I hope all of you mean it that my “downer” posts are as helpful as my inspiring ones, but I am simply not in an “inspiring” place right now. My offline friends are trying to be encouraging, reminding me that I got triggered on October 1 last year and pretty much stayed triggered until mid-January. I didn’t kick off this year until right before Thanksgiving, but it feels unending right now.
I just want to have a good old-fashioned cry, but I haven’t been able to get the privacy to do it. It feels like if I risk letting a little out, emotions are going to explode out of me. That would be okay if I could get one friggin’ moment to myself, but I have had hub or child with me just about every single second for almost three weeks, and on the rare occasions that they haven’t been right there, I have either been sick or frantically preparing for that job interview.
Hub is pretty much perpetually depressed, but he also pulled his back, which is making it even worse. So, he is a downer. My son is making up for being so sick by being extra hyper these days (he has ADHD), which is wearing me out. And now even the dog has a swollen paw, which I am treating with meds from the vet. It’s like it just doesn’t end.
The thing is that I know in my head that my problems are not that big of a deal compared to what so many other people are going through at this time of year. I talked with a woman today whose husband was laid off right before the holidays – that’s got to be incredibly stressful. My husband has a secure job. My part-time job is going very well. We can pay our bills (although our health care costs are killing us), we have a roof over our heads, etc.
And yet, even knowing that I am blessed with all of these things simply is not quieting the wounded little girl inside. All she can see is that the holidays are here, and that means that all of her positive influences and support are going to abandon her while they tend to their families and holiday hoopla. It happens every year. Group gatherings (book clubs, Bible studies, etc.) go on hiatus. Play groups get canceled. People are too busy to do the things they enjoy year round. I don’t understand this because I spend my time throughout the year in a way that works for me. Why on earth would I want to stop seeing my friends and doing the things I love doing just because there are Christmas lights everywhere?
And I know this is going to sound really stupid, but the little girl inside even feels abandoned by fictional characters! Even the TV shows I enjoy go on hiatus at this time of year and are replaced by never-ending, sickly-sweet “family is what matters” propaganda movies. You know what? My family SUCKS! My issue is not a lack of appreciation for my family – My problem is that they abused me during the holidays. They cut me off from anything positive (school, friends, etc.) and left me to their insanity 24/7. That is what the holidays mean to me.
Believe it or not, I am writing all of this on my maximum-prescribed Xanax dosage. So, you can imagine the level of anxiety I am experiencing right now without it!
Photo credit: Faith Allen
Blooming Lotus 
I can soooo relate to that little girl part of you. Well, perhaps it is my little girl part who can relate? Just what you said about all the supports going away, is exactly what fills my mind at this time of year. I find it so hard to be happy for my friends when they get to spend time with their family because often I am struggling with feeling abandoned and lonely. And yes, everything stops, not just the availability of friends – it’s the whole framework we’ve built around us for security and safety. Routines mean a lot to us. Lack of routine often leads to depression and this time of year already has triggers for that, so it’s a double whammy. Shame we can’t all get together and do our own non-holiday ‘thing’.
Just an idea: can you get out of the house alone and drive somewhere private (and pretty) to have your cry?
Take care,
Dawn
I understand, Faith. And I feel for you. I really do. The same thing is happening to me, too. Even my therapy has been temporarily derailed due to holiday programs at the children’s schools and scheduling conflicts. It really does feel terrible to the child because it is hard for her to understand this and her sorrow makes it hard for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes I feel her inside my body when she just drops to the floor and sobs. I don’t drop and sob, but she does. And the feelings of that break through at times when I need to look normal. I don’t have much privacy in my house, either. Sometimes I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this month. It’s really bad. And I just know the mother will try to bother me in some way, even if indirectly. I worry that insiders will be stirred up in front of my outside children and there will be nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. I don’t like the holidays, either. I don’t like them at all. I need things to just be normal. I’m so overwhelmed right now that I can’t even keep my house right and I didn’t wash my face last night. Didn’t brush my hair today and couldn’t go to the grocery store alone. I drank too much this weekend, too. I really need things to be normal and for the holidays to just please go away. I understand your suffering, Faith. I hope we both feel better and make it through.
Hi Faith,
your pain and frustration comes through loud and clear in that post and reminds me that its o.k. to be human and it’s o.k. to draw from the well of sadness at this time of year.
It’s also refreshing to read someone expressing their true feelings about christmas, it is such a painful and lonely time for lots of people isn’t it.
I too need a good cry, I am thinking that I need to get some tear jerker movies and then I can cry in front of everyone.
I spent so much of my childhood running away to cry, in the bathroom, outisde etc. Ultimately I would just love to be able to cry in someones presence and not have them try to comfort me or dissuade me from my sadness but at the moment the only person doing that is me.
Anyway, thanks for the post, very reassuring.
“The thing is that I know ***in my head*** that my problems are not that big of a deal compared to what so many other people are going through-”
Don’t compare your problems to other peoples problems, remember? Stop adding that strange guilt [my problems are nothing, I shouldn’t be so troubled, etc] to yourself. Your problems are *your* problems, and they are a big enough deal.
God gives us what we can handle, and if other people seem to be worse off, well God knows what He’s doing.
Anyway, it is somehow comforting to know that one isn’t the only person who hates the Christmas season. It adds to the “this is normal for you” and helps me feel a little less worse about it.
This year, my immediate family won’t be travelling ‘back home’ to spend the holidays with all the rest of the family, so I’m hoping for a less stressful time this year.
Stay strong Faith!
I agree wholeheartedly with what Janet said about not comparing yourself to others. We just use comparisons to beat ourselved up. Our pain is our pain.
I can remember going through a few years when my inner child was jealous of my own children because of the things they got for Christmas and for the fact that my children have always known that I love them. I tell them and show them that I love them often. My inner child never felt loved or safe at home.
I know what you are saying about Christmas vacations putting you into the unsafe place of being with your abusers 24/7. School was my safe place. Nobody abused me. If I was a child today, I would probably be one of those who is bullied because of my shyness, my style of dress (clean but very poor hand-me-downs), being in victim mode all the time (As a child, I didn’t know any different.). Even in school (my safe place), I was so scared of people, of being hurt, that if I wasn’t in class, I was in the library hidden behind a book, watching the world go by and crying inside.
Don’t do your crying inside. It can make you sick. An online friend reminded me last week that pneumonia (which I have now had for 4 weeks as of yesterday) is a sign of unshred tears and grief. I have been doing some inner child work over the past few months on my blog and I haven’t cried. I haven’t grieved. The unshred tears have affected my health.
I look back and I see all the times that I held the tears in because I didn’t want my husband or my children to see me cry. Some part of me still thinks that tears are a sign of weakness. They are not. Tears are a sign of healthy feelings. I think that I did, not only myself but my family a disservice by not letting them see me cry when I needed too. Life is not only joy and happiness. Life is fear and grief. Life is angry and tears.
Letting our family see us cry teaches them compassion. If we don’t let them see our hurt, how will they know that it is okay for them to hurt?
For me the Holidays were very much if anything went wrong than it was my fault. If anything went right I was allowed to observe. So the Holidays for me meant doing what I could so that nothing went wrong.
I accepted this as the way it was as a small child. I then was hurt that all I was allowed to do was to observe and then angry. As I was processing this the being blamed for anything that went wrong did not stop.
I learned to take what I could from the Holidays.
Pretty much there was enough food for me as that was allowed. That is what I really remember about the Holidays. was enough to eat. My family had enough to eat it was I that was not given enough food.
It is not stupid that there is a feeling of abandonment by the fiction of the holidays. For me it is now a feeling of what might have been. What those that hurt me had is not something that I really wanted it just seemed better at the time.
The last 6 holiday’s have been horrid. This one is going to be different. There is no going back to before I knew of the horror that was my life. There is going forward.
It is sad that it will not be with family. My family is really not much to want to belong to and I can face that now.
just sending you a big hug been there often enough with other memories not exactly with the holidays but I know how it feels like and there is no sense in comparing how good we have it or not – it just sucks when you are down and it feels like there is no way out!
Am thinking about you!
Remember, Faith, that you said sometimes you have to learn things twice or even more often? and to me this looks like a good opportunity for some more compassion for yourself.
And I can only agree with Janet and Patricia.
The “other people have it worse” trap- thereby invalidating my own pain -used to be my way of life for a very long time. I have so much that I am grateful for but sometimes cannot appreciate it because I dont have enough of”me” to take it in or because I am so out of my mind with pain or being triggered. Only months ago I would have been hard on myself, blaming myself for not being grateful enough etc, now I know if I cant be grateful its simply because there is pain that needs my tending to. and me allowing to feel it with my full heart. and friends who are just there for me. and not comparing it with other people or other times. in fact it has nothing to do with being grateful or not. For me to be able to feel grateful I need to be in a safe place and me not feeling my pain isnt that much of a safe place.
As for your “not-so-inspiring” posts it does inspire a lot of people to show their support and when I read them I just feel like giving you a virtual big safe hug!
Faith,
I relate so well to this about how the support system changes for the holidays. I’m sorry you are struggling.
Sending calming, peaceful thoughts your way. Hang in there Faith.
Safe hugs,
mia
Sorry the holidays are so difficult for you to bear. They are hard for me, too. You are not alone. Hope things get better for you soon.