At Brickel & Associates, LLC, we take a trauma-informed, inclusive, and nonjudgmental approach to these challenges. We affirm your full humanity—and that includes your emotional responses, your lived experiences, and even your uncertainty. You don’t have to minimize your beliefs to keep the peace, and you don’t have to cut relationships that feel complicated. Therapy can help you make sense of the conflict and chart your own compassionate, values-aligned path forward.

1. Honor Your Feelings—They’re Valid

When someone you care about holds views that feel harmful or dismissive, the emotional response can be intense. It may bring up grief, anger, anxiety, or past trauma. These reactions aren’t “overreactions”—they’re rooted in real-life experience, and they’re deeply human.

If you’re someone who has experienced marginalization or trauma, those political disagreements can feel like emotional re-wounding. If you’re not sure what you believe or feel caught in the middle of polarized views, that uncertainty deserves just as much care and compassion.

It’s okay to feel angry, hurt, disappointed, or even betrayed. When political differences touch on fundamental parts of your identity or safety, it’s not “just a difference of opinion”—it can feel personal, because it is.

You’re allowed to grieve the gap between who you hoped someone was and who they reveal themselves to be. Therapy offers a safe, nonjudgmental space to process these emotions without being told to “just agree to disagree.”

In therapy, there’s no pressure to take sides or defend your position. There’s simply space to feel and process without judgment.

2. Clarify and Honor Your Boundaries

Boundaries are not about cutting people off or being “unforgiving”—they’re about staying safe, grounded, and emotionally intact. A trauma-informed lens helps you notice where your nervous system feels overwhelmed, where communication becomes unsafe, and what kind of interaction is tolerable for you.

Ask yourself:

• What conversations leave me feeling dysregulated or unsafe?
• When do I feel myself shutting down or dissociating?
• What kinds of limits help me stay present, connected, and regulated?

It’s okay to say, “I can’t talk about that with you right now.” It’s okay to take space. And it’s okay to change your mind about how you want to relate to someone.

Boundaries are a way of staying in integrity with yourself—even if others don’t understand.

Boundaries are an act of self-trust and nervous system care.

3. Reconnect with What Grounds You and Honor Your Values

Therapy can help you explore your values with curiosity, not judgment—so you can reconnect with your own truth, not someone else’s expectations.

When the people around you question or challenge your values—or when you’re unsure what your values even are—it can feel destabilizing. Grounding doesn’t mean being certain or rigid. It means reconnecting with what feels most true for you in this moment, even if that’s still evolving.

Consider asking yourself:

• What do I know what matters to me?
• What does justice, compassion, or equality mean to me?
• When have I felt most aligned with my values?
• How do my beliefs connect to my lived experience?
• Who helps me feel safe, curious, or supported when I explore difficult topics?

When others question or reject your values, it can shake your sense of stability. Grounding yourself in what you believe, and why, can be a powerful form of resilience.

You don’t need to convince everyone else to agree with you to feel valid or safe in your truth. Community, activism, art, and therapy can all be ways to reaffirm what matters most to you.

4. Decide What Kind of Connection Is Possible—For Now

Some relationships can survive political differences—especially when there’s a foundation of mutual respect, open-mindedness, and emotional safety. Others may need to shift, pause, or end. A trauma-informed approach understands that both can be acts of healing.

If connection still feels possible, it may help to:

• Focus on shared experiences, goals, or values
• Agree on respectful communication rules
• Prioritize curiosity, not conversion
• Practice empathy without abandoning your own truth

If connection feels harmful or retraumatizing, it’s okay to step back. Sometimes love and distance go hand in hand.

5. You Don’t Have to Do This Alone

Whether you’re grieving the loss of closeness with a loved one, uncertain about your beliefs, overwhelmed by political tension, or triggered by past experiences—you deserve support.

At Brickel & Associates, LLC, we walk with you—not to fix or persuade you, but to support your emotional well-being with care, compassion, and curiosity. We’re LGBTQ+ affirming, pro-choice, and committed to trauma-informed therapy for everyone—including those who feel unsure, conflicted, or caught in the middle.

You are welcome here.

Your feelings are real. Your healing matters. And your story deserves to be held with care.

Let us help you stay connected to yourself—even when the world feels divided.

Your values matter. Your identity matters. And your emotional well-being matters.

We’re here to support you—especially when the world feels divided.
You deserve a space where your truth is seen, respected, and held with care.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Robyn Brickel

Robyn is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 20+ years of experience providing psychotherapy, as well as the founder and clinical director of a private practice, Brickel and Associates, LLC in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia. She and her team bring a strengths-based, trauma-informed, systems approach to the treatment of individuals (adolescents and adults), couples and families. She specializes in trauma (including attachment trauma) and the use of dissociative mechanisms; such as: self-harm, eating disorders and addictions. She also approaches treatment of perinatal mental health from a trauma-informed lens.

Robyn also guides clients and clinicians who wish to better understand the impact of trauma on mental health and relationships. She has a wide range of post graduate trauma and addictions education and is trained in numerous relational models of practice, including Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), and Imago therapy. She is a trained Sensorimotor Psychotherapist and is a Certified EMDRIA therapist and Approved Consultant. Utilizing all of these tools, along with mindfulness and ego state work to provide the best care to her clients. She prides herself in always learning and expanding her knowledge on a daily basis about the intricacies of treating complex trauma and trauma’s impact on perinatal distress.

She frequently shares insights, resources and links to mental health news on Facebook and Twitter as well as in her blog at BrickelandAssociates.com

To contact Robyn directly:

Robyn@RobynBrickel.com

www.BrickelandAssociates.com

brickelandassociates.com/

Self-care

It is vital to take time out for yourself in the build-up to Christmas. The stores and food markets are teeming with products and people. It can get a little wild out there, and it’s important to think about our own health. If you fall apart, then who’s going to wrap those presents and get the house ready for family and guests?

Have you had any time for yourself today? Do any of your family members or friends need support? Even a brief conversation to check in on someone who is struggling can mean so much to the other person.

Who is watching the kids in all the preparation mayhem? Do they have to tidy their bedroom for a long-awaited relative to come and sleep in their room? How are they feeling about it all? Do we even stop and listen?

For me, as a survivor of child abuse and trauma, the holiday season comes with mixed emotions every year. Now that I am an adult, I can enjoy the holidays with my family and see the excitement the festivities bring to my own children each year. Being a mom is a wonderful gift, and I treasure my kids every day of the year. The holiday season is also a reminder that not every child is as lucky as my kids. I was that child once, and I sometimes had the worst time of my life during the holidays because I was forced to see my bio-father, who was a sex offender, and so were his friends. I feel that I must write about these children because they still exist nowadays. Please keep an eye out for children who seem like they are not enjoying the holiday season this year. Don’t let them just slip away by doing nothing. If you see signs of abuse, you must report it. There are far too many children who are suffering from abuse, and the holiday season is especially a time to keep an eye out for anything that doesn’t seem right.

“I can only hope that we’ll one day wake up in a better world, where children are no longer being abused or mistreated.” ChildInsider.com

Our world has changed a lot since the 70’s and 80’s, when people would rather brush things away and ignore child abuse than face it and help a child. The stigma around talking about sex has changed in recent years. TV, films, and other media are open about sex and relationships. We have the internet and social media, where anyone with an internet connection can look up information and news. There is worldwide exposure to sexual abuse scandals being brought out into the open. People are beginning to talk about it more, but it is still not enough. Knowing that sexual abuse or any kind of abuse is happening in our society is one thing. Accepting that it is happening right now, here in your city or town, and doing something to stop it is another.

Do you have what it takes to stand up and help a child who is being abused? Do you know how to do it? Who to call?

The ChildHelp National Child Abuse Hotline 800-422-4453 is available 24 hours a day here in the US. 

In the UK, you can contact the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) Helpline by calling 0808 800 5000

In my opinion, if as many as one more child suffers from abuse the way I did, it is one child too many. We can prevent this from happening by being vigilant. Let’s try to stop these sexual criminals from hurting our most precious gifts – our children! Our future! Our everything! The joy of growing up in a nurturing and stable environment is something every child deserves.

Signs of child abuse:

A child who is being exposed to sexual abuse or any abuse will use coping mechanisms to survive the trauma in any way they can. I know, because I was an abused child throughout my childhood, but it doesn’t matter if the abuse happened just once or repeatedly. If a child has been abused, their lives will have changed, and so will their behavior. It can be a gradual or instant change. These are some of the behaviors that an abused child might display:

Trust
An abused child will not trust anyone and will be suspicious of new situations. They may seem hypervigilant and suspicious of anyone. A child who is being abused becomes very good at reading people around them and deflecting attention away from them.
Health
A child who is suddenly developing chronic headaches, feeling sick, or having urinary or STD infections is a sign that everything may not be well
Emotional outbursts
Abused children may come across as not being in control of their bodies; for example, they might display various emotions in quick succession, like anger followed by sadness followed by running away, almost like a traffic light is changing colors at an intersection. The same child may react very oddly to certain situations, like laughing if someone is hurt or starting to cry profusely at a bumblebee that is lying dead in the grass.
Posture/image
Watch how a child holds themselves, how they walk, and how they behave around other children. An abused child may seem unusually jittery and tense.
Language
Watch their language. What does it sound like? Would a normal 6-year-old use “those words,” or can you hear something strange? A child might start ‘making up’ stories and drawings of the abuse or making up characters who act like abusers. The child might use language that they have been exposed to that contains words a child should not know.
Physical contact
A child might suddenly hate physical contact or being touched and recoil if anyone touches them.
Hiding and unusual attachments to objects
A child might feel so scared and threatened that s/he hides. A child might be overly attached to a blanket, a pillow, or a teddy bear. Having something soft and tactile could be a small relief for a traumatized child. Pay attention to anything that “feels wrong.”

An older traumatized child may suddenly withdraw from everyone. Please pay attention to how this happens and what might have triggered it.

Pushing limits / hurting others/violence
An older child may be starting to break the limits. What happens if?… Destroying property and hurting others. A child might feel threatened and become paranoid. They may become enraged or distressed and be rough with toys or animals.
Terror
A child might suddenly get terrified of something that reminds them of their abusers/s. I was terrified of clowns and often had nightmares about clowns entering my room at night and hurting me. I also developed a phobia of snakes.
Crying
A child might start crying without a reason and not be able to stop, or become hysterical over nothing, or suddenly become angry at the sight of men with beards or someone with glasses. This could be an unconscious reaction to someone who reminds them of their abuser.

There are many ways that abuse manifests itself in children’s behavior, and it is our responsibility to act on anything that doesn’t see right. Children are all different, and the behavior one child displays is different from another. It depends on the child’s surroundings and where the abuse takes place to determine which coping strategies they will use. There is every chance that nothing is going on when children act out, but would you be willing to take that risk if that child was being abused?

Let us all enjoy the holiday season in a safe and happy environment.

Photo by Benjamin Wong on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Elizabeth Woods

For more about me: https://www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Elizabeth Woods grew up in a world of brutal sex offenders, murderers, and inconceivably neglectful adults. Elizabeth is passionate about spreading awareness of what it is like to survive after trauma. She is the author of several books and has written her memoir, telling her childhood story: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds, available on Amazon Kindle and paperback.

Elizabeth is also the author of “Living with Complex PTSD” and the Cedar’s Port Fiction series: “Saving Joshua”, “Protecting Sarah”, “Guarding Noah” and “Bringing Back Faith,” and “Restoring Hope,” available here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BCBZQN7L/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=7e223b5b-1a29-45f0-ad9d-e9c8fdb59e9c&ref_=ap_rdr&ccs_id=931f96e2-c220-4765-acc8-cc99bb95e8bd

www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com/

Understanding Your Needs (Without Judgment)

The first step in navigating holiday events is understanding and validating our own responses. Many of us have internalized shame or self-criticism about our reactions to social situations, but these responses often serve an important protective function.

Before diving into strategies, let’s pause for a moment to reframe how we think about our responses to holiday events. What others might label as “social anxiety” or dismiss as “being antisocial,” we can recognize as our body’s innate wisdom at work. Instead of viewing our hesitation as a weakness, we can understand it as our finely-tuned nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do — protect us. When we feel the urge to step back, take breaks, or limit our time at events, that’s not a flaw or failure — it’s our body drawing on past experiences to keep us safe. This protective response is completely normal and even adaptive for trauma survivors.

Creating a Safety Plan for Holiday Events

Just as a pilot doesn’t take off without a flight plan, we shouldn’t enter potentially challenging social situations without a safety plan. Having clear strategies in place can help us feel more confident and in control of our experience.

Set Clear Boundaries Before the Event.

• Decide in advance how long you’ll stay
• Identify quiet spaces where you can take breaks
• Have an exit strategy and transportation plan
• Consider bringing a trusted colleague as an ally

Plan Your Self-Care Strategy

Self-care isn’t just about what we do after an event — it’s about making conscious choices during the event that honor our needs and boundaries. Here are some strategies to help you maintain your equilibrium while participating professionally.

You don’t need to attend every event or stay for the entire duration. Instead, consider making a brief appearance during quieter hours when the energy is typically more subdued and manageable. While there, position yourself strategically near exits or quiet corners, creating natural opportunities for breaks and ensuring you have easy access to less stimulating spaces when needed. Keep grounding objects in your pocket — perhaps a smooth stone, a fidget tool, or any small item that helps you stay connected to the present moment. Throughout your time there, use breathing techniques as needed to help regulate your nervous system and maintain your sense of calm and control.

Managing Common Challenges

Holiday events often present specific challenges for trauma survivors. By anticipating these challenges, we can prepare ourselves with effective coping strategies and responses that maintain both our well-being and professional relationships.

Alcohol and Substance Pressure

The presence of alcohol at workplace events can create additional stress for many trauma survivors. Whether for personal, health, or recovery reasons, it’s important to have strategies ready for navigating these situations.

Many trauma survivors face additional challenges around alcohol at holiday events. It’s perfectly acceptable to:

• Hold a non-alcoholic beverage
• Practice responses to decline drinks
• Leave before drinking increases
• Coordinate with HR for alcohol-free alternatives

Sensory Overload Management

Holiday celebrations often create environments that can quickly become overwhelming for our nervous systems. Understanding and preparing for these sensory challenges can help us manage them more effectively.

Holiday parties often mean bright lights, loud music, and crowds. Consider:

• Wearing comfortable clothes
• Using noise-canceling earbuds
• Taking regular outdoor breaks
• Standing near areas with better ventilation

Professional Impact and Recovery

The effects of attending holiday events don’t end when we leave the party. Taking a mindful approach to the following day can help us maintain our professional presence while honoring our need for recovery.

The Day After

Planning for the day after an office holiday event is just as important as preparing for the event itself. If possible, try to schedule a lighter workload, giving yourself permission to work at a gentler pace as you process and recover. Keep comfort items at your desk — perhaps a favorite tea, a soft scarf, or any objects that help you feel grounded and secure. When you’re ready, take time to process the experience with a trusted friend or therapist who can hold space for your feelings and insights. Most importantly, remember to celebrate your courage in showing up and navigating the event — each social interaction, no matter how brief, is a step forward in your journey of growth and healing.

Moving Forward

Success in navigating workplace events isn’t just about surviving them — it’s about growing stronger and more confident in our ability to manage professional situations while honoring our healing journey. Each experience provides valuable insights we can use to refine our approach.

Attending holiday work events while managing trauma responses takes incredible strength. Each social interaction is an opportunity to practice self-advocacy and build resilience, but only when it feels right for you.

Questions for Reflection and Journaling

Take some time to explore these questions in your journal. There are no right or wrong answers — this is your unique journey:

1. When have you successfully navigated a challenging social situation in the past, and what strengths did you draw upon in that moment?
2. What resources (internal and external) do you have available to support yourself during these events?
3. How might this experience contribute to your ongoing journey of professional growth while honoring your healing process?

An Invitation

If you’d like to join an online community of other resilient overcomers focusing on their careers, I invite you to join The Resilient Career Academy™ Community. (RCA Community)

The RCA Community is a group dedicated to helping/supporting those working to overcome adversity and achieve their full potential in their careers.

The benefits to you are:

• Community. The community provides support, encouragement, the ability to share frustrations and get feedback from people who understand the struggle.
• Workplace/Career Resources. The group provides tools, resources, and templates to help you with your career journey.
• Available Coaching Support. The community is supported by trained and certified coaches who are available for individual sessions.
• Learning. You will have access to various trauma/workplace-related online courses developed by our coaches to help you in your journey.
• Workshops/Webinars . You will have access to practical workshops/webinars targeted to help you in the workplace grow your career.

If you are interested in joining us, click here: https://resilientcareeracademy.myflodesk.com/community

As always, you do not have to walk this journey alone. Contact me to schedule your free discovery call.

Trigger Tracker Template — This is a FREE resource to help you become aware of your triggers in the workplace and plan the coping strategies you will use to get through the experience.

If you want to stay informed on the programs, tools, and training I offer, sign up for my mailing list.

You can also visit my website for more information on courses and other freebies I offer at: https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Cyndi Bennett

Believer. Leader. Learner. Advocate. Writer. Speaker. Coach. Mentor. Triathlete. Encourager. Survivor.
 
Most of all, I am a fellow traveler on the rocky road called, Trauma Recovery. My mission is to minimize the effects of trauma for survivors in the workplace.

An estimated 14% of adults experience “holiday blues” each year, with symptoms ranging from irritability and guilt to nostalgia and profound sadness. 

These feelings are often heightened by the pressure to appear happy, social, and generous while navigating complex family dynamics or memories of past traumas.

For those struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), depression, or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), the season can feel overwhelming. 

The STAR Network recognizes how tough this time of year can be and offers free peer-to-peer support through TAR Anon™ meetings, creating a safe, supportive space to help you cope with these challenges.

In the following lines, we will talk more about the holiday blues and how you can start your healing journey. 

Why are the Holidays Difficult?

The end of the year is fraught with unique stressors, including:

1. High Expectations – Social media, advertisements, and societal norms perpetuate the idea that the holidays should be a time of endless joy, generosity, and connection. For those struggling emotionally, this expectation can feel like an impossible standard to meet.
2. Overwhelming Schedules – Packed calendars of family events, gift-giving, and financial strain can leave individuals feeling physically and emotionally depleted.
3. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – For many, the shorter days and colder weather exacerbate depressive symptoms. Common symptoms of SAD include persistent low mood, lethargy, irritability, and feelings of worthlessness.
4. Isolation and Grief – Many face the holidays without loved ones, either due to estrangement, loss, or other painful circumstances. The season’s emphasis on togetherness often magnifies feelings of loneliness.
5. Past Trauma – The holidays can serve as a painful reminder of past abuses or unresolved family conflicts, making it especially difficult for those recovering from trauma.

Build a Support System with STAR Network

You don’t have to face the holiday blues alone. STAR Network offers free weekly TAR Anon™ meetings designed to support individuals dealing with toxic relationships, parental alienation, and other life challenges. 

These peer-to-peer support groups provide a safe, neuroregulated space where you can connect with others who truly understand what you’re going through.

Why Join TAR Anon™?

• Shared Experience: Connect with others who have faced similar struggles.
• Practical Tools: Learn coping strategies and self-care practices to navigate the holidays.
• Empowerment: Build resilience and find hope as you take steps toward healing.

Their community is here to help you move from surviving to thriving, even during the toughest times of the year.

Simple Ways to Be Kind to Yourself

While navigating holiday stress, it’s essential to prioritize your well-being. Here are a few tips to help you cope:

• Set Boundaries: Politely decline events or commitments that feel overwhelming.
• Practice Self-Compassion: Let go of perfectionism and remind yourself that it’s okay to feel how you feel.
• Focus on Small Joys: Schedule time for activities that nourish your spirit, such as walking in nature, journaling, or listening to music.
• Connect with Community: Joining a supportive group like TAR Anon™ can remind you that you’re not alone.

You Are Not Alone

If the holiday season is a struggle, remember that STAR Network is here to help. Their TAR Anon™ meetings offer a judgment-free space to share, heal, and rebuild your strength. 

Whether you’re feeling isolation, grief, or the weight of family expectations, their community can help you find light in the darkness.

To learn more and join a free support group, visit STAR Network.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Milena "Mila" Stankovic

Milena “Mila” Stankovic is a Co-Founder at STAR Network, TAR Anon and Partners In Mens Health. Milena “Mila” Stankovic is a mental health advocate & ambassador , screenwriter, writer and creator. She covers clinical and experience-based standpoints on topics such as Toxic Abusive Relationships, trauma, CPTSD, Toxic Families,  Parental Alienation, and Narcissism. Mila provides practical, vulnerable, and real-life examples to help those who have been abused to overcome their fears. She will help you heal: one article at a time. She is also a Please check the organizations which are still under development here:

https://partnersinmenshealth.com/
https://tartales.org
https://starnetwork.org
https://taranon.org
If you wish to write and share your stories and get in touch with Mila, please contact her at mila@starnetwork.org

medium.com/@milena-koljensic

Wait a minute, weren’t Thanksgiving and Christmas just last week? Here they come again. Celebration doesn’t mix well with trauma. Everyone talks about the busyness of the season as a source of stress, but for survivors of childhood trauma, the struggle with the holidays has much deeper implications.

Memories from the past come to the surface. Emotional damage and conditioning push our default button. While everyone else is drinking hot cocoa and eating turkey, we are filled with despair and hopelessness. The loneliness of our childhood is only exacerbated by all the togetherness. If we are still in contact with our family, there is the additional stress of figuring out how to deal with them without going into a major depression. If we have gone no contact, we must deal with the guilt and obligation made worse by holiday expectations.

My family of origin had so many strange demands and behaviors associated with the holidays that the “celebration” became nothing but a source of dread. Even when I broke away from the family system, it took a long time not to be haunted by the memories and the brainwashing. We had everything backwards.

By rejecting the giver, gift-giving was a way to pile on more abuse. I once dragged a framed page from a book printed in the 1500s all the way from Europe as a present for my father. Knowing he was a history buff, I thought I had found the perfect present. He returned it to me, saying he didn’t have room for it on the wall. The silent message was always, “You’re as worthless as your gifts.” Nothing is ever the right size or the right color or the right choice. 

You can never do enough. You didn’t help enough with the dinner. You didn’t stay long enough at the party. You didn’t do enough to make me happy, and on and on and on. The same old abusive pattern goes on steroids during the holidays. No wonder childhood trauma survivors struggle with celebrations. 

I enjoy paper crafting. I recently found a wonderful YouTube channel called “Treasure Books.” They’ve given me so many ideas that I can’t stop myself. Because they take a lot of creativity and time to make, I’m having a hard time giving any of them away. But what am I going to do with twenty crafted “treasure books?” Keep them for me so they can go to waste?

That’s exactly what narcissists do with the holidays. They keep everything for themselves. Using manipulation and harassment, they demand control. What they want is narcissistic supply, and they will get it no matter how much it costs. Feeding off your confusion and sadness, they like to create an uproar.

Abusers take and take and take, thus destroying the holiday for what it should be. As survivors, we don’t have to live like this anymore. It’s not too late to take your celebration back. In fact, it’s high time you did!

We can be at peace with the way our family behaves by not participating in the old expectations anymore. Separate yourself from the system. I like to think of ways I can serve safe people who are willing to receive what I have to give. I no longer try to please an unpleasant master. Everyone was a loser when I participated in that game.

No matter how beautiful my crafted treasure books are, they don’t do anybody any good sitting on my desk. It is in giving that we receive. We must be careful with whom we entrust the most precious gift of all…the gift of ourselves. Don’t waste your holidays on people who only want to hurt you. Create a new holiday, and celebrate with all your heart. You’ve suffered long enough. Let this year be different. Defy trauma embrace joy

Sign up for my free Newsletter at: DefyTraumaEmbraceJoy.com

Photo by coincidence on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Rebekah Brown

Rebekah Brown, a native of the south, now resides in the Great American West. Surviving a complicated and abusive family system makes her unique writing style insightful as well as uplifting. Rebekah is the proud mother of two and grandmother of four.

Have you ever felt stuck and in need of a change?

Have you ever thought about how you fit into this world?

What are your talents and gifts? Do you have a hobby that you enjoy?

Have you ever felt the need to help someone?

Whatever you believe and whatever path you are on, the core values of being a good person are explored in all religions.

After 40 days and nights of the Lenten season, Palm Sunday arrives. Christians celebrate this day because they believe Jesus returned to his people from the desert. Jesus is back. However, his stay is not long-lived until he celebrates “The Last Supper” on Maundy Thursday with his 12 disciples. Jesus is betrayed by one of his own disciples and arrested, tortured, and crucified, resulting in his death on Good Friday. Christians call these events “the Passion of the Lord”. It signifies how an innocent (Jesus) is punished and condemned to death, so that Christians can live, and all sins are forgiven. Jesus took all sins away by dying for us on the cross. Catholic Christians go to confession during Lent and all throughout the year to confess their sins, asking God for forgiveness.

Whether you are a Christian or an atheist, suffering and torture are always considered bad. No sane human being wants to allow others to suffer, and yet, this happens in our society today. People are hurting and there are wars. I have spent many hours contemplating why our world is so full of hatred. After having suffered unbearable sexual abuse, I know just how much it hurts to be on the brink of what a human being can take before death. I cannot understand how someone could inflict pain on another human being. It is incomprehensible.

As a child growing up in an abusive home, school became my refuge and I treasured the routine of religion and its special seasons. I enjoyed learning about what people believed in, and it opened the world to something other than abuse and trauma. It was familiar to hear the Easter stories in school even if it was not something I experienced at home. I knew that as soon as those school gates shut, I was back in my prison of a world where the adults around me ruled every breath I took. A world where there was only pain and no hope of freedom. Only time would release me from the shackles of abuse. The long Easter weekend of Good Friday and a week off school was never a fun week at home. I didn’t know how to pray but in my deepest despair, I found something profound within me. It was something fierce and so pure not even the worst abuse and pain could penetrate and destroy it. I found a determination and made a promise to myself. If I lived to the age of 18, I would go far away and live a good life. I would become the best person I could be and cancel out all the hurt and pain my parents and all the adults around me had caused. I switched from the dark to the light side. That is what I promised myself. I would live my life to the fullest because that was my revenge. I lived.

Easter is also a time for rebirth and new beginnings. Like Jesus rising from the dead, we experience the world waking up again after a long winter. Flowers and trees blossom, and the land grows abundantly green. Animals have their young and life starts again. It is a time for joy and celebrations even if you do not have a religion. Kids at school learn about the seasons and springtime is a time to think about new beginnings. When we think of spring, we often think of chickens and eggs as a symbol of rebirth.

For me, the Easter season now, as a mother, is just what I envisaged all those years ago. My children have had a wonderful childhood, and they were surrounded by love and support as they grew older. I have embraced Christian traditions and taught my children to become happy and loving human beings who look out for others and their world. We come together as a family over the Easter weekend, share a meal, and enjoy each other’s company. We play board games and everyone takes part, young and old. We go for hikes and share ice creams. It is so much fun to share precious time together. I never have experienced that until now and I appreciate everything my family has given me. I feel so grateful to be alive. To be given the chance of having a life after so much pain and abuse. 

My name is Elizabeth and I am a survivor.

Read my story here: Amazon.com: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds eBook : Woods, Elizabeth: Kindle Store 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Elizabeth Woods

For more about me: https://www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Elizabeth Woods grew up in a world of brutal sex offenders, murderers, and inconceivably neglectful adults. Elizabeth is passionate about spreading awareness of what it is like to survive after trauma. She is the author of several books and has written her memoir, telling her childhood story: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds, available on Amazon Kindle and paperback.

Elizabeth is also the author of “Living with Complex PTSD” and the Cedar’s Port Fiction series: “Saving Joshua”, “Protecting Sarah”, “Guarding Noah” and “Bringing Back Faith,” and “Restoring Hope,” available here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BCBZQN7L/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=7e223b5b-1a29-45f0-ad9d-e9c8fdb59e9c&ref_=ap_rdr&ccs_id=931f96e2-c220-4765-acc8-cc99bb95e8bd

www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com/

This article focuses on prioritizing your mental well-being during the holidays, including New Year’s when you are a survivor of cruelty.

What is Mental Wellness

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental wellness as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can make a contribution to his or her community.”

Emotional wellness reflects your ability to deal with and understand your feelings. It involves focusing on your thoughts and feelings plus monitoring any reactions you have that define your identity and barriers to what may make you emotionally unwell.

Mental wellness allows you to:

• recognize your abilities.
• work productively.
• cope with daily stress.
• feel and act in ways that have a positive impact on you.

Some of the benefits of being mentally well are:

• emotional well-being
• social well-being
• psychological well-being
• enhanced self-acceptance
• growth
• positive relationships
• purpose
• self-sufficiency

Mental wellness is something that most people struggle to obtain and that can be reduced or destroyed at any time. All it takes is a trauma, such as the death of someone close, to change your mental wellness forever.

What is Mental Illness

Also called mental health disorder, mental illness is many mental health conditions that can affect your thinking, behavior, and mood. Some examples of mental illness are depression, schizophrenia, substance use disorders, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and eating disorders.

Mental illness is a common condition that affects millions of people every year.

The following statistics are sobering.

• One in five (19%) of adults living in the United States experience mental illness.
• One in twenty-four (4.1%) people have a severe mental illness.
• One in twelve (8.5%) people have a diagnosable substance use disorder.

Although most people experience mental health, all people have concerns for their mental well-being from time to time. Concerns become mental illness when symptoms cause a lot of stress and affect how you function.

Mental illness makes people miserable and causes problems in daily life.

The good news is that most mental illnesses, including complex post-traumatic stress disorder, are treatable. With medications and the appropriate therapy, most people will recover from their disorder or at least experience their symptoms in remission.

The Importance of Self-Care During the Holidays

While Christmas is a joyful time of year, it comes with enormous stress on those who celebrate it or any of the December holidays. It is critical to remember to take good care of your physical and emotional needs while being bombarded with Christmas cheer.

Excellent self-care will aid you in circumnavigating the holiday blues because it strengthens your ability to resist the negative connotations that the holiday can bring.

Below are a few methods of self-care you can use to enjoy the holidays better.

Recognize what is essential to you. Take time to refresh yourself on your values and ensure you understand that your Christmas will never look like someone else’s, so don’t feel it is necessary to compete with others. Your values and boundaries may tell you that you should avoid your family of origin. If so, it would be incongruent for you to compare yourself to someone who enjoys theirs. Make Christmas and the other holidays your own, not someone else’s.

Create and stick to healthy boundaries. During the holidays, setting healthy boundaries that honor yourself is vital. Make what you will and will not tolerate known to people you spend time with during this time of year and respond if they cross them. Remember, you always, always have the option to leave.

Stay focused on the present. Although many people have good memories of past holidays, survivors have a more challenging time enjoying themselves. Unfortunately, memories of the past often carry a negative connotation, carrying with them visions of past abuse. It is critical to find ways to keep yourself from flashing back to the years when you were hurt, such as learning and using grounding techniques to bring you back to the here and now quickly.

Be sure to make time for yourself. Don’t allow yourself to fill up your calendar with social events because you need time to practice self-care. Alone time is critical to recharging your batteries when the world goes mad during the holiday season. Find time to center yourself by using meditation or mindfulness, two vital tools, while visiting and unwrapping presents.

If you take good care of your physical and mental needs throughout the holidays, you will gain the ability to handle life in general. Think of Christmas time as a classroom full of triggers. Learn to control yourself when you have a flashback or are otherwise triggered, and you can carry what you learn into the rest of your ordinary life.

Protecting Your Mental Health During the Holidays

Because the holidays are so stressful, it is critical to protect your mental health from deteriorating. It isn’t only the blues that affect people during the season of supposed cheer; anxiety and stress are predominant, making people miserable during the time of ho-ho-ho-ing.

To put the above paragraph into perspective, ValuePenguin surveyed 2000 people and found that 67% of people in the United States expect to feel anxious. Also, 79% of Americans with children younger than eighteen feel stress the most. Women (70%) are likelier to feel anxious and stressed in comparison to men (64%).

The leading causes of the stress and anxiety people feel are attributed to financial struggles, the loss of a loved one, seasonal depression, and other troubles. These other problems may include:

• having poor relationships with family.
• not being around loved ones during the holidays.
• being around family during the holidays.
• viewing social media posts and feeling upset.
• having unrealistic expectations of what Christmas should be.

Sadly, 61% of U.S. consumers think they’ll experience loneliness or sadness.

Methods to Protect Your Mental Health During the Holidays

The greatest asset anyone has is good mental health. With good mental health, you can do anything you want. The holidays can overwhelm your ability to maintain good mental health and send you into depression or worse.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), there are methods you can employ to help you get and maintain your mental health during the holidays. For one, you can pay close attention to your feelings. Are you overwhelmed? Do you need to go home?

Another way to protect your mental health during the holidays is to make a plan ahead of time to go for a walk or do something that makes you happy. Making and following a plan of action will help ensure you can handle the difficult moments with family and friends.

Yet another way to safeguard your mental health during the holidays is to help others. You can check in on those who are alone or shut in and volunteer to feed people experiencing homelessness at a shelter. Offering yourself as a volunteer brings excellent satisfaction, and you will feel in control and calmer.

Ending Our Time Together

I realize that some people feel my suggestions for those who have complicated families of origin are controversial. In this series and elsewhere, I’ve stated that you can have no contact with your family of origin or severely limit your time with them. Some people have written and told me that one can correct their point of view, and poof, they will get along with their families.

That suggestion is unrealistic for so many reasons. Some families of origin are unsafe for both physical and mental health. Some families of origin have rejected the survivor anyway, so it is essential for their mental health to stay away from their family.

This series aims to address the problems people face during the holiday season. I knew I needed to write this series to help myself get and remain grounded. I, too, suffer a bit during the holiday season, experiencing flashbacks and dealing with my own family of origin.

Just remember, you are not alone, especially during the holiday season. I’m with you and understand your struggles, as do the other staff at CPTSD Foundation. We’re here for you if you need us. We’re always open.

I hope and pray that all of you have a safe and quiet holiday and enjoy yourselves in making new traditions with your family of choice.

“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.” – Calvin Coolidge

“Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.” – Eric Severeid

Pride Program

CPTSD Foundation wishes to invite you to our Pride Program, offered weekly on Circle. In Pride, we discuss important topics related to complex trauma and how it has affected our lives. The program is led by a fantastic person who personally understands the issues facing the LGBTQIA+ community.

Come as you are, take what you like, and leave the rest.

The program is offered every Thursday at 7 pm Eastern time through the Circle app. If you are interested, you can find information here. If you are interested, don’t hesitate to contact the support team of CPTSD Foundation and sign up.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Shirley Davis

My name is Shirley Davis and I am a freelance writer with over 40-years- experience writing short stories and poetry. Living as I do among the corn and bean fields of Illinois (USA), working from home using the Internet has become the best way to communicate with the world. My interests are wide and varied. I love any kind of science and read several research papers per week to satisfy my curiosity. I have earned an Associate Degree in Psychology and enjoy writing books on the subjects that most interest me.

www.learnaboutdid.com

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Self-Sabotage

During the 20 years that I struggled with emotional and compulsive eating, there were a lot of ups and downs.

Mostly downs, with some fleeting ups interspersed. It is a difficult place to be. There’s so much involved: how you feel in your body, how you feel about yourself, how you hold yourself back from what you really want.

Through it all, there was one thing that frustrated me more than anything else:

That even though I knew what to do, I still wasn’t doing it.

Why do we do that? Why do we stop ourselves from having what we really want? Why don’t we just get out of our own way and allow ourselves to have what we know is possible for us?

I shared some essential points for transforming your relationship with food and your body in my first two posts. In the first post, I shared that what you eat matters, and that bringing your body into balance is one of the most important things you can do to free yourself from the struggle. In the second post, I spoke to the huge emotional/psychological component that is underneath your cravings and gave you a tool to use to help you through those trigger moments.

There are hundreds of methodologies and tools and practices that will help you lessen, or even disappear the struggle and find peace with food. Maybe you know of some. Maybe you’ve tried them. Maybe you’ve found a level of success or maybe you’ve failed miserably.

But it doesn’t matter how powerful and healing the solution is if you’re not actually able to do it.

Even if you know exactly what to do, and you have it all laid out for you, it’s possible that you still won’t do it. In fact, you’re likely going to have noble intentions… and end up making the same old choices.

Self-sabotage strikes again

And there is a reason for that. You see, there’s your conscious mind, that has a goal and sees the path and has it all planned out – eat whole foods, balance your blood sugar, feel your emotions when they come up, use the SAFE method when you’re triggered.

You’ve got your plan, you’re inspired to put it into action, and then all these other things start getting in the way – i.e. “life” starts happening.

All sorts of reasons and excuses start to come up: “I’m too tired,” “I’m too busy, I just don’t have the time,” “I’ll start tomorrow,” “I totally forgot!”

And you get frustrated and upset because you should be able to do it. You have a plan, you’re a smart, dedicated woman who’s deeply committed to being healthy!

But there’s also your subconscious mind. As much as your conscious mind likes to think that it’s in charge, your subconscious mind is actually running 95% of the show. And your subconscious mind sees change as a threat.

So no matter how amazing your plan is, you won’t be able to follow it unless you address the underlying reason you’re staying stuck.

Each of us has unique programming that was formed when you were young, that tells you when it’s okay to go forward, and when it’s not.

And it all comes back to your three basic human needs: Love, Safety, and Belonging. In other words, you have beliefs around what you need to be, do, or have in order to feel like you are loved, safe, and like you belong.

And these beliefs have gotten you to where you are now. Your current way of being is keeping you safe in your belief system.

And as you reach for what you want (whether that’s eating better, exercising more, taking time for yourself, or losing weight)… these things are somehow, in some way, outside of your current belief system for love, safety, and belonging. And so your beliefs start pulling you back to what is safe and familiar.

I want you to really get this

Your current default eating habits exist for a reason. You created yourself and your situation perfectly, based on what you believe for yourself in order to have love, safety, and belonging intact.

And doing anything differently that might give you a different way of being, is not aligned with keeping love, safety, and belonging in tact.

Your programming and subconscious beliefs about what you need to do, be, or have to keep the feelings of love, safety, and belonging in tact are taking over!

One of my clients came to me saying that one of the things that she wanted was to lose weight and shine her light. But as we worked together, we uncovered an underlying fear that if she loses weight and shines her light, well, shining her light will attract attention. She’ll start getting noticed by men and because of a very traumatic incident in her past, getting that attention feels incredibly unsafe for her.

It lived for her like a dangerous inner conflict on a subconscious level. She wasn’t even aware that this was happening, but the underlying belief was, “If I lose weight, I won’t be safe.”

Until she was able to feel safe, at a subconscious level, she just wasn’t going to be able to make the changes in her life that she knew she had to make. And she wasn’t going to release the weight!

So if you don’t shift your beliefs, then your subconscious mind will find creative ways to stop you from losing weight.

And that can look like a binge, that can look like living out your same patterns, and that can look like, “I’m too tired,” “I’m too busy, I just don’t have the time,” “I’ll start tomorrow,” “I totally forgot!”

Sound familiar?

In order to change your habits and your relationship with food, you have to shift your beliefs around love, safety, and belonging, so that they align with what you want. So they don’t hold you back.

Basically, your subconscious mind has to be on board.

So you can stop beating yourself up for not being able to follow through on what you know to it. It’s not your fault! Your subconscious mind is just trying to keep you safe.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Rachel Grant

Rachel Grant is the owner and founder of Rachel Grant Coaching and is a Sexual Abuse Recovery Coach and M.A. in Counseling Psychology. She is also the author of Beyond Surviving: The Final Stage in Recovery from Sexual Abuse.  Based on her educational training, study of neuroscience, and lessons learned from her own journey, she has successfully used the Beyond Surviving Program since 2007 to help survivors of childhood sexual abuse who are beyond sick and tired of feeling broken and unfixable break free from the pain of abuse and finally move on with their lives.

www.rachelgrantcoaching.com

This article will explore the hazards of having a dysfunctional family of origin and ways to ease pressure and disappointment.

What are the Holiday Blues?

According to NAMI (The National Alliance on Mental Illness), approximately 1 in 5 adults have some form of mental health disorder. For those who have formed complex post-traumatic stress disorder, dealing with having a mental health condition combined with the holidays often brings increased depression and anxiety.

The holiday blues or holiday depression causes the holidays to, instead of being a time of rejoicing, turn into a time of painful reflection and loneliness. Even people who are not survivors of childhood trauma can experience the blues during the holiday season. Christmas places unusual demands on them, leaving them exhausted.

The most common holiday blues symptom is depression or recurring feelings of sadness that begin as the holiday season starts. While some people who have the holiday blues are almost debilitated, others experience only brief bouts of depression mixed with feeling upbeat.

Other symptoms of the holiday blues are very similar to those found in seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and may also include:

• Changes in appetite
• Depression or irritability
• Difficulty concentrating
• Changes in sleep patterns
• Feeling worthless or guilty
• Feeling tense, anxious, and worried
• Loss of pleasure doing things you enjoy
• Feeling fatigued

Because the above symptoms are so similar to both major depressive disorder and seasonal affective disorder, you should consult your mental health professional for help.

What Causes the Holiday Blues?

The jury is still out on what exactly happens in the brain to cause the blues during the holiday season. Stress is believed to be the main culprit mixed with trauma experienced in childhood or recent events.

Other sources of sadness during the holidays are:

• Fatigue
• Unrealistic expectations
• Over-commercialization of Christmas
• Feeling financial stress

Having the inability to be with your family of origin (FOI), even though they drive you crazy, still causes feelings of guilt or being left out. However, knowing you will be with your FOI can also cause enormous stress.

Reliving hard times lived in a series of flashbacks of the prior Christmas’ adds a new dimension of sadness to the person who has survived childhood abuse. Many remember the danger of being out of school for the holidays, which brought on more abuse or the problems with alcohol their parents and relatives may have had.

Emotional Overwhelm at Christmas

Emotional overwhelm is challenging to deal with any time of year, but especially at Christmas. Emotional overwhelm is a state of upset because of intense emotion and is difficult to manage. This condition makes you behave irrationally, keeping you from completing daily tasks.

There are several causes of emotional overwhelm, including stress, having survived a traumatic life event (or series of them), and, of course, Christmas. Emotional overwhelm occurs when the intensity of your feelings overcomes your ability to manage them.

Some of the most common symptoms of emotional overwhelm are:

• Feeling physically ill
• Disproportionately responding to insignificant situations
• Feeling fatigued
• Having trouble focusing
• Withdrawing from friends and family
• Having problems completing even simple tasks
• Your emotions color how you perceive your world
• Feelings of intense grief or sadness during happy occasions
• Flashbacks to traumatic events that happened in your life

People who experience emotional overwhelm are often overcome with negative emotions such as fear, guilt, anger, and, sometimes, mania.

Surviving Dinner with Toxic Relatives

We’ve all been there. We’re invited to a Christmas dinner with our family of origin. We dread it because we haven’t seen some of these people in a year and don’t particularly look forward to it now.

If you have complex post-traumatic stress disorder, Christmas dinner with the family can cause extreme distress. Our trouble with meeting with our family of origin may be related to them drinking excessive amounts of alcohol or because they were responsible for your having CPTSD.

Because our family of origin is dysfunctional, they may argue or make snide comments about you or treat you with disdain because you are in therapy. Whatever the cause, emotional overwhelm creeps in weeks in advance as we dread the unhappiness we will feel being in our family of origin’s presence.

You can do at least four things not to become overwhelmed at Christmas dinner with your family.

1. Don’t take anything your family says or does personally. It doesn’t matter what others say or do because those things come directly from their issues. You are not the cause of their rude behavior; they are projecting their inadequacies and fears onto you.
2. Plan ahead. Decide ahead of time who you will sit next to and the types of conversations you would like to engage in. Think of your answers to relatives who are nosy about your life and healing journey. Preparing ahead gives you an edge and helps you to survive unscathed.
3. Befriend yourself. Plan what you will and will not tolerate from your family. Build boundaries with the people at Christmas dinner and stick to them, especially if they try to shame you. Tell them in no uncertain terms that they are disrespecting you and that you will not tolerate it.
4. Leave. You are human and deserve love and respect from everyone, including your family of origin. If your family does not give you what you deserve, leaving either the conversation or the dinner altogether is okay. Keep in mind that your emotional well-being is vital and that you deserve to be treated with dignity, love, and respect.

The bottom line is that you ultimately control how you respond to your family of origin. They do not control you; you do.

Steps for Avoiding Stress During the Holidays

Have you ever noticed that when we visit our families, we fall back into the roles we had during our childhood? This regression is a standard psychological defense mechanism. This particular defense mechanism attacks us, especially when we are in the presence of our family of origin, because of the stress we feel and our emotional overwhelm.

If you experience regression with your family, don’t fault yourself. Regression is a normal response by our brain that will default to previous social experiences that it recognizes from the past.

There are some things you can do to help you if you find yourself regressing into old roles by examining your family dynamics and what you want from the holiday.

Set firm boundaries. Setting firm boundaries is difficult at best if you have never set any with your family. Even if you have set boundaries before, your family may ignore them and step beyond your drawn line. However, you owe it to yourself to push back and remind them that you will not tolerate such behavior.

Accept your family for who they are. You cannot change other people; this is an undeniable fact. Wishing your family of origin would change will not make it happen; it only sets you up for misery. Find what you like about your family of origin and concentrate on that. If there is nothing you can think of, why are you there?

Stop the cycle of manipulation by family members. Many families use emotional manipulation to place guilt on members so they will attend Christmas dinner. It is critical to reassure yourself that you are making the correct choice for you. Going to Christmas dinner is not a requirement by law, so why attend if you know your family will mistreat you?

Keep in mind that the holidays will soon be over. Because you are experiencing emotional overwhelm, it can be challenging to remember that Christmas is one day per year, so your time of misery is limited. When caught up in anxiety and emotional overwhelm, it is beneficial to use some grounding techniques that you have practiced ahead of time.

Ending Our Time Together

Trauma can leave people struggling with complex post-traumatic stress disorder that makes going through the holidays hell. But it doesn’t need to remain that way. You can choose to find a new family and spend the holidays with them instead. Your family of origin may object and try to guilt you into attending their dinner, but you can say a resounding no.

I have flashbacks throughout the Christmas season, but I have learned not to dread them because I have techniques I use to pull myself out of them. One of the techniques that works well for me is deep breathing. Somehow, breathing deeply in through my nose and slowly out my mouth brings me calm, and it can be done anywhere.

Don’t set your expectations too high regarding your family of origin and Christmas dinner. Doing so will only bring you misery and enhance your emotional overwhelm.

Remember, too, that you have friends here at CPTSD Foundation who are always here in some fashion to help you cope. We care deeply for you.

“So if you’ve always been a ‘giver,’ take some time for yourself in your life – to stop, be still, to allow the Universe to nourish you. We all deserve nourishment, even if we were taught those many years ago that we didn’t.  And if you give it permission, the Universe is happy to provide.” – Katherine Mayfield

“But remember that this is a dysfunctional pattern, born of misunderstanding and misinterpretation.  We can’t know what others truly need, but with a little investigation, we can find out what nourishes us and place our focus there.  Then we become a role model for others – when we see someone nourishing themselves, we tend to allow more space in our lives to do that for ourselves.” – Katherine Mayfield

Pride Program

CPTSD Foundation wishes to invite you to our Pride Program, offered weekly on Circle. In Pride, we discuss important topics related to complex trauma and how it has affected our lives. The program is led by a fantastic person who personally understands the issues facing the LGBTQIA+ community.

Come as you are, take what you like, and leave the rest.

The program is offered every Thursday at 7 pm Eastern time through the Circle app. If you are interested, you can find information here. If you are interested, don’t hesitate to contact the support team of CPTSD Foundation and sign up.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Shirley Davis

My name is Shirley Davis and I am a freelance writer with over 40-years- experience writing short stories and poetry. Living as I do among the corn and bean fields of Illinois (USA), working from home using the Internet has become the best way to communicate with the world. My interests are wide and varied. I love any kind of science and read several research papers per week to satisfy my curiosity. I have earned an Associate Degree in Psychology and enjoy writing books on the subjects that most interest me.

www.learnaboutdid.com

For a lot of us, though, who come from families that were dysfunctional and abusive, family gatherings are a source of extreme stress and anticipatory anxiety. Gathering some resources to help us navigate is vitally important to surviving the holidays: you get to choose your level of involvement and how you frame it for yourself. You matter!

Setting Boundaries

I get questions from clients all the time about how to start to set boundaries, what to do if someone continues to crash through them, and how to “make” the other person abide by them.

Setting boundaries is hard, so please cut yourself some slack. As you start to practice setting boundaries, you will get more comfortable with it. It’s very uncomfortable at first, and that’s okay. We are starting to do something that we’ve spent years — decades, perhaps — not doing! There will be a learning curve, so please tell your inner critic that your kind, inner coach says “Shup, you are doing great just trying!”

There is a misconception that boundaries are to get someone else to do or stop doing a behavior, to stop treating us in a way that is harmful and hurtful. In reality, any boundaries you set are all about what you will allow and what you won’t tolerate. When we set boundaries, we are saying we value ourselves enough to say “no” and stop accepting the harmful behavior.

The incredible irony of boundary-setting is that when you set them with people who are pretty healthy emotionally, they automatically accept and respect them. Who knew!? I spent years not setting boundaries: my family of origin taught me that I didn’t get to have an opinion on my own life. When I started to set boundaries — and, wow, did I bumble around for a long time practicing — non-toxic people accepted them with kindness and grace. I was blown away.

It’s when we are setting boundaries in the context of an unhealthy relationship, when the other person fights them, crashes over them, it’s a sign that perhaps this isn’t a person we should be investing our time and energy in, and we get to exercise our voice and choice.

So how do we know what our boundaries are? Our emotions. Our senses. Our nervous system reaction. In short, how we feel.

I love observing my emotions. Emotions are somatic, from body to brain; they’re raw data from the body and its unconscious, so we can’t control them. Our feelings stem from emotions, which is amazing because it’s like getting a personalized report on yourself at any given moment. The physical sensations in the body let us know what is happening.

Here’s an example of boundary-setting and subsequent crashing: Aunt Betty wants you to leave work to take her grocery shopping next Wednesday during the workday, and everything in you rises up and says, “What! I can’t, I have no vacation left,” etc. That’s your body to brain, letting you know you want to say “no.” If you are watching your window of capacity, you may feel some activation.

Here is the good news. We are not powerless in this situation. We have options. But what we can’t do, is control how someone else responds to our boundary. We can, however, note and absorb that their response is giving us a ton of information about them, which helps discern who is safe and who isn’t. Remember: it’s all about emotional and nervous system safety.

When people minimize and push back on boundaries you are setting in a clear and direct way, out comes the dysfunction.

So Aunt Betty pushes back and says something like, “Oh, c’mon it’s only a couple hours; you can afford to miss work, I saw that new car you are driving, Spendy; you know I can’t drive because of my arthritis; I can’t believe you won’t help me; that’s not what a good niece does,” etc. (There are a lot of ways people crash boundaries, some overt and some covert, some complete gaslighting; these are just a few things that could be said, and they’re all shaming.)

What are your options, as she says some of these things you feel shame rise up (because it’s going to, it’s part of the human condition).

• Resetting the boundary. This can look like repeating verbatim what you stated earlier or adapting it. This does not have to include over-explaining your position.
• “No.” That’s a complete sentence. If you are getting pretty good at setting boundaries, you may want to try this. You get to say “no” and then nothing else. The other person may sputter and gaslight and try to convince you to do what they want you to do, but you still don’t have to say anything more.
• Remove yourself. “Oh, thanks for the chat, Aunt Betty, I see Uncle Joe over there,” or you can simply excuse yourself to the restroom to reset your nervous system. Let your answer stand and then get out of there. There’s no shame in doing this: it’s actually great to walk through it, and it’s very empowering.
• Statements of re-direct, such as asking questions about them. Say you don’t want to just remove yourself, and that you want to practice your skills even more. You can ask about work, kids, hobbies, anything to re-direct. Sometimes the person will go with the re-direction and sometimes not; if they circle back to what they are trying to get you to do or be, you still get to choose your response.

Side note: Don’t forget to soothe your young parts since they may be jumping around freaking out, as this is super uncomfortable for them and they may be feeling a lot of shame when you set boundaries.

Lastly, on the question of how to “get” someone to respect your boundaries.

If we are listening to our emotions rise up in the body, a common one to emerge is anger, and a lot of survivors don’t know what to do with that, as they have been conditioned by abuse to not express it, not to feel it, and to vilify it.

The purpose of anger is to let us know when our boundaries have been crossed. It’s the emotional response to an external stimulus.

Back to Aunt Betty: you’ve set the boundary, remained calm, and heard her answer, which was push-back. You start to feel anger rise up at the things she’s ranting about: they aren’t true, how can she say that, why isn’t she listening to me… How can you make her understand your boundaries and stop pushing?

You can’t.

We can’t control other people’s reactions. Aunt Betty has an agenda, and I’m pretty sure at this point her agenda is all about what she wants and she is not looking out for you.

You can, however, let her have her own reaction and make your choices from there. We get to choose.

I have a general rule of thumb I utilize in situations like these. I will set the boundary, reset it once if necessary, and then walk away.

This gives me a lot of information on the other person, and I get to then evaluate how much or how little I want to interact. Maybe this is someone with a long history of pushing on my boundaries and my body is telling my brain, “Yeah, we are done.” I get to sit with that, figure out what I want to do, and be kind to myself.

And, let them sit in their stuff, because, at the end of the day, I refuse to take on anyone else’s shame or blame. I get to make mistakes and go from there, but when someone has a history of rupture without repair, then I am setting myself up to be hurt and taken advantage of, if I let them take advantage of me or otherwise not honor my boundaries. It’s all about what we will allow and learning to value self.

I am not responsible for what other people think of me or my decisions.

When people give us lots of information about themselves, their patterns, their reaction to shame, and their behaviors, we get to choose if they are safe to emotionally invest in or not. If they are not, it can be little contact or no contact: you have the power to choose.

Acknowledge your feelings first, voice your truth if you feel safe doing so (always keeping an eye on your window of capacity and potential activation in the nervous system) while gently maintaining intrapersonal bridge/attunement with self and valuing self because your own needs matter!

What happens if a gentle approach doesn’t work?

“Gentle assertiveness” is a term I like to use in relation to setting boundaries. We don’t have to compromise who we are, insult someone else, or be defensive. We can work on just stating our truth with gentleness and self-compassion.

If the other person gets insulting, defensive, or shows anger, it can be powerful and empowering for you to say something like, “I get that you are upset, but trying to convince me to do something I don’t want to do isn’t going to work.”

This topic may have to be a series, as the next piece of setting boundaries is self-care, and well-worth a whole article!

I hope you are taking good care of yourself today, nurturing you. You deserve to heal! You matter.

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Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com