When Depression is in your bed

Grief, Gratitude & ADHD: What’s Been Coming Up for Me This Holiday Season

• Trish Sanders, LCSW • Episode 46

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Holidays have a way of pulling old feelings to the surface. This time, two truths came up at once: the enduring ache of losing my dad five years ago, and a quieter grief I call “ADHD grief”—the gap between the cozy, orderly home I imagine and the real limits of my brain and nervous system. I share the moments that stopped me mid-task, what changed when I paused to feel instead of fix, and how gratitude began to stand beside grief without erasing it.

You’ll hear how an unexpected gathering on my dad’s anniversary became a gift of connection rather than a ritual of loss, and why that mattered more than any plan I could have made. We talk about the pressure to perform “holiday perfection,” the comparison traps that heighten shame, and the kinder, capacity-based choices that bring the season back to what counts. From ordering cards early to hearing my daughter say the tree makes every morning feel like Christmas, I show how small, doable wins can carry real magic—even when the closets are messy and the to-do list is imperfect.

If you live with ADHD or another form of neurodivergence, or if you’re navigating fresh or longstanding grief, you’ll find practical compassion here: naming what you can’t control, choosing what you can, and taking one step—toward action, rest, connection, or care. We won’t force gratitude as a cure, and we won’t rush grief. Instead, we make space for both and let them guide better decisions, gentler self-talk, and traditions that fit our actual lives. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review—then tell me: what one step will you take today?

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to the When Depression is in your bed podcast. In today's episode, I'm sharing what's really been happening for me this holiday season, how gratitude and grief can coexist, and how ADHD brings its own versions of both. My hope is that by sharing my story, you may feel a little bit less alone in yours. I'm your host, Trish Sanders, and I am delighted that you are here. So let's get started. Over the last few weeks, I have had a few moments where I have just been bowled over by a huge wave of emotion in the middle of my day. Once I was doing dishes, another time I was opening up my closet looking for something for Christmas. And I literally just had this moment where I was physically overcome by these huge emotions. And I really had to stop and take pause because it was such a clear moment of like, whoa, that's different, or that's new, or that's something, I guess, maybe. And I had to pause each time and really think like, what's happening here? Like, what's going on for me? The first time that it happened, I realized pretty quickly that it was bereavement grief because it was the weekend of the anniversary of five years since my dad's transition. And I knew that I was grieving the loss as well as celebrating his life. I had had a dinner with some of our family friends a couple of weeks prior to that in memory of my dad. And I was also together that weekend with a lot of friends who are family to me and my dad. But it was a couple days after the actual anniversary, and it really just hit me. And I realized that I just needed to slow down and honor it because even though I had done these things and it didn't really feel like I was checking boxes, but I think in my head, I was like, oh, I did recognize this five-year anniversary, but my body was communicating to me a very different reality that wasn't enough. Not in like I needed to do more sort of way at all, but in that I needed to feel more, I guess, is probably the more accurate version of what I think the message was. And so I really was able to slow down and sit with that grief. And then about a week later, I had another couple of experiences that were very similar. And I paused. And while I realized that the grief that I had around my dad could certainly be part of that emotional overwhelm, there seemed to be something else really more prominent, at least in that particular moment that was happening for me. And it was around my experience of getting my house prepared for guests, which is in and of itself something I could talk about and probably will spend another episode talking about. But the idea of just like getting everything ready for someone to come over and also getting the house ready for the holidays and everything that was around that. And as somebody with an ADHD brain, those things which may come more easily or at least differently to people with neurotypical brains are really quite challenging for me. But I want to do those things. I want my house to be ready for visitors. I want to be able to have my kids have their friends over and have play dates at the house. And I really would love for my house to be the hangout house for my teenage son and his friends. And I also want to create holiday magic for my kids. So it's not that it's out of alignment with who I am authentically. These are things that I want. It's just that they are hard for me because of how my brain works. And I realize that in that moment, that wave that stopped me in my tracks physically was also a grief experience. But it wasn't bereavement grief. It was some version of what I would call ADHD grief. And what I mean by that is that, and I'll talk concretely about it in relation to my house and getting things ready. I've lived my whole life with an ADHD brain, and getting certain things in order in my house can be really hard. Keeping my house in order is extremely hard. You know, if you ring my bell at any given moment, you're likely to find some random piles on countertops or tables. And please don't open my closets. There is a chance that perhaps you might find something that's delightfully organized, but I do think the odds are that in reality you'll probably find a big old mess. And how that impacts my day-to-day life is hard enough. But when it comes to the holidays, when I want to be able to find my outdoor decorations from last year or locate the treetopper for my Christmas tree, it poses a whole nother level of challenge. And I was having this grief experience of the mom that I wish that I could be, or the vision of the Christmas magic that I want to create for my kids that I'm not able to create. I felt the grief in not being able to be that or have that or do that. And similarly to the bereavement grief that I had around my dad, this wasn't an experience of I needed to do more. It wasn't like, oh, I need to try harder or I need to get more organized or I need to figure this out. Even though I'm certainly in the process of growing and learning and working with my ADHD and my brain, appreciating its strengths and figuring out how to build strategies that really work for me that help me have the life I want to have. So that's definitely something that's happening, but it wasn't about that. It wasn't about doing more or even figuring things out. It really was an experience of I just needed to take pause and be with that grief. Like, oh, this doesn't look the way that I wanted it to look or that I wished that it would look. And I think that there was also some comparison torture grief that was really in there because I do live in an area where people I know have beautifully decorated homes inside and out. And they do so many beautiful holiday activities with their kids. And I know that this is happening in the world. And when I realize the extreme gap between what I am able to do and what some other people around me are able to do, there's grief in that experience as well. And there's a sense of loss. And certainly if I allow it, it can go into an I'm not good enough place and I'm a failure place. But I was really able to not go into that place, really hardly at all. Like maybe I touched it a little bit, but that really wasn't what the main message of the experience was. It was much more, again, both in the experience with my dad and with this ADHD grief experience, just acknowledging that and allowing myself to feel those feelings. And that was really, for me in those moments, enough. That's really what I needed. And when I was able to do that, really acknowledge and allow the grief, I was able to hold them and move through those feelings. And moving through feelings doesn't mean that I didn't feel those feelings anymore. I still have grief and I will always have feelings about the loss of my dad. And I don't know, maybe one day I will have a home that's decorated differently for the holidays. But even still, that won't take away the loss of all of the years that I didn't have that or when my kids were younger and I wished I had that for them or whatever that is. So, like the loss is the loss, and that doesn't change, but I wasn't stuck in the feeling and the heaviness of that grief once I acknowledged it. And all of a sudden, I was really able to also hold this incredible gratitude. And I will share this story because to me, this is such an example of how the universe works, at least how I experience the universe and how I interpret what's happening. I had mentioned I had had a dinner a week or two before my dad's actual five-year anniversary. And it just so happened that on the actual anniversary date of my dad's death that there was this event, and I won't go into too much detail about it just to protect those who have not consented to have me talking about them on my podcast. But dear family friends of ours who have known me since birth, their child, who is now grown, had a special event. And it just so happened to land on the date of my dad's actual anniversary. So I ended up being with all of these people, many of whom were at the dinner just a week or two prior. And we were together, not in memory of my dad, but in celebration of our connection and the the life that we were all living. And it was just so incredibly touching and beautiful to me that we weren't just checking a box. We weren't just saying, like, oh, we got together for Tom's anniversary. We were together because we all wanted to be together. And that felt really, really special to me to be able to maintain these connections and nourish these connections, to be able to be together with all of these people. And we did a toast to my dad, and we, of course, talked about my dad, and we knew that it was the anniversary, but it felt like this universal gift that we were together in this really special way, and that it wasn't driven by the loss, it was actually driven by our genuine connection to one another. And I had so much gratitude for that. So as you can probably hear or see if you're watching the video, I still get really emotional about it because of the amount of gratitude that I had. And it was in acknowledging the grief that I was really able to hold space for the depths of the grief and also the depths of my gratitude. And very similarly, with the grief around the loss of what I haven't been able to accomplish by my own standard as a result of my ADHD brain, I started to really be able to hold so much gratitude for how far I have come. Because I remember so clearly Christmas has passed when my son was younger and my husband was struggling and depressed, and what those seasons looked like, which I will talk more about in future episodes. But in addition to that, just what ADHD looks like or how ADHD has shown up over the holidays, and again, and me wanting to provide holiday magic for my son when he was small, and now, of course, both my son and my daughter, but having these kind of like capacity issues, like a place I just can't quite get to. I can't get it all together in exactly the way that I'd like to. But seeing that I ordered my holiday cards already this year, and they will probably be sent out before Christmas Eve Eve, which in the past is when I had gotten to send them out because life was what it was, and I wasn't able to bring that task to priority quick enough until Christmas was a day or two away. And then I was like, oh my gosh, I have to spend all night long making sure that all of these cards get mailed and out before Christmas. And so they got out, but they probably didn't arrive at most people's houses until after the holiday was over. And also the years that I didn't even make a holiday card because I just couldn't get to it. And again, I think that it was a mix of ADHD and my life circumstances, but I see how far I've come. And my husband told me that one of the mornings after we put up our tree this year, our daughter came downstairs and said something like, Oh, it feels like Christmas morning every morning. And I realized, oh my gosh, she's still experiencing the magic of holidays, right? She's still experiencing the magic of Christmas, even if I'm not doing that hundred other things that I would like to be doing. And last year I started really consciously focusing on having my kids choose a couple of activities that felt really important to them to do over the holidays that would make them feel like we were doing something special and celebratory. And we did that last year and we're continuing to do that this year. And I was able to really look at the shift in how my holidays have felt to me and to my children and really have a lot of gratitude for that as well. And the awareness that my grief and my gratitude don't in any way cancel each other out, right? Because if I take a moment and I think about my grief, whew, it's right there, right? But if I allow that, it'll find its way into gratitude. And if I sit with my gratitude long enough, it probably will find its way back to grief, either thinking about my dad not being here in the same way he used to be, or in thinking about something that I wish I could have done differently in the past that I just wasn't able to do and the loss of that. But to be able to hold space for all of that, I think is really the goal and the most important thing. At least it has been for me. And knowing that there are moments when I will be knocked over by a wave of grief. That is a very common grief experience. I know that intellectually, but I also know that experientially. And I also know that my gratitude can shore me up in those moments sometimes. It can help lift me up so that I can hold the grief. Not so that I can forget the grief or move on or let go of necessarily, but just so that I can be with all of those feelings when they arise. And from that place, it becomes very clear to me, or it has been becoming very clear to me, particularly over the last few weeks, what I can and can't control. And I cannot control when somebody dies, especially somebody that I love. I cannot control the brain that I was born with, and I can't control how my past experiences impacted my brain and my nervous system and how that does, in fact, affect how I show up in the world. I can't change all of those things from happening or having happened. However, there are so many things that I do have a choice about and I do have the ability to make decisions that can create change for myself in how I experience all of those things that I can't control. And so I can choose to acknowledge my feelings and be with my feelings, even when they're hard, which certainly they sometimes are. And I can control how I take care of myself and how I talk to myself in my head. I can control who I reach out to, who I spend my time with, from having the wonderful dinner that I had in celebration of my dad, to the universe supporting me and being able to spend time on my dad's anniversary with people who I loved so much, to being able to reach out to my friends and family when I'm having these moments, or my husband, I was able to share with Ben and be vulnerable with him in a different way than I often am. I definitely take on the role in my relationship as the person who just can kind of keep going and I take care of stuff and I do stuff. And it's been a long time of me working on me being able to slow down and open up and be vulnerable and show my feelings and show my needs and my soft spots on all of those things allow me to have more deeper, meaningful connections with all of those people who I love so much, including my husband Ben. And I also have control over what I focus on and what I choose to put my energy into. For me, having an annual dinner in celebration and memory of my dad feels really nourishing and special. And it's a tradition that I really love. And so I continue doing that. And when it comes to my house over the holiday season or any day perhaps, I can choose how much effort and energy I put into that within my capacity. And with compassion, I can do that. And my living room may never look like it came out of a scene in a Hallmark movie, and maybe it'll never actually look like that. No matter how hard I work at trying to create strategies that allow me to do more of what I want to do, and that's okay. Maybe we need a new kind of holiday Hallmark movie that reflects a life that so many of us are living, that the standard is not perfection. Because even for all of those amazing people whose houses are so beautifully decorated and I admire so much, even they, I have to imagine, feel in some way, somewhere, that they're falling short of some standard of perfection because that's what we're fed, that that's what we're supposed to do. And maybe some of them are totally content and happy, and I hope that they are, but I know for me, the standard of perfection of what I'm supposed to do or what I think I'm supposed to do to create holiday magic for my kids, or even in the idea of how you handle grief, like five years after my dad died. I think our society might say, like, I shouldn't have moments where I'm bowled over by those feelings, like grief should be over. We live in a society that kind of wants to put that stuff in the past. But I don't think that it's realistic and I don't really think that it's helpful. It certainly isn't helpful for me. And I know that the holidays are a time of grief for so many people in a multitude of different ways. And I really want to acknowledge that. And if you're having a grief experience, this holiday season where you are might be very, very different than where I am in my grief process. And please know that I'm not trying to tell you that you should be grateful right now if you're experiencing big grief. Maybe you're not at the place where the gratitude is available to you yet, or maybe you can hold space for both. This is a very unique thing. So I'd want to be clear that I am not setting a message that if you're grieving, just be grateful instead. I am not saying that at all. My message really is about holding space for all the grief, for all the gratitude. Open your arms and your heart to all of it. And if you are ADHD or neurodivergent like me, then you might know the very special grief and gratitude that can come along with having that kind of brain. But to know that all of that is important and being able to acknowledge all of those feelings and hold all of those feelings is so incredibly valuable because it will guide you. It'll tell you what you need and it'll help you see with clarity what you can't control and what you can, and to know that you do have a choice. And so I hope that you make the choices that are available to you so that you can meet whatever comes up for you this holiday season with love and acceptance. As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments because I want to thank you for showing up today. And I want to leave you with an invitation as you hit stop and move back out into the world on your own unique wellness journey. In order to move from where you are today to the place where you want to be, the path may seem long or unclear or unknown. And I want you to know that if that seems scary or daunting or downright terrifying or anything else, that is totally okay. Know that you do not have to create the whole way all at once. We don't travel a whole journey in one stride. And that is why my invitation to you today is to take a step, just one. Any type, any size, in any direction. It can be an external step that can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize taking in your mind. It can be a step towards action or towards rest or connection or self-care or whatever step makes sense to you. I invite you to take a step today because getting to a place that feels better, more joyful, more connected than the place where you are today is possible for everyone, including you, and even when depression is in your bed. If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media at trish.sanders.lcsw. Your feedback will help guide future episodes, and I love hearing from you. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared. Until the next time we connect, take care of yourself and take a step.