A Christmas Message for those who Wish Only to Survive the Season of Good Will...

I fear I may be leaving it quite late with this Christmas message but I want to put it out there nonetheless.

I think there is a pressure out there that Christmas has to be the happiest, most exciting and magical time of year and that makes you feel all the more inadequate when (for some good reasons) you want to just hold your breath until it's over.

I have previously written some blog posts relating to coping with mental health problems over the Christmas period:

~ Tackling Social Anxiety at Christmas Time

~ Surviving Christmas while Recovering from an Eating Disorder

I understand that there are lots of different and valid reasons why Christmas may not be your most favourite time of year.  I can appreciate that for those who have lost someone, Christmas can understandably be a particularly emotional and difficult time.  

I do know that I am certainly not the only one.  

My reasons for struggling at Christmas time, besides the reasons outlined by my previous blog posts, are mainly trauma related:

~ One of the incidents where I was sexually abused as a child occurred at Christmas time

~ My parents separated on Boxing Day when I was 8

~ Christmas was always a time where my dad's drinking and general aggressive behaviour was at it's worse

These are my reasons why I find Christmas a difficult time but it is important to remember that whatever your reasons, they are valid and important to you.

The focus of this blog post will be upon offering advice to those who find Christmas a difficult time of year for trauma related reasons, though I think the message may apply to everyone in places.

It is okay if Christmas is just about surviving and getting through.

Once the pressure is off to have the most wonderful and memorable Christmas, everything can feel a bit more manageable.  Keeping things as low key as possible may sound a bit bah humbug but realistically it can make things feel less intimidating and triggering.  I find the lead up to Christmas and all things associated with it causes my apprehension to build.  I therefore keep my home decorations subtle and minimal (yet tasteful - I hope!).  That way I am acknowledging and celebrating Christmas but not in a way that is overly triggering, in your face or overwhelming.

It is about celebrating Christmas in a way that you are able to cope with so don't worry about what others may think.

I picked up this beautiful deer decoration in Tiger.
Most likely she will be staying out all year as
we adore her so much!

Have a plan - get organised!

This may be more of a personal preference but I take comfort in having a plan, it eases my anxiety.

By this I mean that if you get organised - get your Christmas shopping done early, write a Christmas card list, schedule in when you are going to write the cards, wrap presents, send gifts, arrange to visit various friends and relatives - you can spread these Christmas related activities out so that you don't feel under pressure or overwhelmed.

Having a plan can be particularly helpful when having to face some of the more difficult or less favourable aspects of Christmas - such as feeling duty bound to visit a relative whom you don't get on with, find triggering or for whatever reason, you find being in their company difficult to endure!

Have a balance of social time and me time.

Put yourself and your needs at the heart of your plans for Christmas.

I find social gatherings quite taxing, even ones that I really enjoy with good company, because when suffering from complex trauma you often have a lot going on in your mind already.  The effort of keeping myself calm and managing various triggers around me, while trying to engage with other people, on top of the various internal conversations already happening inside my head, takes up a lot energy and I have largely accepted that.  

If you find spending time around others exhausting at times, then it is important to balance it with some me time.

I try to spread out my plans to meet up with people over the Christmas period and attempt to keep my plans as minimal as possible.  If there are some people who you actually really don't have to see until the new year then leave it until then.  I find that quite often other people are grateful of the break too!  For those more unsavoury yet necessary gatherings and events, I tend to keep my time there as minimal as possible, plan how I may tackle the difficult conversations if they were to come up and plan a way to treat myself afterwards.  As unpleasant as some of these things may be, usually they don't turn out to be quite as awful as you might have expected.

It is important to set achievable goals - there is no point in over committing yourself and then having to pull out at the last minute as it has all become too much.  If your schedule is realistic and achievable then you are less likely to end up disappointed.

It is just a holiday and holidays mean more free time :)
Sometimes it helps to be able to take the focus off it being Christmas and instead make the most of the fact that you have much more free time to do the things that you enjoy and that are good for you.
As far as I'm concerned, the Christmas holidays provide me with more time to dedicate to all the different parts of my system that make up me.
As far as we're concerned, the Christmas holidays mean...

More time to go on amazing walks in the crisp winter sunshine...

Climbing sand dunes...

Collecting shells...

Watching the sunset on the beach in the early evenings...

There are of course the Christmas 'necessities' we all have to do such as spending time with our friends and family but make sure there is plenty packed in just for you.

Appreciate more subtle and neutral ways of celebrating Christmas...

Even though I find that many things visually associated with Christmas trigger traumatic memories, some more subtle aspects of the Christmas season I have always been able to appreciate more easily and I think it is important to hold onto these things.

I love seeing the Christmas lights pop up in my local town centre and how as the nights draw in, they light the darkness a little.  

Christmas lights have never lost their magic for me and I am so grateful for that.  

I've included some photos from my visit last year to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, which I thoroughly enjoyed if only to see all the lights!

I also find that you can't help but experience some of the magic and excitement of Christmas yourself when you are surrouded by little children who are so uncontainably excited about Christmas!

So what if you might find garish santa suits, cheesy Christmas songs and soppy Christmas films too much to bear?

Simply notice and appreciate the aspects of the season that mean something and matter to you.

Trigger discrimination - Christmas now is different to what it was.

As someone who has suffered from trauma that I associate with Christmas, it is really crucial that I recognise the past trauma is not happening now during this particular Christmas.

Things might not be perfect or easy by any stretch of the imagination but they are certainly different to what they were.

By trigger discrimination I mean that you simply acknowledge the physical things around you that prove that it is a different time to when the trauma occurred.  For example, I am in a different house, I have a different bedroom, different duvet covers, we have different decorations, a different Christmas tree, I do different things to what I used to in the lead up to Christmas etc.

I have struggled with this significantly in previous years but today, on Christmas Eve, while I am really struggling with my anxiety levels as this is a particularly triggering day for me, I am mindful that this anxiety is caused by remembering things that happened in the past rather than feeling as though something traumatic is actually happening now.

Christmas can get better...

If I was to leave you with one message it would be that if you struggle at Christmas time, or any other time for that matter, I want you to know that it doesn't always have to be like this, it won't always be like this, it can get better and it will get better...

My current aspirations for Christmas stand at simply getting through the day tomorrow while remaining relatively stable.  If I actually enjoy moments of it then that would be a bonus!  

If that is the extent of your aspirations for Christmas then that is absolutely fine, in fact it is better than fine, it is a great achievement!

However, I live in the hope that it will feel better than this.

My Christmas' have been nothing to shout about in recent years, but without a doubt, they have been a damned sight better than ones I've had in the past!  That gives me hope that Christmas can and will get better for me because in many ways, it already has and if it can get better for me, then it can get better for anyone.

The truth is that at the age of 6, I heard someone come into my bedroom at night and initially there was this surge of excitement because I thought it might be Father Christmas - he might have come early...  I can't even explain the harrowing moment when any notion of the excitement I tried so desperately to hold on to came crashing down - it wasn't Father Christmas.  

In the words of that 6 year old child -  'it was a bad man who hid in the shadows and made me hurt'.

For years I almost held myself redundant to the reality that every time I saw that Christmas tree go up again, I would be reminded of what happened and live in fear and anticipation that it would happen again.  I felt as though he had destroyed every trust and positive illusion I may have ever had in the spirit of Christmas and in many ways he did - he ruined Christmas for me, he destroyed it, he destroyed many things for me...

However, what I want to say and my only real reason for sharing this is that for every trust and positive illusion that 6 year old had stripped from her, it never stopped her believing in Father Christmas.  It wasn't Father Christmas, but just not that time - that's what she thought.  

She still believes in him now.

And what I've realised through the journey of processing what happened to me as a child so far, is that there are so many amazing things that my abuser couldn't take away from me - there are so many things that no one can ever take away from you.

And I know that 6 year old who was and still is a part of me and made me who I am today wouldn't let anyone take away the magic of Christmas from her.  So I live in hope at this time and at any time that in the many Christmas' to come, I can find again some of the magic I thought I lost.

You never know what the future will hold.

So I wish you, in whatever personal situation and challenges you face, a simply peaceful and manageable Christmas but one filled with a bit of hope for the years to come.

Love and Strength,

The One Day Seeker.