I’m dreaming of a shite Christmas
Why it's ok if your Christmas is crap
I’ve been putting off writing this newsletter for days now.
First, it was going to be about them boxing YouTubers, but I got so bored writing it I nearly fell asleep midway through the first paragraph. (Funny how there aren’t female YouTubers with very little fighting experience demanding shots with the best combat athletes in the world, that is all I will say)
But then I thought I’d tackle a much cheerier topic: emotional breakdowns at Christmas. Festive, eh? I’ve put off writing about this because, well, I feel a bit silly. It isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me, but I think, given Covid lockdowns has made it seem like the whole of the UK is having an emotional breakdown right now, maybe this story might help someone who is struggling.
I don’t hate Christmas - I enjoy its simplicity, as my family’s Christmases have been small and simple for many years now. But it is also a time of year when my anxiety seems to flourish unchecked. Everyone online is writing their end of year lists, marking off a set of achievements I never feel like I’ve attained. It becomes a time of comparison - that person bought a house, this one got a promotion, oh look there’s yet another Christmas engagement. As I got older, each year became more of a reminder of my own personal failings.
This year, because Covid has uprooted so much of what we know and love, it feels like more people than ever seem to be on my wavelength. And honestly I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
I felt strangely prepared for 2020’s Christmas woe, because in 2018, those anxieties came to a head. I’d had a bad year. Yes, I discovered Muay Thai, but I’d also lost a job after Facebook stopped paying news organisations to pivot to video. As I began freelancing, I tried to see it as an opportunity to do more of the presenting I so badly wanted to get into at the time, but you find out quickly how little media companies value freelancers.
I struggled at one organisation to admit I had to run to the toilet to cry every five minutes when going through some triggering footage for a huge project. I was worried I’d lose all my shifts if they knew, but they dried up anyway.
Another organisation refused to pay me my day rate for videos I shot, edited and presented, saying my videos were actually ‘user generated content’ and didn’t warrant the extra money. (for those outside media, user generated content is usually used to refer to stuff videoed on someone’s phone, not content professionally shot and edited together)
I was doing shifts at a separate place where I was reprimanded for not pitching enough in the morning meeting - which was absolutely fair, except I’d stopped pitching my best work because they would give my ideas to other writers in the team. I was eventually told I wasn’t a good fit after I admitted it bothered me when, in a news meeting, someone dismissed a celebrity’s account of sexual assault as un-newsworthy because ‘it wasn’t like it was rape’.
I made so little money via freelance feature writing, I tried to top it up with transcription and subtitling on the side while applying for job after job and taking meetings with editors who’d then ghost me when I followed up about shifts. The job rejections took their toll - half the time I could barely get an interview. This was a career I’d so desperately wanted, but everywhere I turned it felt like it didn’t want me.
And maybe it wasn’t for me. I have friends who encourage me to apply for journalism roles today but, I don’t know, perhaps journalism isn’t my bag.
In 2018, as I was realising maybe that was the case, I saw that as a huge failing on my part, but I think the industry is so broken it’s often unbearable to work in. When I wrote for the Guardian about vicarious trauma I suffered after watching violent content I had messages from journalists from all over the world who had just realised this was happening to them too. Some of us aren’t getting paid enough to deal with that on top of editors who treat their staffers as disposable.
Something snapped in me on Christmas Eve 2018. I cried in bed for a week. My mum was bewildered as I sobbed, saying nobody wanted me there and everyone was ashamed of me. As far as I was concerned, I was a failure. I’d moved to that there London for nothing, quit my dream job and then lost another, almost halving my annual income in my first year of freelancing. I had savings, but they were dwindling - that Christmas, I wondered just how long I could keep this up.
I didn’t know how to tell any of my friends about it, especially the ones who also worked in media, because I didn’t want to be a burden and ruin their Christmases. Sending normal, happy, messages, my face got puffier and puffier and I felt smaller and smaller.
I had no idea how to approach this deep void which had been building in my professional life until it burst the banks and flooded my Christmas.
So, if my 2018 meltdown can tell you anything, it’s this: it’s ok to have a shite Christmas.
Here’s what you can do: delete social media, it’s only going to make you burrow further into a pit. If the weather or your mood permits, get out for a walk or a run. Then, build yourself a duvet fort and pick a series to binge - mine was the first series of You, which I only paused to grab handfuls of Quality Street throughout the day. I don’t know what it was about sociopathic, murderous stalker Dan Humphrey that calmed me down, but it did the job.
Make sure you’re in contact with people who know what you’re going through - luckily I had my parents, but I do wish I’d told some other friends. If it helps, think about just getting through it day by day. As Christmas passes, it becomes easier, if only because January is generally miserable anyway, so at least you don’t feel like the odd one out.
It would be nice to say I had that week of crying and then grit my teeth and got back to it, but life’s never quite that simple. It took me a few months and regular work in an editorial, journalism-adjacent field before I truly felt like I was back on my feet. And the gym, of course. But I’m still here. That’s what really matters.
I hope whatever your Christmas looks like, you’re happy, healthy and well.
Some tips from Mind about spending Christmas alone
Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
On the weekend of December 13th something historic happened in Muay Thai - Muay Thai Super Champ and Muay Hardcore had three women’s bout on each of their cards. This is a big deal - these weekly cards usually have seven bouts, maybe one or two of them women’s fights. But in the last year, the promoter Lui Muay Thai has made a real effort to match more and more women on their shows.
This piece by Angela Chang, a fighter and journalist in Bangkok, sums up why it’s such a big deal for women’s Muay Thai in Thailand.
“Post lockdown in Thailand, the women bouts have continued on both Super Champ and Muay Hardcore, with Lui Muay Thai pushing harder than before to allow women to take up more space on the scene. Bes, the owner of Lui Muay Thai said in an interview with Muay Thai Gram, “The reason why we promote the female event is because in Thailand, all channels have male events but no one tries to promote female events.”
And I think it’s important for female fighters outside of Thailand - where the motherland of this sport goes, the rest follows.