We walk among you -- silently and often in anguish. Just as deciduous trees shedding variegated leaves presage winter and the holidays, the impending arrival of Christmas swells our ranks.

Robert Biller lives in Fombell, Beaver County (briadob@peoplepc.com).

Relax, this is not another ubiquitous holiday diatribe bemoaning the triumph of consumerism over Christianity. My motivation is ameliorating the darkness and stigma of depression for my fellow holiday pariahs and enlightening those whose paths we cross.

Obese people justifiably claim they are the last target the politically correct can attack with impunity; however, the depressed fly under the radar because we view our condition as a personality flaw that "normal" humans eschew. Realizing you have a problem is the first step on this thousand-mile journey. I am not a role model. Take my odyssey through the darkness as you will: It is both a catharsis and a revelation.

Women are twice as likely as men to battle depression. This proclivity has more to do with the plethora of responsibilities they shoulder than with hormones. And this is especially true during the holidays, when unrealistic expectations and unavoidable social interactions can produce anxiety, even dread.

My dysfunctional tendencies minimally affected our family because my wife was always a rock and assumed the obligations I could not. If our roles had been reversed, the family might have dissolved.

My childhood was happy and uneventful. I cherished Christmas; Mom and Dad always put their love into the season and stressed its religious elements while they conservatively fulfilled my materialistic cravings.

Therapists try to uncover childhood traumas that underlie adult depression, but I remember only one: Mom always took the kids on her annual Christmas shopping trip to Pittsburgh. I loved riding the "clickity" narrow escalators in the department stores until a loose shoelace got entangled in the contraption and ate my shoe shortly after I extracted my foot.

After this incident, I repeatedly dreamed that I awakened on Christmas Eve in Children's Hospital as Bill Burns was pointing to my bandaged, blood- oozing stumps and asking for telethon donations. Emotionally scarring? Who knows?

The first signs of trouble surfaced in my early 30s. Loved ones always viewed me as an eccentric clown, so most of my incipient foibles were ignored; however, when I refused to open my Christmas presents and hid in the basement during holiday visitations, concern mounted. Soon, I tried to ignore the season completely, and my wife gently hinted I needed professional help. Machismo trumped common sense and I blindly struggled against this amorphous enemy for more than a dozen years.

I won't bore you with most of the details, but during this period I seemed detached from my own reality and watched (from a distance) as an evil doppelganger usurped my life over the holidays. If this statement is not enigmatic because you identify with it, you probably are suffering depression and not just the "Christmas Blues" -- please seek competent professional help. Seeking guidance is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of lucidity.

The holiday season after I began therapy was tolerable but not happy. My therapist's ministrations were palliative and through the use of photo-therapy to counteract seasonal affective disorder and vigorous exercise I improved. My therapist eventually suggested antidepressants, but I resisted because I feared a castrated libido more than a mirthless yuletide. Then serendipity intervened.

I was walking inside Ross Park Mall while my wife was returning a few Christmas presents. Suddenly, I noticed a bigger-than-life stuffed Santa Claus for sale in Spencer Gifts at a fraction of its pre-Christmas price. My bemused wife eventually helped me stuff it into the backseat of our car, and we took him home.

Henceforth, my buddy has happily occupied the same easy chair in the den, and stoically listens to my daily prattle as I read or fool around with the computer. I don't expect him to answer me, and he rarely does.

Thanks to therapy, I realized Santa was diffusing the anxiety the holiday season packs into a few weeks over the entire year. I took this concept one step further by decorating the entire house for Christmas in September. By November, I am so conditioned to the decorations that I barely notice pre-Christmas hype in the world around me. Normalcy finally has returned to the Biller household.

Every Halloween, I take out my copy of "A Christmas Carol" and read it to Santa. I see Scrooge not as a parsimonious misanthrope, but rather as a victim of profound hallucinogenic holiday depression. His triumph is my triumph.

So this holiday season, if you have a relative, or a friend, or a neighbor who doesn't celebrate and decorate, please don't assume they are curmudgeons or worse. Equanimity is the best response. Most people who suffer from depression eventually are cured.

In the final analysis, all we really want for Christmas is for it to be over.