Happy Holiday Greetings!
I hope you have had a great holiday season so far. My hope is that you are making these days as beautiful and special for yourself as you can.
There are lots of ways to provide Christmas cheer for your DID system, even if you are in a rough spot.
Please read through this blog if you don’t know what I’m talking about. There are lots of articles that have ideas for FUN stuff. This page, however, is about some of the harder stuff.
Holidays are not always fun times for people who have experienced severe family dysfunction and chronic abuse. The holiday season can be as difficult and heartbreaking to feel family pain, rejection, chaos, and conflict for an adult as it was as a child.
Plus, when you are a dissociative system, you’ll have adult parts who experience the hard stuff from this year, and also….. all the younger ones who remember the hard stuff from all the previous years. That could add up to lots and lots of painful memories running through your mind all at once.
You might have hoped those old troubled relationships could be or would be better by now.
And been sorely disappointed when they weren’t.
Man! That still smarts!!
It hurts!!
Finding safety today, and having some fun, or at least some pleasant memories is important. Safety from troubled times is especially important.
So please know I’m thinking of you.
And thinking of the family troubles and struggles that continue year, after year, after year….
Please remember, one of the best ways to help your hurting heart is to step further away from the people who hurt you.
Be willing to let go of the old hurter-people in your life, and find the courage to build new relationships of positive, healthy, kind, and cheerful significance.
Do what you can do for yourself — and for your insiders — and with your healthy relationships to create something unique and memorable for your system this holiday season.
As scary as this may sound, it is also important to consider removing yourself and your people from any relationship that is still abusive or damaging.
Start separating more and more, and more some more, from the people who hurt you. Spend less time with them. Talk less to them. Don’t go to their house. Don’t invite them into your place. Think about boundaries and how to keep thicker walls with more space between you and them. Then get creative and brave enough to build new relationships with kinder people who don’t come at you in such abusive ways.
Hard choices…. Very hard. You’ll be breaking old rules to create separation from old abusers. It is very difficult — I completely get it. This is not an easy task.
But there are ways to have happy holidays! And happy un-holidays too. You can have lots and lots of days that don’t have to be filled with repeated injuries from people that hurt you.
Be brave enough to decide enough is enough, and that you don’t have to comply with abusers anymore.
No more unhappy holidays for you — you can do better!
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2022 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
Thank you Kathy for helping us try to see the good and find happiness in trying to move forward into a better tomorrow. No it is not easy but durable in small steps.
Love the puppies
Christmas sort of be hard. even tho it is fun. its both. it be hard to not be around pepol you love. it be hard when evreybody be far away. it dont feel rigt to spend christmas mostly alone and not have family. and worry about pepol that dont be around. that make christmas kind of stressfoll. it be kind of a lonley holladay but at least santa comes.
Thanks Kathy!
I wish i had 1 of them puppys kathy they do be so cute
Such pretty puppies!
Yes, I too hate the holidays. I have DID due to SRA. It was a terrible time growing up. Christmas Eve when I was 3 years old, my parents let a man come in to rape me, intentionally. I hate Christmas and always will, because of all the abuse and heinous crimes. This year is even worse. I did have a relationship with my sister the last 7 years, even though she was one of my abusers growing up. I was able to forgive her, knowing that she was just a product of what was done to her. However, she still engaged in some ‘bad behaviors’ and struggled with serious addiction. I stopped talking to her this last summer, because she was acting ‘not nice’ and was just out of control. I wanted a relationship with her, but I had to ‘protect’ myself. She wouldn’t get help and Overdosed on November 22 of this year. For 3 years prior, I tried fervently and desperately to ‘help’ her, but to no avail. It grieves me so much, because I desperately wanted to ‘save’ her, and knew that ‘what had happened to her’ couldn’t be fixed’. I’m struggling to forgive my parents for destroying 3 children emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Not for us. The holidays have been unpleasant for a long long time. We want to see our grandchildren but are not allowed to. Some of this is due from not being able to find “good help” for DID. Mental illness carries much stigma. It keeps us from doing much of anything including being able to spend time with family.
Holidays also hold much pain for us. It holds many memories of abuse and loss. It hurts. We would like to be happier.. But just don’t think it will ever happen. We are a lost cause