LATE BLOOMERS - SURVIVING DECEMBER: Christmas after loss, trauma and estrangement

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

In this deeply personal Christmas episode of LATE BLOOMERS, Rich sits down with Rox—aka “the Grinch”—to unpack the real story behind her decades-long struggle with Christmas. What starts as a festive chat quickly becomes an honest, emotional journey through grief, trauma, family estrangement, alcoholism, shock, and the impossible pressure to feel joyful when your whole world has collapsed. Rox opens up about losing her mum and grandad within days of each other, navigating her dad’s long-term affair, spending Christmases alone in a basement flat with cider and a microwave dinner, the years of numbing, running, self-injury, and trying—and failing—to hold it all together. She also shares the complicated love of still wanting your dad, the devastation of being blocked, and the strange relief that comes when a door finally closes. But this isn’t just darkness. Rich and Rox trace the long road back: therapy breakthroughs, sobriety, chosen family, stepchildren, new traditions (including the legendary New Year’s Eve Fairy), and the slow, unexpected return of seasonal joy. If you find Christmas overwhelming, lonely, painful, or loaded with memories you can’t hold by yourself, this episode is for you.

Build a more secure, resilient self and strengthen your relationships. For 15 years, mental health professionals at the Center for Interpersonal Relationships have offered psychological treatment and assessment services to help you, your couple, your adolescent, and your family. Psychotherapy starts at $75 per session. You don't have to live with depression, anxiety, or difficulties in your relationships. We offer an initial session online or in person in Toronto at 790 Bay Street. Visit cfir.org.com. This week on late bloomer's, I am interviewing the Grinch.

You may know them by rocks. We are going to talk about why she used to hate Christmas and what she's doing to maybe get a bit better. Is that fair? I love how I'm the Grinch. You are the Grinch. I mean, we don't look very grinchy. No, would a Grinch have an elf hanging underneath their microphone?

This is the late Bloomer's podcast where we are getting our lives together. Eventually. I do just want to do a quick trigger warning. Okay, so this is technically our Christmas episode. You think we'd go happy and festive? Wrong. We're going depression, death, grief, cancer. Good God.

So we're taking it down. So if you've had enough Christmas cheer, enough Christmas spirit, this is the place to be. In all reality, there's going to be mentions of illness, death, very, very bad mental health, so just be forewarned. Is there going to, just so we know, is there going to be some joy maybe at the end maybe re or not we're going to have to find out this is the grinch's journey right don't judge the grinch there's always a reason why the grinch didn't like christmas well let's maybe start there

so i refuse to believe that you've always hated christmas so my first question what was christmas like as a kid Pretty decent tree presents My dad would like go out and ring a bell Around the neighbourhood on Christmas Eve What He'd pretend to be a sleigh Like he'd go around and ringing a bell And he'd take, he'd just loved it every year

Wow Yeah, it's quite sweet Yeah, all had presents Quite a nice time Like I think I was quite into it as a kid But my memories of that time I don't have very many I think if you've been through trauma, some sort of abuse or death

or something really, really big, it can mess with your memory. So I don't remember much of my childhood before things went wrong, unfortunately. Do you remember, though, you've got any memories of, like, having a stocking at the end of your bed and, like, believing in part of Christmas and stuff? Stocking, yeah. I remember always having an orange at the bottom of, like, a woolly stocking. Everyone had an orange, didn't they? Yeah.

Wow. Maybe Father Christmas is real. And he just dishing out oranges. Okay, fine. So look, we think you enjoyed it then that you don't really know. Okay, cool. That's a good start. Way to bring the Christmas cheer. So on that note, when do you remember when it all sort of went wrong? Yes. So would have been my mum got diagnosed of cancer in 2003. I'd just gone to. to uni, so I'd have been 18, so the next few Christmases was her, like, getting progressively more ill and then dying. Wait, did she die at Christmas? She died at the beginning of December, I think December the 5th, but then obviously the funeral was the week later, and then my granddad, who I was really close to, died a week after that, and then it was his funeral.

So December 2006 was like tough. The same year. They both died the same year, the same month. Yeah, he died a week after her funeral. But they said it was of a broken art. What? It's a broken art syndrome. It's like your body just shuts down.

He was old. He was, I think, in his 80s. But he couldn't cope with losing his daughter. Of course. Yeah. Okay. well you say December the 5th is that's well Christmas in it like people start having Christmas everywhere in shops in October so it would have there would the essence of Christmas would

have been there that's interesting because I always notice myself feeling low in October November which actually you know it would have been the world would have been very Christmassy, that would have been in 2006 the last couple of months of my mum's life. So obviously that is seen someone, some of our audience will have died of cancer. It's very, very difficult. She was bedridden. She was at home. She was on painkillers, like being injected.

And it's horrendous. and I was not emotionally prepared. I turned 22 in the October and she died in December. So I was a very young 21, as I'm sure. Yeah. You can imagine, by then, I'm definitely going to cry in this episode because I can already feel it.

That's okay. That's okay. I think we knew that was going to happen, but that's okay because not everybody enjoys Christmas. So the essence of Christmas was ruined in 2006. Probably before, because even the two years before, when someone's fighting cancer, it's over your head. Is this your last Christmas with them?

Yeah. Need to try and make it special, make good memories. But if you're looking at someone fighting to stay alive or dealing with terminal illness, it's horrendous. There's no way to just like be happy in Christmas vibe. And do you remember the actual Christmas in 2006, like Christmas Day where you were

When she died? Yeah It was just cancelled Presumably I have no memories of it I remember All her illness I remember her funeral

Going to see my granddad My granddad dying His funeral Then my Oh then I remember I went to a Christmas party I was training to be an accountant A few days after she died

I was like, I'm going to the Christmas party. Why? You're so in shock. Yeah. So I remember that. I went up and got drunk with a load of my accountancy mates. I bet that made it worse. Like, I bet the emotions flowed after a few drinks.

I don't think they did. I think I was just so numb. So in shock. I should not have been drinking in London a few days after my mum died. But that's people do very, very, very. strange things. I remember going shopping. We were going shopping for a dress. For the party? It was, I think it was for New Year's. And I went shopping and that was one of the first times it hit me, shopping on my own. And Jane Norman, I was trying on a dress. And there was

mum and daughter in the changing room and like, mum, like, oh, it looks nice. I was like, oh, God. It was like the first moment you realised, sorry. Yeah. At the first moment, I'm like, oh my God, she's actually gone. Just in that moment, it was like just let in a tiny bit. I think your body knows that you can't deal with it. So that's why it puts you in shock. And then you have these mini moments.

So remember that. I don't remember Christmas Day. I remember New Year's Eve. Because it's so strange because Christmas and New Year's, everyone's celebrating. Yeah. And you've just buried two people that you love, having gone through the trauma of cancer, which is horrendous to witness. I remember me and my dad walked outside, and we would have been drinking, to see the fireworks. Just stood on the front step, like.

Watching them numb. She said, this is life now. She's got, like, it was horrible. It's horrible. Oh, right. Merry Christmas, everyone. Are you okay to continue? Yes, I didn't think I'd be crying this fast into it, but I do think it's important because, look, not everybody likes Christmas. And there's a huge pressure to be happy. And it's all about family. So if you've lost someone or you're no contact with someone, Christmas is a horrendous time. And, that's why I'm sort of glad we're talking about it in a way. All right, well, I'm going to carry on asking you questions then. So we've heard about the year that it all changed,

or the years where it all started to change and then did change. What happened after that? How did you spend Christmases after that? And I guess I want to know immediately and then 10 years later, I guess. So... It became difficult because my dad's, the year after my mum had died, my dad's got together with who had been his long-term mistress, someone that I'd known for at least a decade as someone who'd been on and off affair with and someone that my mum knew and was incredibly hurt by.

And actually, a few days before my mum died, one of our final conversations, she had said, to me. I really want your dad to be happy and I want him to meet someone else. Please welcome someone else. But please don't accept this lady. She was obviously devastated. She's dying and I don't think she realized maybe quite the impact of what she was saying. Maybe she didn't think he would get with her, but he did. So within that year, I'd lost my mum. I watched my dad then begin to make a home with the one person my mum had begged me

not to accept and I said to my mum I promise my her like dying wish and I said I promise I'll never accept her well to be fair you never really have

I mean I gave it a go I faked it for quite a few years but no not not now and it's caused me a lot of pain yeah it's caused me a lot of pain um i don't think it's so much the fact they got together it was there was no conversation

no acknowledgement that that might be tough for the kids it was just we're together deal with it or yeah don't have us um so that sent me into a very difficult place where i'd lost my mum and i was emotionally feeling like i was also losing my dad it felt like being abandoned in the middle of like your worst time yeah like i'd sometimes think now having stepkids if that happened to them how i don't think anyone in their lives would put them through what my dad put me through in that year um so then it was whether i would go home and spend Christmas with my dad and his, I mean, I say mistress, because that's what she was to me for so many years. Dad and his partner. And actually, I did it a couple of times, a couple of years.

I went to my brothers. Sometimes I went to a friend. I just became very non-committal, very nomadic. I knew there was no home even though my house still stood there where I'd grown up in and where my mum had died that's where they were living and sleeping in the room where she died it was too much

home was gone, it was something else now so just kind of to know tried to stay alive throughout that time which wasn't always easy and the worst of it and I remember being in a flat in London I must have been mid to late 20s. It's when my drinking and substance use was at its worst.

I remember making the decision to spend Christmas alone because I didn't want to see my dad and his new wife. It's too painful. And I didn't want to go and spend it with another family because you just feel like this. odd extra, the spare chair, and I've had enough. So I sort of was like, why, I'm going to, I'm just going to spend it alone, and I'm going to be okay.

So I went to the shop and I bought myself eight bottles of crabby's cider. Love it. And a six pack of G&T. That's quite a lot. Yeah. Yes. Well done. Stop.

And I got myself a micro, Wave Christmas dinner for one. Oh. I'm in a corner shop. And that was, that was that. And that didn't go very well. No. Yeah.

Because I think I thought I was avoiding pain. I'm not breaking my promise to my mum. I'm not a spare chair in someone else's family. I'm alone. I'm going to watch my program and just get drunk. but obviously when you get drunk alone in a basement flat in London on Christmas Day when everyone else is with their families. With a microwave Christmas dinner.

With a microwave Christmas dinner. Yeah. I did not feel very well. I struggled at that time with self-injury as well and I struggled with that up until my, when I was like 30. And Christmas Day would be a trigger for that. So it's very low and I really, really, really, really, like, didn't want to be here anymore on a few Christmases. I think on one of them, I think on one of them or two of them, my dad texts me on Boxing Day.

It was just like, come home. And I did because I was so lonely and I was so scared that I went home that because it's not. home, desperately wanting to go home and be cuddled or held or something. Yeah. That wasn't there. I didn't know how to ask for it and he didn't know how to give it. So I was just, yeah, just incredibly lonely. Okay.

So we're up to mid-20s now. Yeah, sure. And your like, you know, Christmas was, by the sounds of it horrendous. but it's no sort of surprise that your life also was right so you were struggling with money you were struggling with addictions you were struggling with relationships you were struggling doing your laundry you were struggling you were just struggling struggle core um yes so christmas with all of this added on to the already struggle uh was was magnified i suppose what would be useful or interesting I suppose is when you started to turn your life around and I know that

Christmas didn't follow suit you weren't all of a sudden happy at Christmas but what was happening what happened then sort of early mid 30s actually I've just remembered something which I do want to say I had some Christmases at my stepmums kids house and we were we all drank and we're all big drinkers but I was welcomed by the kids so I had a tough relationship with my dad and and his partner but her kids was very welcoming and and then their kids I always got on with so there was moments of like belonging and moments of joy I don't want to write that off as all dreadful and I don't fully remember where those years line up probably in my late 20s perhaps um i moved to amsterdam when i was 30 and i was there for

three years and that ever so slightly began to change because i experienced a lot of the christmas season in a different country you also became quite close with your partner's parents as well Oh my God, I was completely upset. Me and him weren't meant to be, but me and the parents, I still hold so much love and respect. They were incredible people. Yeah. And I really still have love for them. And so, yeah, I was part of a different family, and it was very loving, and there was gifts, and there was hugs.

And I don't know, that was maybe my first experience of a Christmas outside of the trauma, of the effect. affairs and my mum dying was Amsterdam. I won't sugarcoat it. I also remember a Christmas when me and that partner came home and ended up, I had a huge row with my dad and stepmom and we ended up going to a hotel and not spending Christmas with them. And that would happen a lot. I'd get drunk and there'd be a huge row because all of that pain I was holding inside about the unaddressed affairs and what they'd done to my mum and quickly they'd they'd moved on, but they'd never spoken about, it would come up when I was drunk and they'd they'd hate that and there'd be a big row, of which would never resolve. So that takes me to

like, you know, 33 or whatever. And then I got sober. And, you know, that's a huge change because the self-injury and the running away and the huge arguments, that would always happen when drunk. Yep. So getting sober means that's gone. I remember my first Christmas sober. I was staying sort of at a friend's house. They had kids.

It was kind of back to the spare chair at someone else's Christmas. Yeah. I wasn't drinking and I felt pretty resolved that I'm going to turn my life around here. and I was right. That was like at the start. But yes, still, I would have said had seasonal depression because people understood it more, but I just became very low October, November, December and I could never find the Christmas spirit.

And it's sad because I'm a very like, what do you call it, zesty, joyful person? Like I can find the spirit in most things. So to have completely lost that And to be so depressed And so low at Christmas was so hard And then I met you Well, I suppose my question is Where are you now with Christmas?

Because we've been together Five and a Half years And you definitely Haven't loved Christmas for five and a half years So like I'd be interested to know So I met you And you had two kids and our first sort of Christmas together I had something else to focus on

which is we need to make it nice for the kids so many presies and the tree to having kids in my life and they would have been what five and six and sixteen probably so it's still like kiddie's own especially Lily it just gave me something else to focus on which is be a good step-mom, bring the Christmas spirit for the kids, which I did, and I, like, really lent into it for the kids while still feeling, like, very heavy. When I would speak to you about it, and I think it used to make you sad, because you are quite Christmassy.

I love Christmas, yeah, yeah. You love Christmassy, and then you've got this, like, Grinch. And, like, I knew that, and I think, When I was with you, I started to think, I need to, like, I need to fix this. I don't want to hate Christmas forever. But the thing is, even, you know, being with a partner that love Christmas, that almost magnifies the problem anyway. Like, let's, like, the problem is everyone's meant to be joyful.

So if you don't feel joyful, it's like, oh, I don't feel this is rubbish. Everyone's happy. I'm supposed to be happy. I'm not happy. if you're with a partner that's happy and old Christmassy, that almost makes it worse, right, before it starts to get better. I loved seeing you cooking in the kitchen, singing Christmas songs, in the Christmas spirit, Christmas movies and the kids doing it.

I loved that, and I was very happy to be with you. I just hadn't quite caught up emotionally to be able to really enjoy it. I think we were speaking about it. I spoke about it in therapy. I think I had still a lot of grieving to do and a lot of anger and sadness to come out of me. And it used to come out and I'd get drunk and have these drunken rows with my dad and stepmom, but to come out in a healthy way in a therapy environment. And that started to change things. I remember you had quite a significant therapy session and you, easy to say the words, it was a lot harder to actually do it, but like allowing yourself to have a different experience

was quite a bold and scary move, but that was probably the start point, maybe. It was almost forced at the beginning. Oh, it was forced. Like, I'm going to force myself to get into this. And similar to last year, I forced myself to celebrate my birthday, which I haven't done since my mum died, really. So I kind of started that process and I started to kind of the last couple of years vibe with the Christmas movies. And maybe I do quite like the Christmas songs that do they know. Chris singing that in the car and I could start to feel some of the ice.

melting, but there was still this crazy hangover with my dad and stepmom, like so much unresolved, such a huge misunderstanding of me, such a huge lack of love or care towards how much I had struggled. I think because they had in some way caused it, the affair and the effect that had on me as a kid, they can't see it as real. They can't see me having mental health struggles or being upset as real because that would mean they'd have to say sorry. So they just see me as a, I don't know, spoiled brat. Oh, talking about that again.

Yeah. Just let us move on. I've heard all of that. So I still had this hangover because I had my new family starting to feel Christmas spirit, but this strange pull towards wanting some kind of happiness or some kind of Christmas with my dad. Yeah.

And feeling like, well, we should see each other at Christmas. Did we see my dad over at Christmas? No. No, that had stopped when I got with you. We did the odd meal in our first year. In December, never Christmas. Yeah, we met them, but not at Christmas. So mine and my dad's relationship is very hard, obviously, as I'm sure people can tell.

And this year, and birthdays, in Christmas, always so strange, because I always wonder whether I'll get a text. We don't talk to each other. I've tried to reach out. He says he doesn't want to speak to me. I affect his mental health too much, and I've caused too much damage to the family. It was the last thing he said. I've sent cards. I've tried to reconcile. He will not do it. It's pretty devastating when you've lost one parent who would do anything to see you again, to have one an hour and a half down the road. He doesn't even know where I live. Anyway, that's another episode.

Anyways, tried to reconcile, blah, blah, blah, blah. He never wanted to speak to me. I kept chasing because that's your dad, whatever they've done. It's like an unconditional love. It's like biology. You're going to love your parent. And then this year, he either got a new phone and didn't tell him the number or he blocked me. So when I went to message him this year on his birthday, it didn't deliver.

And at the time that was devastating And I did carry on texting for a while Just I don't know Just getting some stuff off my chest to a one tick Quite healing But in the weirdest of ways He closed a chapter for me He does not want anything to do with me

So that story I can't fix it, I can't even get in touch I could send a card but I've sent a lot of cards that have gone unanswered so I'm not going to do that anymore he almost sounds so strange to describe it this way

I couldn't stop trying to fix it with him I couldn't stop trying to say please can we talk please can we fix it he took an axe to that and said no thanks I don't I won't even let you contact me and that act

forced me into dealing with how awful our relationship was went through it in therapy pretty hardcore like just crying everywhere why does Lee love me I just like awful never ever want a kid to feel that way

but I finally started to let go because the door was clicked does that make sense like ripped the plaster off didn't it rip the plaster off you don't want to talk to you kid fight, okay. Let's go. Let's get on with this then. So this was the first birthday back in October. First birthday, he hasn't wished me happy birthday. Some years, that would be the only time I'd hear from him, but it was still something. I remember you asking me, did your dad

contact you on your birthday? And I was like, no. And you're like, you're all right? I was like, yeah. And it was like a miracle almost that I wasn't in. a depression. I wasn't so sad. I wasn't for, oh, what have I done? What can I just? Just like, yeah, his loss, mate, to be honest with you. Yeah. And I'm busy being in a lovely hotel with you. Anyway, the whole point of that is, there is no option to see my dad at Christmas, have a phone call, even get a text. He's gone. So actually, I don't know, it's freed up a lot of energy for me to sort of go all right let's put christmas on put christmas pajamas on and go big time now last christmas i had the inklings of this and i think this is important to say

i did a new tradition i was wondering i was going to say about this if you weren't so much so christmas is tough for me new year's eve i've always been fine with different energy new year, leave the trauma in the past. So last year for Christmas, we had the kids here for New Year's and it actually came about by forgetting to get Lily a stocking. So like bad step-mom, ADHD step-mom, she had loads of gifts and loads of celebrations, but she didn't have a stocking. So I said, oh my God. So we had the idea to do the New Year's Eve fairy and basically the stocking gifts would be hidden around the house by the New Year's Eve fairy and there were cryptic clues for the kids to solve.

It was great. You loved it, probably more than the kids. This year I'm like, are you with us on New Year? Are you coming back to the New Year's Eve Ferry? I loved it. But they loved it.

We did like gifts. It was so much fun. And I got to experience seasonal joy. I think that's also important. Find your own, like seasonal traditions that don't have to replicate something that was maybe hard.

when you were younger? Well, I was going to sort of start to wrap this up. And it might be that what you just said might be the answer. But I was going to say, you know, if people have made it to the end of this episode, this tear jerky episode, I would imagine a lot of people will still be here because they can relate. Like they find Christmas tough because it's not a prerequisite that you're going to. to enjoy it. So what advice would you give someone that's in that? I think it's not necessarily advice, but it's a kind of slow hope that you can find people that love you that make Christmas

feel okay again. And just not to rush yourself through. My mum died 19 years ago. I am probably just about walking into what will hopefully be my first fun Christmas. It's taking me two decades. I hope it doesn't take them that long. Reach out for help, find your people, go where you're celebrated, whether it's friends or partners, hopefully it's family, therapists. You have to fight for yourself and save yourself, and it's really difficult, and it's really, really difficult.

And Christmas is a huge time of mental health. struggles and depression. And if that is you, yeah, just to encourage you to really, really speak to something. You don't have to go through it alone with a Christmas dinner for one and eight bottles of crabbies cider. Well done, Bobby. I love you. You did really, really well. I'm so sorry, guys, that our Christmas episode has been so depressing, but I hope it shows we can get through anything. And there is maybe some Christmas spirit left in the end. So we wish you Merry Christmas. We wish you were Merry Christmas. We wish you were Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I would normally say if you've enjoyed the episode, then leave a comment, like, subscribe all of

that sort of stuff. Look, if you, if it's brought you to tears, we'd love to hear about that in the comment section. But we do wish you a Merry Christmas tomorrow. And a Happy New Year.