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Anxiety at Christmas

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ajanela Wed 28-Dec-16 09:36:05

In the past I had realised I do get very anxious about Christmas, the stress of shopping, relationships, expectations giving the right presents etc and I noticed small panic attacks particularly when waking early in the morning and I am always glad when it is all over.

This year there have been a number of tragic and stressful events in my life in the run up to Christmas. I found myself waking early and feeling very tense and panicking, feeling on edge most of the day and finding it difficult to cope with normal things. Walking the dog the most enjoyable time. I put this down to all these events and then I woke up on Boxing Day no panic attack! I realised Christmas nerves hit again.

I do enjoy somethings about Christmas and I am normally an active person being very involved in running a club and being very social.

I am going to try to abdicate even more from the Christmas event without being too humbug but it is still all around you to remind you. I don't want to find a way to cope with Christmas, I want to do it on my terms without upsetting people. Luckily my family feel the same and I am very happy to buy presents for my grandson, who has a very short list of wants.

Wanted to share this in case others have this problem.

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Teetime Wed 28-Dec-16 09:44:39

I think a lot of people share this problem ajanela and I suppose the trick is as you say to do it on your terms which is pretty much what I do. I like the traditional Christmas but have given up on the parties, visits, shopping (do it all online) etc etc - I suppose DH and I are quite boring really.

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tanith Wed 28-Dec-16 10:09:26

We did a secret Santa for all the adults this year you can't imagine how much stress that lifted from me. My Christmas was happy and stress free for the first time in many years.

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ajanela Wed 28-Dec-16 23:05:44

Well writing down and sharing my anxiety has made me see it differently. The panic attacks I get are unreasonable for what I have to cope with I think I have a phobia of Christmas.

After having chemo I had a phobia of the water you drink from the large bottles available in hospitals. I started to feel sick after drinking it. Why - because before they gave me chemo which made me very sick they gave me a cup of the water to take some tablets. I feel nauseous just writing about it. So my mind associated the water with sickness.

My local NHS hospital offered Emotional Freedom Technic- EFT sessions ( tapping) and this helped a great deal. Since then I have tried to learn more about it but haven't practiced it for a while. So next Christmas I am going to try to remember to do lt if the panic attacks start or maybe before they start. I had never heard about it before the sessions and please search you tube or the Internet to learn more if you are interested.

This also shows how the power of sharing can help us see things differently.

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