Most people are excited. You? You are depressed, or your stomach is churning, or you get sick, or you simply wish you could wish it all away. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with ME, for that is my story, too.Nothing is wrong with you or me. It is perfectly normal, for us survivors of childhood abuse and trauma. For, you see, there is absolutely nothing like holidays to bring us face to face with our childhood--that childhood from which we are working so very hard to heal.Old family systems, old triggers, old expectations. You are expected to act as if you believe the old lies and half truths. You are expected to be happy, not make waves, keep the skeletons safely in the closet, and be whom they think you should be. Simply walking through the front door of the family home--or having your extended family walk through your front door--can make you feel 12 again...or 7...or 3.... Small, helpless, hopeless. BUT YOU AREN'T. You aren't 12, or 7, or 3 or small, or helpless or hopeless. You are an adult on the way to living a full and whole and healthy life. But first, you have to survive the holidays.
I have great news for you: you can not only
survive the holidays, you can THRIVE! It is all a matter of making sure you take care of your little inner kid. And we have some ideas to help you do that.
1. Remember you are a grown up now, and you don't have to follow the old family rules. You can make and follow your own rules, even if they don't like it.
2. Be gentle with yourself: take off the Superman tights. You don't have to do everything just like Mom always did. You can create your own traditions...and if someone says, "But we always..." you can say, "Yes, and wasn't that fun. But in our house, we..." Or, "Yes, and wasn't that fun. But my new tradition is..." I know a family whose Christmas tradition is lasagna, pajamas and football all day. They do a big feast meal at another time of the year that isn't as fraught with landmines.
3. Have an escape route: Keep your car keys or the phone number of a taxi service
in your pocket to remind yourself that you can leave any time. Don't be the chauffeur for anyone who is not willing to leave pleasantly whenever you are ready to go.
4. Stay in a hotel--or at least go for lots of long walks--give yourself alone time and space to process and recover.(And if you are hosting this year, suggest that THEY stay in a hotel....even if you have to spring for half, it might be money well spent!)
5. Use the bathroom as a temporary refuge...people can't argue with biological needs. If people persist in abusing your inner child....develop a sudden case of what I call "Holy Diarrhea"--return again and again to the refuge of the bathroom, look into the mirror, and remind yourself again and again, "I am loved, I am worthy, I am powerful, I am strong, I don't have to accept what they say, that is not my truth."
6. Chances are the people you normally process your stuff with may not be as available....so journal, journal, journal. File the pain temporarily, but don't stuff it. Enlist the aid of an ally in the family--plan a 'rescue me' signal. Search out parks, or churches, or 12 step groups in the area where you can go for refuge. Offer to run the errands...and take the looooooong way back! Use literature or music to help you stay grounded. Bottom line: Take care of YOU...you have the tools...you have the right to use them!
7. Trust your gut--if it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. Stay away from alcohol--you need to be in control, especially if others aren't. And, if the situation becomes toxic, state that the conversation must change or you'll leave. And then do it.
8. If you are the only one who seems to think that something is wrong, don't think it is YOU that is wrong...THEY are likely engaged in distorted thinking. Family holiday get-togethers rarely encourage honesty....
Remember, you may be the only rational one there!
9. Create rituals and traditions just for you and your inner child. Give her or him a holiday season like s/he has never experienced before...do all the fun things that you've always wanted to do...forget about--or do only the minimum around--the things that drag you down. Remember that expectations bear in themselves the seeds of resentment...and help your little one let go of unrealistic expectations that others will change.Rather, help him/her see how very much YOU have changed, and celebrate THAT. (Check out the Gifts for your Inner Child article for ideas of new rituals and traditions.)
10. Remind yourself that you have MUCH to celebrate--you are on the road to spiritual healing and recovery. You can now see that the sick people in your life are SICK, and that
you are the healthy one. That puts you in a place where you can help your inner child reclaim the joys of the season--if there are kids around, let your inner child play with
them. And if there aren't--enlist the healthy members of your family to embrace some of the childlike fun--bake cookies together, make snowmen, go on a Christmas bird count, watch the sappy old holiday movies. Let the stick-in-the-muds stay in the mud. You have a life to live: seize it! And celebrate it!
Elaine Oxenbury
heard an addictions counselor say on the local news that this season...the season of holidays...was a particularly difficult season for people struggling with addictions. We know that that is equally true for people who are on the healing journey from profound childhood abuse and trauma. In 2008, and again in 2010, we shared an article called "Holiday Landmines", which has, by far, been the most commented-on article we have circulated. My journey has progressed a long way since 2008, so I thought it might be useful to share some of the old, and some of the new ways I have learned to survive --and thrive--during the holiday season. 