Hey there, it’s Kerri. Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma. This is episode 42, and I’m going to talk about why the holidays can be less than happy and joyous for many of us.
I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!
So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional.
All right let’s dive in!
The holidays mean so many different things to us all. They tend to be a reflection of our personal experiences, religions, memories, habits, and so on. We are bombarded today typically right after Halloween with all things Christmas (Thanksgiving gets touched on, then quickly bypassed) with ads showing smiling families, warm family gatherings, lots of food, pretty decorations. It can be overwhelming, but it’s driven by that all encompassing need for SALES! Consumerism is alive and well my friends!
The holiday season can be so hard just to get through if you had less than happy memories or experiences of it as a child. Toxic families often just continue on that destructive spiral, and it seems to get even more toxic around the holidays. It’s a time where many feel obligated to attend family gatherings even though they know that unhealthy, often completely toxic, and destructive behaviors will be a large part of the menu. So we go, gearing up for the battle we know is coming. We rehearse what to say and what NOT to say! We become a captive audience, targets unfortunately, and can be sitting ducks for all of the holiday nastiness.
My memories of the holidays are a complicated mixed bag of things. Now we were technically well off, we had nice houses, plenty of food, our physical needs were met. But all of the other needs? Not so much. My mom, even with how sick she always ways pulled out all of the stops for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She wasn’t a baker, but she was a damn good cook and we had lovely meals. Decorating for Christmas was her thing, and our homes and trees were always lovely. And Santa always brought tons of presents for me and my sister, everything we wanted. Except for me the elusive Christmas toy was the game Operation! I asked for it every year, never got it, but I got everything else! If you’ve ever watched “The Santa Clause” where characters Laura Miller and her husband Neil talk about not getting their most wished for gifts “Mystery Date” and an “Oscar Meyer Weenie Whistle” you’ll understand!
Up until I was 8 years old, no matter where we were living, we made the trek back to Hutchinson Kansas where my parents were both from, every Christmas to spend it at my maternal grandparents’ house. Christmas at the Fitzgerald house was pretty amazing. My Uncle’s Ed and Jack my mother’s brothers would all come with their families and so I got to hang out with all of my cousins! They had a big old house with what felt like 20 floors (I think it only had 2) and lots of weird little rooms that had connecting doors. I loved exploring! We had Christmas on Christmas Eve there. The tree was in the front living room, so on Christmas Eve my grandmother would close the big double doors to the room, and we all sat outside and waited. We could hear noise on the roof, jingle bells and the sound of things going on behind those doors. When they thought the time was right, they’d throw open those doors and magically, Santa had come! Those were good times. But even there, there were things going on that were too adult for me to understand. One Christmas I think I was 5, we were in the living room opening presents. I was kneeling on the floor in front of an armchair, opening a present on the seat in front of me. A family member went to step over my legs, and he suddenly fell over me landing on the floor shaking violently. His lit cigarette fell on me, burning a hole in my nightgown and on me. I was horrified that his tripping over my legs had somehow caused his fall and violent shaking. I didn’t learn until much later that he had been an alcoholic for years, and he had a seizure at just that moment. There were other things too, they remain fuzzy in the back of my mind, not clear enough to remember well, but impressions of other things going wrong. The holiday trips ended when I was 8, my grandmother passed away suddenly, and that started a cascade of other events, the sale of the grand old house, my grandfather bouncing around living with each of his three kids, another story for another time.
Christmas with my parents alone was not a good thing. While my mom worked to make things as wonderful as she could, my parents’ relationship was terrible. With my dad home from work for the holiday, all they did was fight and if they weren’t screaming at each other, it was passive-aggressive comments, little sniping dialogue back and forth. Then there was the drinking. My dad drank way too much every day and night he was home. It made him mean. My fondest wish each Christmas was that he wouldn’t get drunk and ruin things, but that wish never came true. It wasn’t until I was much, much older that I realized that my mom had her own drug and alcohol issues. Holiday dinners were agonizing, and often ended in tears, yelling, or my dad falling face down into his dinner plate. The stress and tension were almost like something physical, heavy, a huge weight always in the air.
My sister Erin was born when I was 8. She gave me someone to look after. I raised her, I felt protective of her so keeping her out of harm’s way was a focus for me. As I got a little older, and learned the truth about Santa, I was able to keep the magic alive with her, and through her. Her sudden death in December of 1977 destroyed the magic of Christmas for years for me.
The joy of the holidays returned for me when I became a mom. I channeled my mom for the holidays and re-creating the magic for my kids was what brought some of that happiness back for me. My husband and I back in Ohio would take the kids every year to a lovely rural Christmas tree farm, where we would trek through deep snow, choose the perfect tree, and cut it down ourselves. I baked cookies, we strung popcorn and cranberries for our tree, I added new elements to our own personal traditions.
Then my mom died in 1991, and my dad very quickly remarried. My husband, kids, and I tried to blend in with both his new wife and her family, but it just didn’t work. It was extraordinarily painful for me. Her daughter, her granddaughter, and her family members were included in everything. We were not and it just got to the point where I couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t put my kids through it anymore. I was labeled ungrateful and was viewed as a “bad daughter.”
Now my kids are long grown, but I still pull out all of the stops for the holidays. It makes both me and my family feel special and keeps some of that magic alive. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I had to create my own special traditions. I kept the good pieces of my experiences, then added in other elements of what I wanted as well.
The point of this is to say that it doesn’t matter if they are “family” or not. If spending the holidays with them brings you feelings of dread, fear, panic, and triggers you, you absolutely have the right to keep you, your partner, and your children safe from that. You can say no, and they absolutely WILL NOT like it, but preserving your own sanity, mental health, and wellbeing are number one! We get so tied up in feeling like no matter what, we have a duty as children, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, or uncles whatever the relationship is to attend holiday family get togethers, and the truth is, we don’t. We can stand up for ourselves, we can create our own new healthy traditions! We get to do that, really, and let me tell you, it saved me and my own family from constant hurt and pain. Just because people gave birth to you, or raised you, or are related to you does not give them the right to hurt you in any way, period! It sounds simple, and I know it’s not, but wouldn’t it be nice to spend a holiday being happy, at peace, not fighting battles, arguing, or feeling attacked, put down, or dismissed! You bet it would!
You can create a plan of action, now, today on what to say. You could even write a letter, mail it if you want to. A quick call, anything to let them know you are starting your own traditions, your own memories, creating your own peace. It feels too big and hard, with a heaping helping of guilt I’m sure. But once you get the words out no matter how you choose to deliver them, it’s done. It doesn’t mean you are wrong, ungrateful, mean, hateful, or disappointing as a person. They will try and pull out all of the stops, all of the drama to make you feel that way, because that is what has worked for them in the past. Whatever awful tactics they have used before to get you to do what they want, they will try, and THEN some.
This time however, you don’t buy into it, don’t fall into that toxic trap! You created a plan of action, put it into words and yes, it will feel uncomfortable, but you know in your heart of hearts it’s right for YOU! Then you can make the holiday season into whatever you want it to be! If a holiday meal is you in your jammies watching a favorite movie, then that’s what it’ll be! Whatever you do that is right for you and yours is exactly perfect. No guilt allowed!! Think of how freeing that is!
A quick exercise you can do for yourself is to write your “Holiday Toxic Family Escape Plan” out!
Think about:
1. Who you need to tell your plan to.
2. When you need to tell them.
3. How you will tell them.
4. Start with an “I” statement. This isn’t you placing the blame or pointing a finger at them, so they can’t get defensive. This is you stating a fact, and that’s it. For example, saying something like “I have decided that this holiday, I/we will be spending it at my/our home. Or “This year I have decided we will be spending the holiday with my/our (friends, etc.). You also don’t have to explain any more than that. You are an adult, and you have made a decision, period.
Then write it out. Make it as simple and straightforward as you can. Filling it up with a lot of excuses, and detailed explanations most likely won’t help them “hear” what it is you are saying. People who have toxic traits and tendencies will only hear what they want, and excessive explanations will only feed into that unfortunately. So you have a clear plan of action, you know how they will most likely respond, but this is a safety plan for the holidays for YOU! You can really do this, I have all the faith in the world in you, I believe in you!
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today and please keep on listening! Wherever you listen, please like, subscribe, favorite, follow me, and please also share widely! What you think really matters to me too, so comment on the show, what you think, whatever is on your mind. You can find me on Facebook at Kerri Walker, and Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma, on Twitter at Kerriwalker58, my website invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.com, and my YouTube channel Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma.
Look for my new episodes dropping every Monday on all of your favorite podcasts, music, and listening apps! Please take extra good care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon!
