Like many others, I’m sure, over the Christmas period Dr. Jay’s family found itself on the receiving end of the consequences of an increasing epidemic.

No, I’m not thinking of the consequences of over-indulgence in food or alcohol, or even getting used to the idea that over the holidays you don’t have to go to work.  Rather the epidemic to which I refer is the problem of being on the receiving end of a break-and-enter.

It was actually Christmas Eve.  The family and I had gone out and engaged in the traditional reveries of the season.

We had eaten a darned good repast and, of course, had duly obeyed the rules and regulations of drinking and driving on the way home.

The spirit of Christmas was very much in the air, but on our return to the family home it slowly dawned upon us that somebody – person or persons unknown, as the constabulary would have it – had been rifling their way through the presents at the bottom of the Christmas tree while we had been out enjoying ourselves.

They had also helped themselves to a fair quantity of our alcohol and made off with a number of items including, for reasons which are at best obscure, the left shoe of a new pair my wife had kindly purchased for me.

Curiously, the emotional responses through which the members of the family went took me completely by surprise.

After coping with what could only be described as a heavy dose of ‘denial’, we all wondered whether we were imagining the whole thing.

Quickly the whole family deteriorated into being very angry and ultimately we all started to beat our own respective breasts as to who might have been responsible for the lack of security around the home.

All this, I should add, was happening in the early hours of Christmas morning.

You remember, the time when the carol says: “Tis the season to be merry, tra-la-la-la-la, pom-pom-pom-pom.”

As time further passed, we all settled back, reported matters to the police, and then went to bed.

But that really wasn’t the end of it, to be honest.

For most of the Christmas and New Year period, a greyness descended upon the festivities in general around our house.

It was almost a depression accompanied by a constant need to check and re-check the locks as well as a desire to wash, and re-wash the clothes that some stranger had intruded himself upon.

Frankly, it’s only now, when a few weeks have passed, that the whole unfortunate events seems to be settling down.

And I’m not recording it for you so that you should all feel sorry for Dr. Jay, or for that matter, his family.

All that I wish to do is indicate, I hope with some clarity, that the effect of strangers intruding themselves into our lives with intent to rob has some very immediate and important consequences upon our mental health.

It wouldn’t be difficult to understand how the vulnerable, the elderly, the anxiety-prone, even the paranoid, could find their lives thrown into such disarray by such an incident that they could easily find themselves hiking down to see their general practitioner for some kind of medication.

In everyday terms, robbery such as the one we experienced has to be accepted, I suppose, as part of the consequences of our modern civilisation.  There probably are worse consequences.

But I think we should all be aware that there is a series of well-defined emotional responses through which all victims go.

And happily in families who communicate with each other, this unsettling process can be passed through fairly quickly. 

All I ask is that people actually do talk it through with each other.

After all, sharing is the basis of communication.

It’s also the important basis of preventative mental health.

If it’s stored up, it will only come out later and runs the very real risk of causing even more damage.

Meantime, what our self-respecting burglar is going to do with one left brown slip-on shoe, I haven’t the slightest idea.

Still the one that I have left should come in quite handy should I ever break my left leg.