At this time of year, it’s common to hear the “Merry Christmas” greeting without thinking twice, but for those who don’t celebrate, counsellor Juliana Bruyn says that it can be a time of isolation and mental health challenges.
“For the folks that don’t celebrate these kinds of Judeo-Christian holidays, there might be feelings of disconnection, or there might have been bullying,” Bruyn said.
Counsellor Juliana Bruyn, has her private practice. Photo credit: Juliana Bruyn
Bruyn recalls texting her friends as a kid, “What did you get for Christmas,” realizing later in life not everyone celebrates the holiday and those experiences can create feelings of isolation for others.
Founder and clinical director of Peak Resilience, Jennifer Hollinshead, who uses she/they pronouns, agreed with this as she emphasized invisible systems such as the supremacy of some religions over others and the idea of some humans being more deserving of life and resources.
“I think by integrating an analysis of these really oppressive systems and naming them and being like wait a second, you know, not necessarily taking them at face value is a huge part of us taking our mental health back and our relationships back from all of the harmful effects of those things,” Hollinshead said.
Jennifer Hollinshead, founder and clinical director of Peak Resilience. Photo credit: Peak Resilence
Bruyn emphasized this, saying it is important to understand what makes certain things hard for someone else.
“These holidays, these expectations, these are what we see in the media as what we’re supposed to be doing on these days, and that is really harmful to a lot of folks,” Bruyn added.
“What’s really important when we’re supporting each other is exploring, like what’s going on, like, ‘Oh, you’re having a really hard time, like what does that look like for you,’” Bruyn said in regards to the holidays bringing up mental health challenges such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Founder of NKS Therapy and professor at Humber College Natasha Sharma said the holidays affect people’s mental health as the holidays mark a passage of time.
Natasha Sharma, the founder of NKS Therapy and a professor at Humber College. Photo credit: NKS Therapy
“People who are looking to make a big change but are putting it off can definitely feel a sense of distress or depression around this time as a result of that,” Sharma said.
“It’s an opportunity to use any negative emotions to try and understand what they’re trying to say to you, right? Are you missing family? Are you longing for something? Are you needing to make a change in your life? These are usually the things at the root of them,” she said.
Bruyn said there’s no need to suffer alone and that people can get help.
“It’s really important to sort of reach out to different supports,” Bruyn said. “There’s also Connex Ontario which you can look up, and they have all the different mental health and substance use supports that are in Ontario that are free.”
“You can call Connex and if you just sort of say, ‘Hey, I’ve been really noticing that I’m not doing great, I’m a little different,’ they can give you a bunch of resources that kind of best suit what’s going on for you,” she said.