‘I was preparing the canapes when the nurse called’ – how I rediscovered hope after a traumatic Christmas

Suffering when it feels like the rest of the world is celebrating is a particular kind of loneliness but January will come and with it the promise of change

‘We humans have a resilience within us that is endlessly inspiring’ (Getty Images)

I was just putting the Christmas Eve canapes in the oven when the nurse called to tell mum she needed to come to the hospital immediately. I packed her and dad a little Tupperware of olives, hummus, brie-and-cranberry filo parcels and an oven-warmed bread roll and then my brother and I sat in front of Friends re-runs until it was a reasonable time to go to bed and cry into my pillow.

It was Christmas 2018. Two years ago. The source of my post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma that has lingered, lain dormant for months at a time and then dragged itself back into the light.

I never used to understand why so many people found Christmas a difficult time of year, why they dreaded it and actively resisted it until the very last moment. I would say unhelpfully to friends estranged from family that Christmas markets, mulled wine and The Holiday could cure all woes. Clearly lacking in empathy, I didn’t consider that if you’d been through a traumatic event like loss or illness while festive lights adorn the streets, then those lights are going to be a glaring reminder of that trauma every single year. Christmas has a way of making the bad feel even worse. It’s bright, loud and inescapable. For some, it is a time to endure rather than savour.

Two years ago, I found myself cooking Christmas dinner for the first time in my life, alone in my parents’ house, while my brother and dad sat beside my mum in her hospital bed, minutes after a doctor had stood at the foot of it and declared that he thought she had cancer. He didn’t even wish her a Merry Christmas. I picture him now with grinning snowmen on his tie and a grimace on his face, delivering news of illness and death from bed to bed. I peeled potatoes and carrots and arranged pigs-in-blankets on a tray while I cried. Family were due to arrive at midday and I didn’t want there to be no turkey for them to eat or crackers for them to pull, so I just carried on – scrubbing and wiping and basting and chopping.

Suffering when it feels like the rest of the world is celebrating is a particular kind of loneliness. A loneliness that seeps into your skin and makes you want to scratch your way out of your own life. I had to delete Instagram from my phone, unable to cope with evidence of other people’s happiness.

Christmas is becoming bigger, better and more expensive with every passing year. We lust after the John Lewis Christmas advert. We shop for plastic baubles and twinkly lights that will be broken by next year, injecting maximum fun, festivity and gluttony into every activity. We ask each other, “So are you spending it with your family?” and, “Do you still do stockings?”, never once considering that someone might not have a family, let alone a stocking.

Finding some semblance of peace in the midst of all that, especially when your mental health is suffering, is hard. Some people book a Christmas getaway for themselves, if they can afford it: perhaps a week in a cottage by the sea. I have found walking on a beach or being in nature to be infinitely healing. The expanse of it, the way it continues, grows, regenerates regardless, has a humbling way of making you feel insignificant.  

Every year on Christmas Day the comedian Sarah Millican takes to Twitter to encourage conversation among people all over the country struggling with the season. I’ve logged in for the past couple of years to read tweets and reply to some. A lot of the people engaging are alone, while others are hiding away from a busy household they can’t cope with. Whoever they are, the sense of togetherness is profound and I remember feeling so moved reading responses to a man whose wife had died in the year just gone, and having no children, was alone for the first time that year. We humans have a resilience within us that is endlessly inspiring.

This year we might not get to be with our families. It is likely that a lot more people will be spending it alone than ever before and after a year of unprecedented loss it is also safe to assume that there will be more sadness and grief around, too. As we venture into the days ahead, as the nights get longer and Christmas films start broadcasting daily on the main five channels, I will have to pay special attention to both my own mental health and that of my loved ones. My mum is now cancer free but my trauma is certain to rear its head as the smell of roasting turkey fills the house.

By 1 January, we will all be ready for something new. Perhaps we will have overindulged in cheese and brandy cream, or perhaps we had to wait out those disconcerting days between Christmas and New Year from under a duvet, watching the seconds tick by. Either way, January will come and with it not only dropping temperatures, but the promise of change. Restoration. Hope, perhaps.