Navigating Christmas when estranged from family

Since working with people who are estranged from family, I have always found that Christmas and the months leading up to it are a time when people who are estranged feel particularly lonely and isolated. It is a time when advertisers go all out in portraying a vision of a family that is close, warm, and supportive without paying any attention to the reality of many people who are different from this. Shops start early and we’re bombarded from the beginning of the school term in September with Christmas lights, cards, the pressure to spend money, the compulsion to be merry.

How do we respond to this if Christmas hasn’t recently, or even historically, given us an experience of warmth, love and magic? If we are anticipating spending Christmas alone? Or if all these images of close, supportive families provoke a flight, fight or freeze response. We might want to run away, avoid, and respond angrily to anyone who mentions Christmas. Or we withdraw, shut down, zombie-walk through December.

Do any of these responses sound familiar? These responses from our embodied selves may be helpful, and may allow us to cope. I don’t want to imply that they are bad options, they are survival strategies and may well be needed. But there might also be something lively we can find in these winter holidays if we can create the psychological freedom to engage with them.

There might be a choice to make. Can we choose to live despite the pain of loss? This can be just as difficult whether or not you “chose” the estrangement. I use quotation marks because, in my experience, it's often not that clear-cut. Sometimes it can be more helpful to think through the lens of a family system that is fractured.

Feelings about an estrangement can be very mixed, even if the overriding feeling is of relief or grief, it is usually more complicated than this, especially at Christmas. Dr Lucy Blake, a researcher into family estrangement, found that almost all respondents of a research survey into the experience of estrangement, whether parents, adult children, siblings, those who cut off contact, those who were disowned, identified the holiday season as the most challenging time of year. Many felt the stigma of not seeing family members at Christmas (Blake et al 2015).

Christmas is often thought of as a festival of light. Hanukkah also. We’ve recently had Diwali which celebrates the light in the darkness. Many cultures celebrate a holiday that brings light to the darkest days of the year. At Christmas, we can develop our own rituals and traditions, and find that which lights our darkness. The people who help us find our way, give us a sense of belonging. I like the notion of the chosen family taken from the LGBTQI community which highlights the importance of relationships beyond biology or marriage.

Christmas may offer the chance to find gratitude for what you do have rather than what you’re lacking. Maybe to feel the gratitude that you don’t have to deal with family drama or chaos. Maybe the possibility to enjoy deciding what you want to take and leave from Christmas. What kind of day do you want to have? To enjoy simple pleasures, turn off social media and stop comparing. Consider your own feelings and needs. Dwell more deeply with yourself and find ways to nurture your own body and mind.

We as therapists have the job of holding space for the reality of all of this – to help people who are estranged at this time of year consider ways to try to enjoy the holidays in spite of their experience. 

References

• Lucy Blake, Becca Bland and Susan Golombok. Hidden Voices – Family Estrangement in Adulthood. 10 December 2015