that time of year when things seem to fall apart

Is it normal to have a time of year when things just seem to fall apart mental-healthwise?

The holidays have never been easy for me say since I was 18 or so and seem to have gotten harder & harder as years have gone by. Now, it seems like every year, I fall apart around Thanksgiving, early December and end up in the psych hospital.

I get so stressed out. And there are not only the holidays but my daughter has a December birthday, and there is also an anniversary of a sexual assault incident I experienced many years ago, but still have trouble getting past when the anniversary rolls around. Compounding all of it this year is the election next week.

I have huge anxiety and panic attacks and even times of paranoia that I'm going to black out one day and wake up in a psych hospital days and days later without a clue as to what happened in between. I am not like members here able to type and post during psychosis; when I get psychotic, I can't even TALK to people and I black out for days on end, waking up in a hospital bed, sometimes completely restrained because apparently I would be yelling nonsense & combative though I never remember any of it.

I am just so anxious going into that time of year again....

How do you get past a time of year that always triggers you?

For me it’s February. All my attempts were in February. It’s the bleakest month of the year. I pretty much go off line too. But I’ve been stable the last 9-10 years with just minor blips menopause helped me soooo much as did a fortunate cocktail.

My birthday month July is my unstable time. It takes forever to get situated again.

i usually end up IP in May-June. idk why.

For several years I've done fine all year until January when I get depressed. Last year went better because the second I started having symptoms my therapist contacted my pdoc and my AD dose was raised.


This year I'm scared. My AD dose never came down (and it's maxed out) and now I've got this mixed episode out of nowhere. I've not had something like this in a long time.

I'm sorry that you have so many bad associations with the time of the year. It's hard I know. I think my annual depressions are related to the holidays and my birthday and a history of those times being very stressful.

Fall is my bad time of year-typically, it involves a horrible depressive crash with bad SI. I'm not totally sure why-maybe, the stress of a new school year?

My pdoc says he tends to see an uptick in patients experiencing mania in October.

I'm sorry this time of year is tough on you.

November and April are my rough months. I feel like it's a seasonal thing or related to Daylight Savings. It just seems like they're months of adapting to either excessive darkness and people getting pissy about weather and holidays or it all of a sudden being bright and hot and there being a lot of reckless activity around.

I was that way for a long time and never realized it. Towards the end the hospital figured it out and told me I was seasonal. Because of the time that had passed and not much to do with improvement they offered ECT. For me, it helped. There were quite a few years I stayed out of the hospital. I was there a little over a year ago, but man, I was slammed with a lot of stuff all at once from every direction, topped off with emotional abuse from my husband...perfect cocktail for anyone.