How to cope with your first Christmas without your person - Youth Team
Three of our Youth Ambassadors, Anna, Libby and Angharad, reflect on their first Christmas without their person.
Grief and its emotions can sometimes feel harder to handle during important times in life, especially when you experience change, such as when you’re preparing for or sitting exams. Grief can still affect you during exams even if the person died a long time ago.
Grief doesn’t look the same for everyone though, and not all young people will struggle with exams whilst grieving, although some will.
Here are some tips for you to consider if you are taking exams, wherever you are in your grief journey. Hopefully at least some of these tips will be helpful and feel relevant for you.
Talk with someone or a few people you trust - share honestly with them how you’re feeling about the exams, tell them about any worries you have to do with any aspect of the exams, share your thoughts about anything that might be helpful, and tell them how they can best support you before, during and after the exams, both practically and emotionally.
Try not to overwhelm your brain by revising for hours at a time. This is unlikely to be effective and more likely to cause you to feel overwhelmed, frustrated and disheartened. Instead, try short revision sessions of up to 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute break.
Give your brain time to process information, it's best to avoid pushing it too hard or for too long without a break. Remember to build times of rest and relaxation into your schedule to help you to function at your best.
Do different things that calm and relax you, that you enjoy and give you joy, and help you to feel safe. Aim to do some of these before exams, between exams or before you go to sleep. It doesn’t have to be anything big.
Try to involve as many of your 5 different senses as you want to, by having things that you enjoy looking at, holding, tasting, smelling and hearing; things which give you a sense of calmness, feel good and comforting. You can also combine different senses, for example, by listening to music you like whilst looking at photos you enjoy or eating a snack you like!
Recognise that exams are part of your education and life, but your self-worth, identify, value and contribution to the world go way beyond this experience. Your performance in an exam does not define who you are now or your future self.
Practice life skills (also known as grounding techniques) before your exams, so that it will be easier and feel more natural for you to use them when things might be feeling a bit harder when exams are in full flow.
These work by helping to calm you and can help reduce feelings of worry, panic and overwhelm. They may include:
Think about if you want to have something small that helps you feel connected to your person. It could be something you keep in your bag, or perhaps wearing a piece of jewellery that either belonged to the person who died, or has their ashes in, or something that was given to you by the person who has died.
Before the exam, being able to hold or look at the item could be a way for you to connect with your person, which may help to reassure and comfort you during the exams. Again, after the exam has finished, you can revisit the item as a way to calm yourself and reconnect.
If you’ve lost your motivation to study or don’t see the point or value in exams anymore because of your grief, that’s understandable. Try some of the tips on this list to bring yourself back into the present and try your best if you can.
Remember that you may have the option to re-sit the exams in the future if you want to, and this is something you could speak to your teachers or tutors about.
If one exam doesn’t go well, it can be easy to automatically think that all the rest of your exams will go the same way and you’re doomed. Try to avoid thinking in this way - one exam is completely different from the next. Just like how in your grief you can feel different from one moment to the next, try to look at the next exam as a blank page and clear your mind before going into the examination room. Revisit the grounding techniques above to find ways to clear that busy brain of yours!
If you’re concerned that you might get distracted during the exams and start thinking about the person who has died and need time to re-focus back on the exam questions, talk with your school or college before the exams and ask if they can allow you some additional time, as a reasonable adjustment to support you because of your grief which is affecting your learning.
If you’re concerned that you might feel exposed and become emotional in front of other students, and maybe you don’t want your grief on display publicly, talk with your school before the exams to ask if you may be able to sit in a smaller room on your own without other students. Some schools and teachers may be able to make these changes, but it's important to ask in advance to find out and have some reassurance.
If this isn’t possible, you could ask school if you can pause your exam or take a break if you do start to become upset. Explain to them that you may need 5 minutes or so to reconcentrate and calm yourself before you return to do the rest of your exams. You can also ask your school whether they will allow you some additional time to do the exams if you take a break, because your grief will have affected your learning.
Talking about your grief with teachers and professionals can feel really daunting. You can use our on-demand services to speak to the bereavement support team, who you can practice conversations with or ask for tips on how to go about talking about it with new people.
If you need to talk, we’re here to listen. You can speak to the Winston’s Wish bereavement team using one of our confidential on-demand services. You can chat with us anonymously if you wish and share whatever you are feeling. Nothing about your grief is off limits. We promise to listen, not judge and can offer advice and guidance if needed. You can speak to us as little or as often as you want.
Click the blue ‘Chat with us’ button at the bottom right of your screen between 8am-8pm, weekdays.
Call us for free on 08088 020 021 between 8am-8pm, weekdays.
If it’s urgent, text WW to 85258 to speak with someone from our trusted partner, Shout. Open 24/7.
If you need to speak to us in a language other than English, we can use interpreters over the phone, and we can use the Relay UK app if you have hearing or speech difficulties.
Three of our Youth Ambassadors, Anna, Libby and Angharad, reflect on their first Christmas without their person.
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