Mental Health At Christmas: Tackling Loneliness

Hi everyone! This year I'm doing a series of posts about mental health at Christmas. This week's post is about tackling loneliness at this time of year, and why that's both hard and important.

I love Christmas. It's my second favourite time of the year (after Halloween of course), and I enjoy almost everything about it - the spirit of giving, the changing colours and lights, the cosiness of it all. Something I don't enjoy, of course, is how lonely some people can be this time of year. Campaign to End Loneliness tell us that 230,000 - 450,000 people over 65 spend Christmas alone every year, but the more time I spend on social media, the more I am reminded that over 65s aren't the only ones who struggle with this time of year. That statistic says nothing of the people who are under 65, or those who don't feel able to go back to families that will not accept them for who they are. They are important too, and a vastly overlooked group of people at Christmas.

Loneliness is one of those things that isn't very well understood. You can see people on a fairly regular basis and still feel lonely, or you can be alone a lot of the time and not necessarily feel lonely. With loneliness, as with a lot of things, it's more to do with how it's perceived than any kind of "facts" on the matter.

If you feel lonely at Christmas it can be so much worse, because it feels like everyone else is having a lovely time with their super close-knit families and friends. Adverts tell us that everyone wants to see us all the time, and that nobody should be lonely at Christmas. Which doesn't change the reality that some people are, and can make people feel even more isolated. Here are a couple of things that you can do instead:

• Don't blame yourself. For whatever reason, you find yourself lonely at Christmas. That's not necessarily your fault, and blaming yourself is likely to spiral you into depression. If you're choosing not to be around family this year because they're not good people for you to be around, know that I think you're brave and a rock star. Being lonely is better than being abused, or constantly feeling guilty.
• Find something else to do. This might be volunteering, or going for a long walk on your own, or sitting in your pyjamas watching horror films on Netflix all day. You get to decide the script this Christmas - if you want to be around people you can be, but if you don't, you don't have to be. On that note...
• Don't force yourself to be sociable if you don't want to be. Just because everyone tells you that you shouldn't be alone at Christmas doesn't mean that you can't be, if you want to be. Christmas isn't a set thing that you have to behave in a certain way towards - don't pressure yourself into doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, whether that's going home for the holidays or volunteering at a homeless shelter because you think you should. It's only likely to make you feel worse in the long run.

If you want to help people who might be lonely at Christmas, there's loads of things that you can do. But there's also probably a few things that you shouldn't do as well - here's a list of tips:

• Check in on your neighbours - the general advice that's given is often "especially if they're elderly," but I don't necessarily agree with that. Check in on your neighbours anyway, whether they're old or young, have young children or no children, or whether you think they're likely to be lonely or not. You just don't know until you start talking to someone, and even if they're not lonely they might be stressed out or low. Maybe you can help.
• Offer support to organisations that help - charities like the Samaritans can be invaluable on Christmas day, and they need money to keep going. If you have a little going spare, and want to support charities that combat loneliness, then have a look at what's available in your area. The money you donate could mean the difference between a lonely person having someone to talk to on Christmas day and them not.
• Don't impose yourself on people - this is an important one. Just because you think someone might be lonely doesn't mean that they are. By all means check in on people, but if it feels like they want you to leave them alone then don't push them into coming over on Christmas day, or keep knocking on their door when it's clear they don't want to answer. Lonely people don't exist purely to let you help them and then feel better about it, I'm afraid, and helping people manage loneliness is less about you and more about making them feel comfortable. Sometimes, that means leaving them alone.

Christmas is a complicated time of the year, made even more complicated by loneliness. But we can help ourselves, and we can help other people, to try to make the world a little better - and for me, that's what Christmas is all about. Do you have any tips to manage loneliness at Christmas? Let me know in the comments.