Mental Health in a Quiet Week

Despite the festivities this is always a rather awkward and uncomfortable week for me and for others as well.

I have had a couple of friends phone me today and share their tears and upset as well as a few messaging me saying that same thing; something I am not too surprised about as it seems to be a yearly event.

This month is often one that is filled with family, food and festive fun but there are also the darker and deeper feelings that go along with it.

Despite my online persona I am often troubled with niggling mental health issues. I have in the past spoken on here about my anxiety and my dependent personality disorder so I know for many it isn’t a surprise for me to talk about it but I suppose feeling lower is often a stark comparison to the happy go lucky chap that you find on Facebook and Twitter.

December is always a month that I find difficult and for different reasons.  Not having loved ones like my Mum around for Christmas always brings a stark reminder what you miss but other little things like the forced socialising and then the absence of people and purpose is horrible.

Just before Christmas my DPD struck and was slightly triggered when someone I took for a friend decided to accuse me of making sly digs at them and copying their posts. Although I stand 100% behind the post that I wrote there were, of course, elements of upset behind it. I do not enter friendships and build up routines and relationships with people because I don’t want them to trigger me. When they backfire it does affect me more than I say.

Then there is the run up to Christmas. It is so stressful and, to be honest, I don’t know anyone who really enjoys the manic organisation. As always, I had to do everything last minute on Christmas Eve and luckily I managed to prep all the food and wrap all of the presents before it was time to collect the boys.

As I mentioned in my annual single parent post, I always have the boys from Christmas Eve evening all the way through to Boxing Day morning which, of course, is brilliant and I really know how lucky I am to have them, especially as a single dad, for that time frame.

The sad statistic, from The Samaritans, found that men aged 40 – 49 are mostly likely to kill themselves this time of year and usually are single fathers or as a divorced couple.

I can totally relate to why; it is a horribly lonely and isolating time of year.

I am far from being depressed to that degree and luckily haven’t over the last 4 years but I still get hit with DPD triggers and feelings of anxiety.

I spend all my time around Christmas fitting everything in, seeing relatives, sorting food and presents and then socialising at different events with friends and family but after Boxing Day it seems to cease. This is the week when I am left alone. I have the joy of having the boys at Christmas but my routine has changed to allow a fair access and I seem to go a week without seeing them which is exceptionally hard!

The anxiety is horrible. My chest tightens; my heart starts rushing and feels like it is going to burst. I seem to have two stages of sleep, one where I can’t sleep and then the other where all I want to do is sleep. The DPD works along it and the only way to cope is to perform certain rituals or routines like obsessively cleaning.  It is weird though because you have a certain outer appearance so people don’t always see it; I suppose if you aren’t rocking in the corner, covered in a sweat and having bursts of crying people tend to just think that you are ok.

It is the no-man’s land of a week. We have stuffed our faces full of food and alcohol, slobbed around and used all of our social powers to be jolly for all and then there is these few days where nothing happens before we all do it again for New Years Eve and Day.

I am currently in my “Hermit” mode and trying to float through these weird days full of mini bursts of anxiety or DPD. It isn’t always pleasant but there isn’t anything really that bad, although I really need to stop picking my fingers! They always take a hard hit when I’m struggling.

I think that in a week of self-loathing, anxiety, social situations,  self doubt, triggers and loneliness it is easy to feel horrid. Yet, I have had to remind several of my friends, and myself, that routine will be back in a week’s time. Then we will feel a bit more normal, a tiny bit fatter, be stressed trying to get used to being back at work and the normal breaking of resolutions.

Yet, the best thing to do is to talk to someone in those horrible moments. As a hermit fan I know how easy it is to become secluded but reach out at chat. I am always around on Twitter if you need to have some distraction or a friendly ear. Nowadays, with technology, you are never fully alone.