ME and Ophelia

MISERABLE CHRISTMAS EXPERIENCES
During the season of joy, peace and goodwill

At Scaryduck's, around Thanksgiving time, I found this link to My Miserable Life - a compendium of suffering. It contains hundreds of real stories illustrating "the rich tapestry of life". The "Misery Archive" has "top five tales of woe, angst-ridden teens, terrible twenties, three horrific, forgettable forties, feeble fifties".

Two excerpts from My Miserable Christmas:

Christmas dinner breakdown - by Joshua, Virginia, Age 20:
1999 was my worst Christmas. I was failing school, in anguish about a breakup with my girlfriend, and facing potentially serious health problems. I was in a major depression the whole year, but when Christmas rolled around, it just got worse because everyone expected me to be happy. God forbid I didn't show the adequate amount of Christmas cheer. I held everything in until it all exploded out of me at Christmas dinner in front of my whole family. Right before I was called down to have dinner, I was praying to God to take my pain away. I was a total mess, and now I had to try to put my happy face on. I sat staring at my plate, desperately trying to hold myself together. Eventually my mom asked if I was sick, and that's all it took. I broke down into tears and basically had a nervous breakdown right there. No one finished their meal. I calmed myself down enough to open presents with the rest of them and everyone pretended nothing had happened. It's forever remembered as the Christmas where Josh lost it.

Christmas smackdown - by William, Texas, Age 35:
Christmas Eve when I was 14, I knew things were headed down the sh*tter when my stepmother and dad started the day off with two 12 packs and their morning coffee. At the time we were to open our gifts, my father discovered there was no more beer and all the stores were closed. He began cussing my stepmother, who retaliated by telling him what a useless drunk he was. This then turned into a physical confrontation that resulted in my stepmother being drop-kicked into the Christmas tree and riding it to floor. She in turn tried to body-slam my dad, which knocked our only working TV out the window. My father, determined to get the bitch back, leaped with both feet right into our stereo system, which p*ssed my stepmother off big time because he broke the only Conway Twitty album. Finally the cops knocked on the door and settled everything down. Sometime I'll have to tell you about our Thanksgiving dinners, especially the one where my stepmother got her head shoved into the toilet.
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If you need cheering up over Christmas, read the whole of Scaryduck's Archives - and keep the link handy to share with others who need a good laugh.