The holidays can be brutal. The stress, the expectations. The loneliness. The cold, and the lack of sunshine.
And that’s without a pandemic raging and common sense telling us to hunker down.
As an advocate for recovering addicts and mental illness survivors, I’ve cried a lot this year. Sure, sometimes I’ve cried for myself and my family. For my little girls. I wish they were experiencing the things 7-year-olds should be experiencing during the holidays.
But most of my tears have been reserved for friends, and even total strangers, who’ve relapsed during this pandemic. And that was while it was 70 degrees and sunny.
It’s good practice to check in with the most vulnerable this time of year. Our relatives who are homebound, our friends who battle mental illness, and those who either can’t get home for the holidays or might not even have a family to go home to.
This year, it’s even more paramount that we check in on each other and lean on each other for strength. Let’s show each other it’s OK to not be OK, and give each other a safe place to cry. Funny, how when we’re allowed to cry, we often end up laughing together before we know it.
If you yourself are struggling, call someone -- a family member, a friend. Google’s your friend, too, because there’s a hotline for every crisis. If you need help, ask for it.
I’m Christopher Heimerman, and that’s my perspective.
