Explains how the period around Christmas and New Year might affect your mental health. Gives tips on how to cope and suggestions for supporting someone else.
Whether or not Christmas is part of your life, your mental health might be affected by it happening around you. It's a time of year that often puts extra pressure on us, and can affect our mental health in lots of different ways.
For example, if you:
"Listening to other people's exciting plans makes me feel like an alien being, as I don't have all those wonderful relationships in my life."
The festive period could affect your mental health in other ways too. For example:
"I used to get so excited – I guess you could say hypomanic – when Christmas came around. But year after year the expectation vs reality would be a bit of a comedown and cause me to dip into a depression soon after the New Year."
If Christmas is a hard time for you, it's important to remember that you are not alone. There are things you can try that might help, such as:
This information was published in December 2020. It will be updated in December 2021.
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