Coping with poor mental health on holiday

[Rainatnight]

I wondered if anyone would like a chat/bit of support about this?

I have depression and anxiety in and off. Hugely linked for me to work stress. Always found holidays difficult - the total stopping would just bring lots of tricky things up in my brain and I’d spend a lot of the holiday very anxious.

Anyone else like this? My Gp mentioned today that it’s very common.

I accidentally found a way of dealing with it when DP and I started to go on fairly challenging hiking holidays. The combination of intensive exercise plus something to concentrate on (which way? Don’t fall off that mountain! ) were REALLY good for my mental health, to the point that if I did that for the first week of our hol, I was able to spend the second week doing something very ordinary, in a spa or whatever.

Now, we have two small children and the hiking holidays are out. We went on a nice holiday to France a few weeks ago and I got really quite poorly with anxiety a couple of days in, and have spiralled down now into quite a bad depression.

Not being all poor me or anything, really. But really interested to know if other people feel the same and what, if anything, you do to manage it.

Thanks

Yep, same here.

The amount of times I;ve been on holiday in a nice place or sitting around a pool looking at people relaxing and having a nice time, when I was full of anxt, stress and worry - simply unable to unwind and forget my troubles.

In my head, my mind works by saying to me "How can you relax when you know full well that when you get home, x, y and z will be waiting for you and all those issues will remain unresolved" etc.

I wish I had the ability to enjoy the moment and just switch off and relax, but I simply can't. I live in a constant state of high alert and worry.

If you find a way to overcome this, please let me know.

So sorry this happens to you too, though reassuring to know I’m not alone.

Yes, it’s the voice telling you it’s ridiculous to relax when there’s so much going wrong.

I really do recommend the hiking, if you’re in a position to do that, or something similar.

I get anxiety on holiday too. It's not related to work stress, I think it's just the feeling of wanting my family to be happy but not having our familiar things around. I don't suffer anxiety on solo trips! It's the good old pressure of expectation isn't it. In the unlikely event I have a crap time travelling alone I can have a beer and chill out. With my family, I can't put myself first.