BBC NEWS: "I'm a risk to myself at Christmas"
This article addresses the thing I hate most about Christmas - the fact that the whole country goes into shutdown mode, with no public transport and virtually nothing open. This is all very well for people who have family to spend time with them, but for people who don't, or are estranged from them, or would rather be somewhere else, or for that matter want to spend the day with their family but don't have cars, it's not much good - but it is the mentally-ill who are among the worst affected:
For a three-week period over Christmas and the New Year, John needs to be sedated to minimise the risk to himself.
"I am a suicide risk at other times, but at Christmas the risk is greater and as it approaches I can feel my anxiety levels starting to rise, which increases the risk to my personal safety.
"Christmas causes major distress for many people like myself.
"Not only is most of the country engaged in jollity and festive cheer, but the country also seems to go into total shut-down mode.
"Services and drop-in centres close, friends and people around you tend to go incommunicado and spend time with family, and the psychiatric wards take on a very different feel, as doctors and nurses try to send all those who can go home home, making them even more difficult places to be.
"The worst times that I have had in hospital have been those in and around Christmas and the New Year because there is virtually no-one there."
That said, people who aren't seeing family for whatever reason, eg ex pats who can't afford a ticket home, are always welcome at Crisis, St Mungo's and other charities who help homeless and needy people. I did that one Christmas Eve and an Australian friend did it all three days. There's a tremendous atmosphere and you could be saving a life.
Thanks for posting this up Sidi Blogistan! This was my second Christmas away from the world of 'work' and I did think about those with mental health problems.
I spent a handful of years teaching individuals recovering from mental illness and this period would be the most stressful for the clients. Indeed, after the break we would see a drop in attendance until late January so we aimed to run some of the shorter courses so they would finish by Christmas; thereby giving students a feeling of some form of 'success' before they went off for the break.
A very sad time.
I pray very hard that the government will put more funding into mental health.. afterall - in a crude sense this is part of Britains' workforce innit?