Good afternoon, everyone.

It's Dr. Nigro again.

Our next episode of Psychology Unplugged, a very happy holidays from Julie and myself.

Again, I've said this every week.

I'm so grateful for how many people who follow this program, many people who reach out to me, whether phone call, text message, emails.

I look forward to doing this every week. And again, much, much gratitude. And I'll provide my

contact information at the end of this episode. So a common theme that I talked to with several people, more than several, probably a few dozen people, of the impact of mental health on families, on relationships, intimate, platonic, collegial relationships with children.

And this time of year is an incredibly difficult time for individuals struggling with

mental illness, especially those with what we call the effective disorders.

Depression, anxiety, bipolarity. You know,

winter sets in, at least in the Western hemisphere, it gets dark. It's like, well, it's starting

get a little lighter up, but still like around 4 o'clock.

The holidays, you know, from a Christian perspective, I would say, you know, you celebrate Christmas

and you move through the hustle and bustle of shopping and of getting cards and getting

together with families, some of which you only see once a year,

and that's probably all that you want to see them. Other times, it, we call these like anchor dates.

Anchored dates are dates that have a specific significance. That could be like Thanksgiving,

could be Christmas, could be Easter, could be a birthday.

Like for me, like my father's birthday is a hard day for me.

So it was my mother's birthday.

So it was the day of their death.

So anchor dates can be, you know, positive like anniversaries and, you know, cutting the other way birthdays as well.

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