The Pain of Being Alone During the Holidays

Some people have a really hard time

**Content Warning: Mention of suicide attempt, physical and sexual violence**

This is one more story back from when I worked as a therapist with prisoners and ex-prisoners. Holiday times were particularly difficult for the service users who missed their families. The final week of December was the end of my time there, and I had already announced that to those that I saw more regularly so that we could have a proper termination and say goodbye.

There was one service user who I didn’t have the opportunity to have a termination session with, but he called to leave me a message and wish me good luck with the rest of my life and happy holidays. He was the convicted neo-nazi I wrote about a while ago. Even though that surprised me, there was one other experience during my last day at the organization that made me the most emotional.

George (fake name) was a service user who was in and out of prison for drug possession and selling. He was entitled to one session a month after his discharge, since he was also receiving outpatient mental health services elsewhere. He was a man in his late 30s and he had a very gentle gaze. He was gay and struggled with that a lot in prison. He wasn’t much of a fighter, and he was sexually and physically assaulted several times. One of those assaults eventually triggered an episode of depression-induced psychosis. He was taken to the prison hospital where he was over-medicated.

When he was released, he went straight back to using drugs and he had a mild psychotic episode which landed him in a psychiatric hospital for a few months. Based on his progress he could have gotten out of there earlier but, to put it in his words, “no one cared for a criminal scum”. It was already June when he got discharged from the psychiatric hospital. With the help of the organization, he was able to find a small studio apartment to rent.

I don’t want to go too deep into George’s childhood history to protect his confidentiality, but it was full of physical and sexual abuse. It was very scary for him that this abuse continued while he lived on the streets, and even in the prison “while the guards knew it”.

When he came in the session room he looked rather happy. He then proceeded to tell me that two weeks prior he was feeling really depressed about spending the holidays alone. He tried reaching out to his family but they didn’t want to have anything to do with him because of his sexual orientation and criminal history.

The more he watched happy advertisements on his small TV and listened to happy festive songs on the radio, the more hopeless he felt. He attempted to jump to his death from the balcony, but a neighbor saw him and called the emergency services.

They took him to a psychiatric hospital and after the psychiatric evaluation he was told that he could leave in a few days. According to him, he begged them to keep him there for a few more days so that he won’t have to spend the holidays alone, but they told him that this was not possible because they were understaffed.

At that point in his narration of the events, he handed me a stamped and signed paper from the psychiatric hospital that said he had “permission to leave for 4 hours”. He smiled like a small child who holds their favorite candy. I was confused. I asked him how did he manage to stay in the psychiatric hospital after all.

He took off his scarf and showed me a scar that extended from one side of his neck to the other. It looked like a burn. I was shocked and speechless. He told me that he attempted to hang himself in the hospital and that they found him on time. He said that he wouldn’t have minded if he wasn’t found. I was still in shock but I managed to ask him a few things.

He was very happy that they gave him permission to leave for a few hours so that he could attend the session. After wrapping up the termination, he reached in his backpack and gave me a pencil with a reindeer eraser on top.

I wasn’t expecting to receive a gift, and I was still in mild shock from the way he casually showed the marks of the makeshift rope on his neck earlier.

While he filled in some paperwork, I got an opportunity to ask my supervisor about how I should proceed. The organization had a “no gifts policy” but she said we could make an exception because of his history and because it was our final session. She then suggested that I give him something small in return.

I had nothing on me, but I got a piece of scrap paper and made a small paper boat. I gave it to him and he got really happy. He leaned in to give me a hug but my supervisor reminded him of the “no physical contact” policy. He said that he looked forward to paint it once he got back to the hospital.

[Here’s a picture of the pencil with a small paper boat I made just now. Perhaps I need to write a story about the two types of paper boats I know how to make and their importance for me. Let’s get back to the story now.]

I keep the pencil on my desk ever since. I have never used it to write anything because I don’t want anything to happen to it.

Since then, whenever the holidays approach I think about him and I wish that he’s doing well. I also wish the same for anyone else who is having a hard time. I never really cared about the holidays, but I know that other people care and that being alone can be very difficult for them.

Kindness shouldn’t be only a holiday thing, though.

And, since none of us is able to relieve the pain those people feel, I think that the next best thing we can do is to be kind even to strangers. We can never know what someone else is going through, and a kind act could make their day or even save their life.

Thank you for reading.

***If you need help, or if you know someone who might be having a hard time, reach out to your local services and mental health helplines.***