I bloody love Christmas! It is without a doubt my favourite time of year. I love being with my family, locking ourselves away from the world for a few days and just being. Throw in food, fairly lights and mulled wine and I’m ecstatic.

But for me, the joy of Christmas ends suddenly and abruptly when New Year rolls around. For me, this is a time that fills me with significant anxiety. It’s like the Christmas period is for reflecting on the last year, whereas New Year the focus shifts to considering the future. Like many people with a mental illness, I find this difficult.

Since losing a parent, there has always been this overwhelming sense of “will this be my last year with [insert name here]?” I spend the entirety of New Year’s Eve catastrophising about what might happen in the coming 12 months. This includes everything from my loved ones dying, to losing my job and beyond.

Couple this with the enforced ‘joy’ of New Year and I usually end up crying in a panicked mess. All of my friends usually have plans, largely centred around alcohol and large crowds, and this is something that no longer appeals to me. I don’t want to spend £25 to get into a club I wouldn’t normally be seen dead in, around people I hardly know. Despite this, however, I often feel like I am somehow ‘missing out’ on something great, or that I am abnormal for my preferences.

One of my biggest issues is the fact I despise fireworks. Noise at night is particularly triggering for me due to past trauma, and the constant banging from early evening through to 1am really can get too much for me. I feel constantly on edge and unable to relax. It’s like every time I manage to calm down another one goes off and my anxiety spikes again. 

New Year is so hard to avoid. Even if I insist I’m going to bed at a normal time, I can’t help escape the sense of the clock ticking down, edging ever closer to midnight. I can never get to sleep no matter how hard I try, it’s as if there is a timebomb in my room, and it’s ticking overwhelms me.

From recollection, the last two or three New Years I’ve ended up having full-blown panic attacks, which adds a further layer of anxiety; the anticipation of a meltdown.

I still don’t really know how I’m going to cope with this New Year. I’m working both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day and am hoping this will make me sufficiently tired to go to bed and avoid the whole thing. But I represent a significant number of people who really struggle with this time of year. Please be gentle on those around you. Try and find other topics of conversation. Don’t try and talk people into New Years plans if they don’t want to. Ask a loved one how you can help them. Because for so many, the prospect of another year can actually be pretty damn scary.

L

x