Happy holidays everyone. This is the first year I've made it to December without curling up in a depression spiral. It's also the year I quit a toxic, stressful job and switched to one that seems to be made of people who all have some sort of trauma from former toxic workplaces and try to make this one suck less.
Normally this time of year is one big mass of stress. From penny pinching and finals in college to long hours trying to get everything done by the end of the year at aforementioned toxic job, this time of year normally sucks enough that I don't even mind spending time with that one awful relative. This year, things are pretty relaxed at work. Deadlines were set sensibly and when something fell into my manager's lap he straight up told the higher ups it wasn't possible by the end of the year and wouldn't be done until then.
It's just kind of amazing that I've spent so many years thinking the holidays and the season were what was causing my mental deterioration when in actuality it was the job, that I thought I liked at that time, that had me so tightly strung it greatly sent me to years multiple times.