The hol­i­day sea­son is of­ten por­trayed as a time of joy, cel­e­bra­tion, and to­geth­er­ness. Yet for many peo­ple, it is a pe­ri­od marked by in­creased stress, emo­tion­al strain, and psy­cho­log­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als have long recog­nised the phe­nom­e­non known as the “hol­i­day blues,” dur­ing which symp­toms of anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion, and grief can in­ten­si­fy—and for some in­di­vid­u­als, per­sist well be­yond the new year.

For many, the pres­sures as­so­ci­at­ed with the hol­i­days con­tribute to emo­tion­al dis­tress. Ex­pec­ta­tions around gift-giv­ing, elab­o­rate home dec­o­ra­tions, and care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed so­cial me­dia por­tray­als can fu­el un­healthy com­par­isons. Ex­po­sure to oth­ers’ “high­light reels” may leave in­di­vid­u­als feel­ing in­ad­e­quate, di­min­ish­ing self-worth and in­creas­ing self-crit­i­cism.

Oth­ers strug­gle un­der the weight of on­go­ing life stres­sors. Car­ing for an ill fam­i­ly mem­ber, fi­nan­cial in­se­cu­ri­ty, fears re­lat­ed to crime, or anx­i­ety about glob­al con­flicts can make it dif­fi­cult to par­tic­i­pate in sea­son­al cel­e­bra­tions. For these in­di­vid­u­als, the ex­pec­ta­tion to feel joy­ful may in­stead pro­voke guilt—about spend­ing mon­ey, en­gag­ing in con­sumerism, or fail­ing to meet so­cial norms. This emo­tion­al mis­match can lead to a sense of in­ter­nal con­flict, where per­son­al feel­ings clash with the sea­son’s pre­scribed hap­pi­ness.

The hol­i­days al­so place heavy de­mands on time and en­er­gy. So­cial and re­li­gious events, fam­i­ly gath­er­ings, trav­el, and shop­ping of­ten crowd al­ready busy sched­ules. Re­duced op­por­tu­ni­ties for rest and re­flec­tion can dis­rupt rou­tines, con­tribut­ing to ex­haus­tion, burnout, and fi­nan­cial strain.

Al­co­hol use is an­oth­er area of con­cern dur­ing this pe­ri­od. In­creased con­sump­tion can ex­ac­er­bate men­tal health dif­fi­cul­ties and con­tribute to in­ter­per­son­al con­flict. De­cem­ber is one of the high­est-risk months for re­lapse among in­di­vid­u­als in re­cov­ery, height­en­ing anx­i­ety not on­ly for those af­fect­ed but al­so for their fam­i­lies.

For those griev­ing the loss of a loved one, the hol­i­days can re­open emo­tion­al wounds. Tra­di­tions and mem­o­ries may in­ten­si­fy feel­ings of ab­sence and sad­ness. Sim­i­lar­ly, fam­i­ly es­trange­ment can be­come par­tic­u­lar­ly painful dur­ing a sea­son that em­pha­sis­es con­nec­tion and be­long­ing.

In No­vem­ber, me­dia at­ten­tion was drawn to this is­sue when Oprah Win­frey re­leased a pod­cast episode ti­tled “The Ris­ing Trend of Go­ing No Con­tact With Your Fam­i­ly.” Stud­ies cit­ed in the dis­cus­sion sug­gest that near­ly one-third of Amer­i­cans are es­tranged from a close fam­i­ly mem­ber. This re­flects a broad­er cul­tur­al shift in which in­di­vid­u­als in­creas­ing­ly choose to sev­er ties with rel­a­tives they per­ceive as “tox­ic.”

Many adult chil­dren now pri­ori­tise emo­tion­al well-be­ing over main­tain­ing oblig­a­tory fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships, find­ing it eas­i­er to dis­en­gage en­tire­ly rather than at­tempt rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. Some ther­a­pists, psy­chol­o­gists and pop­u­lar self-help au­thors have re­in­forced this trend. Dr Lind­say Gib­son, au­thor of Adult Chil­dren of Emo­tion­al­ly Im­ma­ture Par­ents, has ar­gued that cut­ting off con­tact with emo­tion­al­ly im­ma­ture or nar­cis­sis­tic par­ents can lead to greater hap­pi­ness and ful­fil­ment.

While such per­spec­tives res­onate with many, they al­so raise con­cerns.

The grow­ing in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia has am­pli­fied sim­pli­fied psy­cho­log­i­cal nar­ra­tives, with in­flu­encers fre­quent­ly pre­sent­ing them­selves as ex­perts. Short-form videos and on­line com­men­tary can frame es­trange­ment as a pri­ma­ry so­lu­tion, some­times min­imis­ing the com­plex­i­ty of fam­i­ly dy­nam­ics and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­pair.

Lan­guage al­so mat­ters. The in­creas­ing ten­den­cy to la­bel par­ents with clin­i­cal terms such as “nar­cis­sist,” “gaslighter,” or “abuser” can over­sim­pli­fy com­plex re­la­tion­ships. Over­pro­tec­tive or emo­tion­al­ly lim­it­ed par­ents may in­deed need to learn health­i­er bound­aries with adult chil­dren, but broad pathol­o­gis­ing can in­ad­ver­tent­ly jus­ti­fy per­ma­nent dis­en­gage­ment with­out at­tempts at growth or di­a­logue.

The emo­tion­al cost of es­trange­ment is of­ten over­looked. Par­ents and grand­par­ents left be­hind ex­pe­ri­ence pro­found grief, con­fu­sion, and loss. Chil­dren, in turn, may learn that sev­er­ing re­la­tion­ships is the de­fault re­sponse to con­flict. Yet, learn­ing how to nav­i­gate fam­i­ly dis­agree­ments can pro­vide valu­able skills for man­ag­ing dif­fi­cult re­la­tion­ships in the wider world—at work, in com­mu­ni­ties, and in so­ci­ety at large.

Some re­la­tion­ships are un­de­ni­ably harm­ful and, in those cas­es, dis­tance may be nec­es­sary for safe­ty and well-be­ing. How­ev­er, many adult chil­dren avoid dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions be­cause they lack the com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools to en­gage ef­fec­tive­ly—skills they were nev­er taught. With guid­ance, sup­port, and some­times pro­fes­sion­al help, many strained re­la­tion­ships can im­prove over time. It is al­so es­sen­tial to re­mem­ber that par­ents are hu­man. They make mis­takes, of­ten shaped by their own up­bring­ing and the care—or lack of care—they re­ceived. No one is born know­ing how to par­ent well.

As this trend to­ward fam­i­ly es­trange­ment con­tin­ues, we may see hol­i­days be­come lone­li­er for some par­ents who feel aban­doned and be­wil­dered. A more bal­anced ap­proach—one that em­pha­sis­es com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, re­al­is­tic bound­aries, and thought­ful at­tempts at re­pair be­fore sev­er­ance—may of­fer a path to­ward health­i­er fam­i­lies and a less di­vid­ed so­ci­ety.