the one dealing with this the hardest. And that's just the truth of it. And yeah, there's other people probably going through the same stuff I am, or there's people going through grief like you maybe lost a sibling or a family member or something. And you're grieving, but so are other people, sure. But you're looking out for yourself and you're grieving the way you need to if you need to take some time because you're dealing with some heavy ass shit right now during a holiday season, go right ahead. I kind of touched on this one earlier. But find friends that are going through the same thing as you and know that you're not alone and have your own friends miss or your version of a friend holiday. And I like to think that you don't necessarily have to buy each other gifts. Okay. I think one of the things that sucks about the holidays is, like, the pressure of, like, what gift do you want? What gift do you want? What does this person need when they have everything? They don't need anything, and it can be difficult. So I think having friends come together, and then you guys all pick, like, a show that you like. Maybe you pick one show and you all watch an episode from it. Or you each pick, like, your favorite show or your favorite Christmas episode of a show and say, like, I'm going to do Parks and Rec, and Alex is going to do Brooklyn Nine Nine, and someone else is going to do, like, Shit's Creek and all these things. Each person is going to do their own episode. That can totally be a thing as well. So I think that can be really fun to do. If you want to. And if maybe you and your friends and want to celebrate the holidays, then you can and just watch a bunch of holiday movies, put on your Christmas pajamas or your holiday pajamas and just have your own fun. Celebrate together. Make your own Christmas traditions with your friends. I think that's always really fun, too. I think it's kind of underrated how much fun it can be just celebrating Christmas with your friends. Another thing you can do, which I think is pretty funny, I've done this years ago. Not with Christmas, but I did it with a different holiday. I've done it with Father's Day as well. Stay up and watch scary movies. Okay? Now hear me out. I hate scary movies. I'm not a scary movie kind of person, okay? I'm not about it. The only time I ever watched scary movies is when I wanted a boy in high school to finger me and make out with me on my parents'couch while they were downstairs. Okay? That's where it's out. Shout out to disturb you. Really? Just you knocked it out of the park. You really helped me out throughout my high school years. Anyway, wow, that's a lot of information for you guys right now. So sorry. So what did I do? I didn't want to see all the Father's Day post one year. I was like, look, it's a really hard year. I'm not here for it. I'm going through some shit. No, no thanks. Okay? I'm not here for it. So my best friend and I rip to him. We stayed up from I want to say about seven or 08:00 p.m. Until about six or seven in the morning, okay? We stayed up for twelve straight hours watching every classic, scary, terrifying fucking thriller movie that you have ever seen, okay? And I'm talking like the ring. Nightmare on Elm Street. Saw two, saw three, saw four. I remember watching that in theaters and literally about to pass out and I made the person I went with leave. So we stayed up doing this one year and it helped for a number of reasons and I'm guilty of doing it for multiple years. I think I've actually done this for most of my father's Day since. And it helps for one, because you aren't waking up in the morning, having to deal with the initial shock that like, oh my God, it's Father's Day, or like, oh my God, it's Christmas or it's the holidays. Here we are. Like, great, okay, great. Fantastic. Well, when you stay up late enough, you will wake up later. So when you wake up at like 01:00, 02:00, because you stayed up until 07:00 a.m., when you should have been sleeping the whole night, you're going to have a great time and like, be well rested. But you're not going to have that initial thought of like, oh my God, it's this day. Like, it's going to be so fucking long. Like, oh God, this is going to suck. I have the whole day. No, you only have like six more hours. If that if that all you really have to do is just avoid social media. So here we go. It is my one thing for whatever holiday you're going through or whatever holidays, you are going to be experiencing grief or you start to experience grief. Okay, here we go. Number one rule of all time, you are to avoid social media. Like, it is the plague. And I'm not talking like COVID, I'm talking the full blown bubonic plague. Stay away from social media. It doesn't matter if it's TikTok, doesn't matter if it's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all the things, it does not matter. Stay away from them, okay? If you can try to stay away from them for about 24 hours, fantastic. I know a lot of us it's a little hard. So if you can just try to do it for like 12 hours or six. Okay? If you do this whole waking up late thing, if you're going to look early in the morning right before you go to sleep because it's six, seven AM. You can check out what's going on for the day, but no one is up yet. Okay. No one's up posting yet. Then when you wake up at like 04:00, just avoid it. Be like, oh, I already checked it this morning. Doesn't matter. Check the news or something. Okay? Focus on that. Then you can check it like the next morning. Don't check it otherwise, okay? Because you're going to see all these posts, you're going to see all these stories. The worst part is seeing the stories because you're just like, aimlessly scrolling through them and you're not paying attention to really what's there. And then you're absorbing all the information subconsciously and you don't realize it, and then you're like, sad 20 minutes later. It's what happens. So going full circle here. I think when I was dealing with my own grief during Father's Day, and even every year when I'm dealing with grief during Father's Day, I end up just going through this exact kind of process, right? Like, sometimes I stay up watching scary movies, sometimes it's Disney. Sometimes I'm like, I am dedicating myself to the entire Harry Potter series and I am not going to sleep until that happens. I think it really does help just because of the social media aspect. Try to avoid social media as much as you can because it's not going to make you feel any better, especially if this is your first Christmas without whomever you're dealing with or whoever you're grieving or whatever you're processing. Like me, I'm not going to go on pages where I know people are pregnant or people that have babies and be like, oh yeah, oh my God, this is so great. This is so great. Oh my gosh. I know that my really good friend has a one year old this year and this is their first Christmas. I'm not going to be going on their story on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve or maybe the day after or even a week after. I'm going to put this lovely person on mute. I'm going to mute their story. I'm going to mute their posts, and I'm not going to look at it for a week. And maybe I'll set a reminder to turn it back on. Maybe I'll just remember internally. I won't. I'm going to have to put a reminder, like a sticky note somewhere. But do whatever you have to do to protect your own mental health, okay? Because again, you can't control what people post. Like, you can see one post and someone's like, hey, I just had a baby. And then the next post is like, birds aren't real. There's no filter on the internet, okay? You can't control what's there. So you just have to process what you can. The best thing you can do in that situation is avoiding social media, okay? It will help you short term and long term. Just trust me and promise me. I've been through grief most of my life. It'll help. Another thing I have kind of briefly touched on left and right is make sure you're honoring your grief this year, especially again, if it is your first Christmas or your first holiday season without the people or the things that you are grieving, okay? And that's okay. Take the time to honor your grief. Accept that it is here and know that it's okay to feel crappy. It's okay if you love the holiday season. If you love Christmas, you usually have the most decked out house, and this year you don't have a single decoration up. That's okay. Okay. That's all right. Why? Because I'm right there with you. Okay? I'm right there with you. I love Christmas. I love the holidays. Actually, my big holiday that I had this year that was really difficult for me in terms of grief was Halloween, because that would have been the time that I would have found out the sex of my baby somewhere around then. And I really wanted to do this whole thing where it was like a gender reveal. Like I had this whole thing planned out. I was so excited for it, and obviously it didn't happen and it was really sad. But I had a really hard time with Halloween, and I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite holidays. I have this whole thing where in a past life, I think that I was a witch. It's a whole thing. Anyway. So I usually have my whole room decorated or my whole house is decorated. The house was decorated, but I didn't decorate my room for shit. And usually I do. It just things that I've had since I was a kid. I just love having them in my room with me like I did when I was a kid. And I didn't put any of them up this year. I didn't even try. I was like, no, I'm good, thanks. I'm good. And I didn't decorate. I didn't hand out candy. I didn't. I did end up dressing up, but I did a very easy simple, like Wednesday Adams. I had every single thing on there, like, I borrowed. Actually, my mom did it, so I'm not going to blame myself. But my mom ended up cutting one of my stepdad's collared shirts for me and just getting the collar so I could wear it with my Wednesday Adams outfit, and that was it. Otherwise, I had, like, the shirt, the tights, the shoes, the skirt, like, everything I had already. So I just went with a very easy thing that I didn't have to worry about. And yeah, it was a little bit rough. So bringing it back to the holiday season in people's grief is that if you don't want to decorate or you don't want to have to do anything for this holiday season, even though it's one of your favorite holidays or your favorite time of the year, you don't have to, okay? You don't have to do this. And you're not forced to decorate or celebrate this holiday if you really don't want to. You're allowed to play the grief card. Honoring your grief can mean a few different things. So it can mean just watching a video or watching a movie that this person would have liked, listening to a song or an album, maybe, that they liked, for the holidays. Putting up an ornament decorating, not decorating, doing some type. Of tradition that they enjoyed. Maybe you didn't, but they did. Making a favorite food of theirs, making a stocking like I did, you can do it that way. You can just ignore the holiday. Like, there's 100 ways that you can grieve. You can just sit in a ball all day in your bed, covered in the blankets, weighted blankets and all. Just have the shades drawn down. Have it completely dark in your room and just be there for the day. And you know what? That's okay. That's called depression, but it's also called grief. And that is what we have to do. Sometimes we have to sit in the sadness, and we just have to milk it for the day. Because why? Because sometimes we have to be sad, and sometimes people are going to be like, well, you should really get over this. Do you know what I've heard? Oh, my God, I should talk about it. Do you know what I heard? Like, so I ended up having a miscarriage in July, and my best friend passed away in August. I heard what was it, two weeks? A week? I want to say it was a week or two weeks after my best friend passed away. I had the fucking someone had the audacity to tell me, when am I going to get the happy version of you? You're just choosing to be sad. You're sitting in your sadness like, when am I going to get the happy version of you? And yes, this person has apologized since then. That was incredibly disrespectful of me to say. And I was in shock of my own stuff and just dealing with my own shit about grief, all the things, and I accepted it. But that didn't take away from the pain of who the fuck tells you that? Who tells you that? That's fucked anyway? So if anyone's ever told you, oh, my God, you're choosing to be sad, this is, like, totally something that you're choosing to do, and you're choosing to just sit in the sadness. Fuck them. Okay? Fuck them. That's the nicest way I can put it. Fuck them. One thing I want to put about this before I'm done with the section is, like, sure, I play the dead baby card, and I play the pregnancy card, and I play the whole thing, and, yeah, I kind of milk it sometimes because why? Because it fucking happened, and it is traumatic. And honestly, I talk about it like it's nothing, but I go to therapy every week, and I cry about it every week, okay? Because it's a hard thing to deal with. Actually, today I went to, like, 15 baby stores and didn't cry. I think I said that already, but, like, super proud. Only broke down for, like, 15 minutes today. Whoa. That's growth doing a lot better around the holidays than I thought I would do. Ask me again in a month. See how I'm doing. Anyway, moving on, but I want to just say hate to be a Grinch, okay? Hate to just ruin the whole town of Whoville for a second, but ho. Ho. Horth. Here we are. Welcome to the horth poll. I'm about to be the Grinch. You're going to experience at least one shitty holiday in your life. Everyone's going to have to do it at least once. So let's all just suck it up and be kind to other people that are going through it right now, okay? Let's be respectful to the people that are going through it right now. And I'm not just talking about myself. I actually am ashamed to say that I have said some pretty fucked thanks to my partners or people that are going through grief because I couldn't understand that loss and that level of loss. Honestly. I know there are some of you on here, but I really hope none of you ever experience what I'm experiencing right now, okay? I hope none of you ever have to experience the feeling of losing a child because it's shit. Especially you women or you females. It is really hard. Okay? If I want to talk about the fact that my baby should be here or one of my friends wants to talk about the fact that their parents not here or their child's not here, their friend or their family. Member, whoever, whomever. If they want to do that and they want to share those stories and they want to tell me about the good times they used to have, here's what I have to say that some of you might not like. We are all going going to go through a shitty year and a shitty holiday season one day. If your friend wants to tell their story or your family member wants to tell you their story and talk about their loss and grief through what they need to go through this year, let them. Because one day it's going to be you on the other side and you're going to want to tell your stories. And you know what's going to happen if you don't listen to their stories. People aren't going to want to listen to yours. And then you're going to be here all alone dealing with this grief when you could have had people around you, enjoying you, helping you and doing all the things. Now that is not to shame you. If you are alone right now and you are grieving and you just are like, I don't have anyone, you're completely different. Don't worry about that, okay? If you're grieving and you feel alone or you are alone right now because you're grieving the loss of something heavy all alone and you're by yourself, my heart is with you. And again, if you need someone to talk to you, you just want a friend for the holidays, like DM me and I'll be right here, okay? I got you. I'm just talking about the people that are just disrespectful about it. And people that tell you, when am I going to get the happy version of you? Why do you keep talking about this? Why do you bring up this topic all the time? Or why do you find the need to bring up the story? Or you find any excuse to talk about this topic, okay? No matter what one of these things you've been told, they're all shitty. You're allowed to honor your grief in your own way, and people aren't going to like that because a lot of people can't sit with their own grief and they can't process it. So why should they let you when they can't do it? And that's when you need to reflect and understand that you're grieving your own loss right now. And there are people that will not be able to understand that because they will never be able to do the same thing. So just be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself and respectful to yourself and know that if you're struggling and you need someone or you need a friend, whatever you need, there are people here that feel the same thing, I promise. Like, there are other people that are here to feel the same thing and want to hear your story and want to talk to you. And it's hard when it feels like there's not. But I promise you there are people that do want to hear your story and that understand. What you're going through right now, kind of a great segue into it is you can grieve all you want, sure, go right ahead. But make sure you don't isolate yourself from the world too much. Make sure you don't go too far in that rabbit hole, okay? If you need to isolate yourself, do it in small increments, okay, small periods of time, but don't do it for too long, okay? One, it's not good for your actual mental health. It's not good for your socialization skills, but it's also just not good when it comes to grief. It helps to have people we're not meant to deal with hardship alone as humans. We're just not. We're not built for that. We're built for community. We're built for connection, and that's what we are supposed to do. And I get like, some of us are more social than others, and that's okay. Some of us want to talk about our problems. Sometimes we don't. But again, there are people that want to hear your story. There are people that will talk to you or want to talk to you, and even if they're complete strangers, there are people that really do want to talk to you. So I think there's a lot of things like that that really help, and it really does help to be social, and it helps just to talk about your issues, right? Like, you can obviously talk to a friend. You can find a friend. You can also find a therapist, a coach, hi and do all the things, and I'm just going to call it out because it is what it is. This podcast has helped me tremendously work through my shit and work through my depression and my issues. When I first started, like, two years ago, oh, my gosh, I would talk about stories that I would get so angry and so upset and so emotionally just heated. And now I talk about them and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what happened. Life is life. It's okay. The situation at the time was shitty, but I've grown through it and I've learned through it and can't change the past. So let's move on and make sure it doesn't happen in the future. Here we go. That's my mindset lately. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I think there are a lot of ways that help, and this has definitely been one of them for me personally. Last but not least, I kind of touched on this once before, but let me just really bring it home for you. You are not obligated by any means to celebrate a holiday. So if that is Christmas or New Year's or Thanksgiving, your birthday, what would have been your child's birthday? Father's Day? Mother's Day? Oh, my God, don't even get me started on Mother's Day, okay? Father's Day has already been an issue. But now that you all already know that I was supposed to have a baby, mother's Day is going to be rough. So if you don't think we're going to be diving into father wounds and daddy issues and mother wounds and mommy issues, we definitely will be doing both of those things. So enjoy it. It's going to be a ride for Ally in 2023. I'm already bracing myself. It's going to be a full blown roller coaster for me. Thank goodness for therapy and thank goodness for this podcast because my mental health would be through the roof and around the bank anyway. You are not obligated in any way, shape or form to have to celebrate a holiday. So if you don't want to celebrate, you don't have to. If you want to celebrate, feel free. If you want to decorate and do all the things, feel free. If you want to make your own traditions, if you want to go back to childhood traditions and make them kind of a new version or kind of start them back up again, feel free to do that. That's how we cope. Some of us cope that way. Some of us don't want to look at a light, okay? Some of us are the Martha May Juviers. All the lights, all the decor. Like, every single inch of your house is covered. And then there is the other group of us that are the Grinches of the world. And we don't want to decorate. We don't want to look at a tree. We don't want to look at the Christmas roast beast, okay? We don't want to do anything. We want to be completely in the darkness and have nothing to do with this holiday and just move the fuck on. And if that's you, I'm with you. And if you want to decorate, I'm also with you. Okay? I barely decorated this year, but here we are. And that's okay. Next year, hopefully we'll be better. But this year, the first year, this first really rough year that I'm like, oh, man, this is brutal. This is brutal. Guess what? We have less than a week until it's over, and then we never have to experience this stupid holiday like this again. Next year we will remember the first year that we had to grieve and then the next year after that, the second year we had to grieve. But it's never as bad as the first year, okay? That's what I say. Sure. You're going to have days where grief is going to be shitty and you're going to have to just go through it and it's going to be rough. And yes, there are going to be holidays that are going to be a little bit more more intense than others. Sure. But the first one is always the most rough because half the time you think that this person is going to just turn around the corner and you're going to be like, surprise. I'm not actually gone. Haha. Hey, how are you? And when that doesn't happen, it hits even harder to the soul. Or like when you find their, you know, stalking or their jacket or their, you know, ugly Christmas sweater they wore every year and they don't have that this year. It it hurts. It hurts. Okay, I understand it, and I get it. If you want to be a Martha Mayhubier and you want to deck out your entire house and put up all the lights and put up all the decor, do it. You know what I say? Put up a little extra, okay? Put up a little extra decor this year for those of us that put up none because just balance it out. Balance out the equilibrium. Balance out the world. You put put more decorations because I put zero, okay? Put up lights for me. Put up lights for my baby. Put up lights for my best friend that lost their parent. Put up lights for my best friend that lost their life. Put up all the lights for the people that didn't put up lights this year, okay? Because just because people didn't put out decorations this year doesn't mean that they are a Grinch. Actually, maybe they just had a really shitty year and they didn't feel like putting up lights this year because they were too busy sitting in their room crying and grieving. Be mindful.

OUTRO:

Wow, that is the longest recording I have ever done in any episode. So thank you, guys, all so much for being here with me. Still, if you're here, I appreciate you all very, very much. This was a journey. This was a journey, right? Starting from my stepdad hiring an escort all the way to me having a baby, to not having to grieve during the holidays and all the things that come around with it. I mean, this has been a ride. This has been an absolute ride. Just been left and right, up and down, a loop de loop here and there. I really didn't know what to expect from this episode, and I bet you a lot of you didn't either. So I appreciate you all very much. If you can, please make sure to like and subscribe to the podcast, rate it and leave a review you can. I know a lot of people say that. A lot of people are like, okay, yeah, whatever. It really does help me. So if you can do that, please, please. That will be my Christmas and my holiday wish. Please leave a podcast, ask review, or share it with a friend. Share it on Instagram. If you want to go ahead and check out the Horth House page, feel free to do that. It’s on Instagram @HorthHouse. And then if you want to just go follow me personally, you can follow me @Aly.Horth. I know there are a lot of you out there that are experiencing grief right now, and we all deserve to feel heard and seen, and loved. And if this podcast can help even just one person, I will be happy with that. So make sure you share with a friend. If you are grieving, just know my heart is out there with you. And I feel your pain. I care about you. I see you. I feel you, I hear you. And know we're all in this together. We're all right here together. It's brutal, but this first one is a little bit deep, and then it gets better. The first cut is the deepest baby I know. Oh, wow. Okay, get off here before I start singing more. Have fun, and make good choices. Bye!