When Christmas doesn’t feel merry

Christmas can be a difficult time for many people, but especially for those who grew up in a dysfunctional or abusive family. We are fed the narratives that it is a time when families come together to celebrate, but it can be an upsetting and triggering time for those who experienced an abusive and neglectful childhood. Christmas may have been a time of tension, loneliness and feeling unsafe, and those feelings still persist for many, into the present day.

Why the festive season can feel overwhelming

This is my personal view, but the signifiers of Christmas seem to appear earlier as each year passes. Christmas music is playing on the radio in November, and the shops seem to switch seamlessly from Halloween to Christmas mode. It can feel relentless, and it means that Christmas is beamed into everyone’s faces for about two months of the year.

If Christmas is a painful time for you, it can feel suffocating and like forced fun. Those jolly TV adverts of large, happy families sitting around the dinner table might leave you feeling hollow.

If you grew up in an abusive family, the pressure to meet up and spend time with family members that you would normally cross the road to avoid can feel unbearable. Your dutiful weekly WhatsApp message to your parents doesn’t quite cut it at Christmas; instead, you must show up and endure. It’s tradition, so they say.  

Religious festivals and other family gatherings can jolt many back to a time they have worked hard to forget and tried to move on from. For most of the year, you may be able to block out the past, but the pressure to conform and gather for Christmas, surrounded by your parents, siblings and extended family, can transport you right back to your vulnerable child self who was in survival mode.

Old wounds may reopen, and upsetting memories may come flooding back. It would be easy to say, well, just don’t visit or host them, but I know for lots of people it is not as simple as that. It’s complicated and messy! So, if you are going to spend time with people you do not like, who judge you and know how to press your buttons, how can you ensure that you feel as emotionally safe as possible?

How can you support yourself?

A way of taking care of yourself during the Christmas period is by implementing boundaries. This can help you to achieve some control and empowerment when spending time with difficult relatives. Can you plan to visit just for lunch rather than accept an open-ended ended entire-day invitation? If you are visiting with a supportive family member, can you agree on a code phrase or signal to say that you need to leave? Can you meet on neutral ground for your Christmas catch-up, rather than in your home or theirs?

It is important not to feel trapped in a situation, as you may have spent your childhood feeling like that, with no means of escape. Can you find ways to control the duration and location of time spent with people you find intolerable and have an exit strategy in place, if it all becomes too overwhelming?

Finally, ask yourself, do you really have to spend time with these people? Can this be the year that you prioritise yourself? How would you actually like to spend Christmas? What can you do to achieve this or get as near to achieving it?

You are an adult now, and you do have choices; little you did not have choices, and you likely suffered for it. I want to reiterate this point because growing up in an abusive family can mean that you struggle to recognise your autonomy, as these families often thrive on compliance. 

When the family gathers, people can slip back into the roles they were assigned early on in their lives, and this can feel very oppressive and disempowering. You may be left feeling like the powerless child that you once were. Try and tune into what your body is telling you; do you feel your muscles tense up around certain people? Do you feel exhausted and drained after being in the same room as someone? How your body responds will reveal a lot. Listen to this.

It may be helpful to acknowledge to yourself that you do not like your relatives and that is ok. If they have hurt you and caused you pain, then it’s totally understandable that you will not want to see them, so be kind to yourself and be mindful of what you need to make the time spent with them as bearable as possible.  

I have spoken of ways to manage and mitigate spending time with family; however, it’s important to safeguard yourself, children and vulnerable adults from people who behave in abusive and dangerous ways. The decision not to see certain people might have to be made for safety reasons. This has the potential to cause eruptions from others who do not, or choose not to, understand your reasons for doing so, because this means they need to acknowledge uncomfortable truths, which is something abusive families struggle with.

Even if there are no safeguarding concerns, the option not to spend time with harmful relatives is still available to you, and this can bring up a huge set of emotions, too. You may mourn the Christmases (and family) you wished you could have had, feel guilty, sad, plus a huge sense of relief that you can please yourself, as you protect your well-being. You might choose to spend Christmas with your chosen family, volunteering, on holiday or spend the day alone. How can you make the day meaningful for you? What do you want to do?

Self-compassion is vital, and looking after yourself, emotionally, physically and spiritually is essential. Take the time to do something that you want to do; it could be going to church, going for a walk or baking something lovely. Take time out to nurture your inner child and make time for the little you. Is there a board game you would really love to play or a Christmas film that lifts your mood? Prioritise yourself. Step away from all your responsibilities for a time and do something enjoyable for you.

In abusive families, people who display high-conflict behaviours want to cause chaos and upset. They tend to be very ego-centric, and often enablers surround them. In your family, who does the enabling? No amount of you carefully monitoring your words, your tone of voice, etc. is going to alter the end result. If the abusive family member wants to pick an argument, they will.  

You’ve been trying to keep off their radar for years, to appease them, but somehow you always end up in their firing line. You haven’t done anything wrong; you are likely being deliberately targeted.

Remember, some people do not respond to reason because reason was never part of the equation to begin with. 

How counselling can help

Counselling can help with exploring and untangling dysfunctional family dynamics, as the effects of growing up in an abusive and neglectful home remain for many years after. You may have felt unsafe, anxious, and worthless, and those feelings persist like a weight on your shoulders as you try to navigate your way through adulthood.

Making that first step to reach out for help can feel extremely hard, as it means acknowledging that what went on years ago was wrong and it should not have happened.

Times like Christmas can dredge it all up and leave you feeling upset and anxious. You were a child that should have been loved, protected and cherished, not bullied and diminished. The past cannot be changed, but counselling can provide a safe space for you to talk and release, work on establishing boundaries, with the aim of leading a more fulfilling life going forward.