Loneliness--a Lack of Peace

Because there tends to be so much focus on loneliness at the holidays, it has been something of a strange interest to me for the past several years.  I have found loneliness to be the absence of peace when one is alone.

We can be alone, but not necessarily lonely. In fact there are times when we have the need to be away from others and be alone. There are other times when we are alone and are indifferent to being alone.

I figure that being alone follows a continuum.

Need to be with people                     No need                         Need to be away from people
Loneliness------------------------------------Alone--------------------------------------------Privacy
Emptiness-------------------------------------Peace--------------------------------------------Satiation

It is not necessarily a perfect continuum, but loneliness signifies that there is a need.

Some of us are introverts who like our puzzles and stamp collections. Others are extroverts that like going to parties and dancing.  Nevertheless, I agree with Rick Springfield that "We all need the human touch."

We all need connection, identification with others, and belonging. For many of us the lack of human touch will eventually get to us.

Otherwise we seem more likely to feel lonely when we are in pain and need the attention of other people.  Some of the pain may come from engaging in negative thinking or dwelling on some pain of the past and so we may need the assurance of acceptance from others people that we are okay.  We need the connection all the more when we are in pain and not getting the assurance and comfort from others makes the loneliness worse.

I do feel with the trauma survivor who is caught in a double bind of wanting human connection but afraid to trust others. The survivor tends to feel empty but is too scared to seek fulfillment.

Strangely, many trauma survivors are defiantly proud in their pain.  They are hurting inside but they are not going to admit it. They spend their energies in building up defenses as they are not going to get hurt again.

However, survivors can develop thick walls around a void.  They can forget why they have such thick walls.  The tough facade can eventually be destructive and weigh a person down.

There can be a sense of relief when one lets go of the facade and admit we are lonely. It is a sense of liberation that we can admit that we are human like everyone else.

It takes a lot of courage to admit that one is lonely.  It is a confession of weakness. It is a surrender to the reality that you are not the invincible person that you have been posing to be.  It is an admission that you like all other human beings on planet earth have needs, but it is often the first step towards peace.

Too Busy for Hope at the Holidays?

I debated whether or not I was going to write this blog again this holiday season.  I had a due date of December 1 to get my manuscript into my publisher. I had just finished my turning in my manuscript to my publisher on November 28 and I have been feeling brain dead and burned out.   Having a book contract with a reputable publisher is amazing, but it monopolized my life.

Then wham . . . it was the first Sunday of Advent again on November 30 where the hope candle of the Advent wreath was lit at church. The sermon was about hope.  It was about the hope of the world to be found in Jesus Christ . . . at least that was what I came away with when I left the sanctuary.

I came to realize, my mind was just too busy.  My mind was just too focused on problems and things to do.  Since July 1 when I had signed the contract I was busy with work and writing.  I had been a driven individual.  I was just too busy to think about hope.

I think I have been a driven individual most of my life.  Either I have the compulsive trait inherited from my mother or I have been out to prove myself.   

Many of us who live in the average metropolitan area likely have some pressure to be driven.  We commute to work either on crowded ring road highways or we cram ourselves into mass transit vehicles.  We go to work pushing ourselves to keep up a fast pace to be productive.   Many of us live paycheck to paycheck seeking to maximize what we can do with the money.   

For those of us who are already driven, the holiday season only seems to intensify the driven-ness.  There are events added to the schedule, there are extra food items to make and gifts to buy and the house has to be cleaned.   There is not much time and place for hope.

Well, for me there was a call for at least to take a breath and reflect.  With my social commentary, is Christmas about making sure everyone gets the perfect present or is it about celebrating faith?  Is Christmas about Santa Claus or is it reflecting on us as broken individuals needing the gift of God sacrificing his only son to save us from our sins?  Of course, if you do not identify with the Christian faith, the significance of Jesus Christ may be in question.

Well, with the need for a breath, I have thought not just twice but three times about writing the blog again this year.  However, 1976 page views tell me that the blog has been meaningful or encouraging to someone—maybe it has helped given some hope.

Feel free to review the other entries for subjects of interest to you.  Feel free to comment. I hope that you too can find hope. 

Christmas Eve-Seeking and Finding Peace.

Yes it is Christmas Eve.  If you did not get it, you will have to do without it.  If they are not coming then we will not see them.  It is either a matter of feeling some sort of peace or some sort of internal turmoil.

The world has continued to be full of turmoil since Sandy Hook.  Three days ago some suicide bomber went to a political rally in Pakistan and killed eight people with himself.  Today some ex-convict started a fire outside of Rochester, New York and then shot four volunteer firemen--killing two of them.  Here in Louisville, Kentucky a 20-year-old male was shot dead.  Psychopaths and sociopaths do not have empathy and do not value human life.

The World Does Not Offer Us Inner Peace

In this life, I have been hard-pressed to find that the world as we know has ever given a sense of peace.  The phrase that comes to mind is "dog eat dog."  The world that we live is in rough. 

The roughness seems amplified during Christmas time when the Christmas music comes out suggesting peace love and good will.   There is something disingenuous and ironic about Christmas music when the other 10 1/2 months are anything but good and fair.

Many of our workplaces are not fair.  In many of our workplaces we endure cronyism and dishonesty despite whatever policy exists to enforce order and fairness.   In these same workplaces, the grievance processes prove to be a joke because if the unfairness serves the purpose of management. 

Many of our families are not fair.  We have family members who are frauds who hold the power cards.  Dealing with them is like eating a packet of the pink packet sweetener.  We would like to feel closer to them but the price is to do it on their terms where they think they are being nice but their comments are nothing but sugar-coated abuse.

These global and personal factors are not going to give us inner-peace. Thinking about these things creates the feelings of pain, anger and loneliness.  If we are alone tonight, then we run the risk of dwelling on our pain.

Being alone on a night like tonight also amplifies the pain because there is the likely message of inferiority or deficit because if we are alone then there must be something wrong with us.   No one wonder there is more suicides in the month of December and at Christmas.

Finding Peace

Many people think that finding peace is this grand state that is supposed to be once and for-and-for-all.   The reality is that peace is generally a moment by moment matter. 

Finding Peace begins with recognizing you are feeling pain and chaos.  The next step is stopping thinking about the pain.  Stopping may have to be done one moment at a time.  I think that peace is best found when you are doing things according to your religious or moral code.

You may have to do a number of activities or "things" to stop thinking about the chaos and pain.   There are options to finding to peace even just for the moment.   We all have moments of pain and we have moments of peace. 

I had my annual viewing of  Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol  and in the prospective "ghost of Christmas future" portion, I saw a great example.  Bob Cratchitt and his family were grieving the death of Tiny Tim.  Bob was able to look at his surviving children, think for a minute and say "I am a happy man."  I counted my blessings along with Bob and I felt a moment of peace.

Peace Doesn't Have to Be Perfect

Since peace tends to last from one moment to another, it does not have to be perfect.  It just has to get us through.  Many people in AA have to pray the serenity prayer many times a day. 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Many of us not in AA could benefit from such a practice too.  This is a great way of stopping negative thoughts and getting your mind away from the negative.

Final Comments

Tonight, we celebrate the "Prince of Peace."  It has proven to be hard if not impossible for many to think about peace given personal and global situations.  It is a challenge for each one of us to feel or not feel it; it is a choice.

If you happen to be reading this and are feeling hopeless, I suggest you wake someone up or call your nearest helpline.  In most communities, it is 211.  Sometimes a person can be depressed beyond trying to practice thought-stopping and praying the serenity prayer.

I wish you peace tonight and peace tomorrow.



 

LIVING COURAGEOUSLY WITH CONVICTION AT THE HOLIDAYS

Over the past couple of days listening and watching some of the deluge of news stories, I have noticed that 1) many pundits and critics in the media are no longer shocked but now angry over Newtown Connecticut.; and 2) many people are scared and wondering how much more stringent safety measures should be?  It sounds like a form of grief to me of a very strong kind.

Collective Grief and the Energy it gives us

I think that we do experience grief collectively as a society and as individuals.  It seems to me that the media has this ability to connect us emotionally in a very strong way.   Other than the media we seem to experience it collectively as we disclose our feelings in the small talk we make in churches, barbershops, in grocery check-out lines.  We also seem to be grieving collectively in our facebook posts and comments.  We experience it individually as we feel our feelings looking at news aggregating websites.  We feel the energy that emotions stir making us feel like we should just do something.

Anger

Anger is a large energy generator.  At the risk of over-generalizing, it seems that much of the “empathetic” society including the fourth estate of media has moved into the anger stage of grief over Newtown.   They are looking for causes and some are making wide sweeping conclusions that there needs to be more gun control.   Some of the news analysis and opinion is focusing on the mentally ill in his country as the problem.

The energy that anger stirs is also manifested in the extra-large letter to the editor section of my local daily newspaper.  It is stirred in the late night comedy show I usually watch where the comedian came out and made a statement that recognized the tragedy.  It is present in the emotions of people who are critical of gun control laws and how something should be done to keep mentally ill people from having them.  The anger motivates us to stand and protect ourselves.

Fear

However, fear is also an energy that makes us protect ourselves.  Fear tells us

“run stupid there is danger!"

This appears to be showing up also in statements about making schools safer.  As I have heard the fear at my place of work, I have heard people go into laborious detail about what all the possible risks are in a place.

It is hard to say whether the fear we are feeling is tangled with the anger or whether the fear is a logical reaction unto itself, but there is talk about giving teachers guns to protect themselves and the students. There is talk about how things can be made more secure in schools.   This fear still may be part of the societal shock.  

Fear and Anger are Powerful Emotions

It is in times like these where we may realize again that anger and fear are very strong and powerful emotions or energies in motion.  I have to use the word “may realize” because both rage and panic short-circuit common sense.   The energy of the emotions often bypass the rational thinking part of the brain where you and I think through the facts and look at things in a problem-solving fashion and makes us impulsive. 

I am mindful of mob behavior.  Mobs of people can run for their lives together and then they can get angry and become a lynch mob or start a riot.  The one commonality is emotion—they all share it despite what they are actually thinking and act impulsive in unison.

On the flip side, people can be paralyzed by their feelings.  To see someone having a panic attack is like watching someone stuck in their seat on a roller coaster or like a victim in a horror film in terror just before the villain is about to attack.    When someone (whether adult or child) is having an angry tantrum, you cannot get them to do anything else until they have gotten over the emotion.   Emotions can be like G-forces that push someone back against a wall to the point where they cannot move.

One of my favorite shows is Survivorman with Les Stroud.  Again and again throughout his shows, Stroud will talk about staying calm if you are stuck in a survival situation.  Staying calm can mean the difference between life and death.

If you are reading this, you are not likely in the Arboreal Forest of Northern Canada or in the Amazon Jungle or in the swamps of Southern Georgia, but you are probably in an emotional wilderness where the pressures of the holidays are combined with the added emotional stress of the Newtown CT school shooting.   The feelings are powerful and perhaps are making you feel like you are beside yourself and frozen in anger and fear and feel like you are just surviving.  I think when we are stuck in such situations we need courage and calmness because we just cannot stop life as we know it just because of the Connecticut school shooting

Courage

Without looking at a dictionary, courage is essentially going along with the conviction of what the right action is despite the fear and emotion.  It seems to me that courage is romanticized through the movies and TV as big gestures of one hero fighting an army or the hero making a daredevil move for whatever reason.  (My favorites models of courage were John Gage and Roy DeSoto from the TV series Emergency who climbed up in high and dangerous places to rescue people.  John admitted he was scared in a few of the scenes.)  

In our real world, courage is not that exciting or suspenseful.  Courage can be:

• telling someone no. 
• walking away when they want to fight you . . . and maybe you might be called chicken by the bully,
• saying enough is enough to one relative badgering another relative at the family holiday celebration,
• buying yourself a present because you would like it despite having low-self-esteem telling you otherwise,
• doing the right thing at your job when others are not,
• going out to the malls and sending your kids to school despite the fear of what happened in Newtown CT
• going to that holiday family celebration and trying to patch things up with that estranged relative
• finding joy at the holiday season in some fashion or form

Courage is based on your context or situation, and it may be going against some crowd or “grain.”  Typically, you do not have courage without some type of conviction where you believe that some value or principle is worth the cost.   Usually the cost is someone calling you a fool—the vast majority of our risks in the world are not ones of life and death.

 One does not always act tough when showing courage.  When you are showing courage it can feel like the wind is blowing in your face at hurricane-force speeds.  Courage does not feel good until after you look back at it from the future.

I hold that there are people of courage everywhere that go on living and doing what is needed because it is the right thing to be doing.  I'm trying to be one of them.

I hope that if you are feeling paralyzed by your feelings that you can find courage to start moving again.  and do something in the spirit of the holidays.       

Shopping: the Myth of Just the Right Gift.

Today was a day where my wife had a shopping agenda.  We were going to go to the mall and buy stuff.

We went all over the mall. It had a full parking lot and lots of people. 

In the average metropolitan shopping mall in the United States there is a lot of merchandise you can buy. They make it very attractive for you to part with your money and they offer you lots of choice . . . too much of it.

I think that one of the messages that the retailers at Christmas is that you are going to get that special person just the right gift.  You could spend hours and hours looking with all of the choices present in the mall.

Me, I still do not know what I am going to get people for Christmas. 

Today I go back to the thought that nothing is perfect.   I think it will make it easier looking for presents.

 

Considering Traditions

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Canada had its Thanksgiving celebration
the first Monday in October.   Thanksgiving is a day where there is a
"traditional" feast of one whole day's calories.   My grandmother had some
wonderful traditional meals until she and my grandfather left wintry Iowa
for sunny Florida in 1976.

In light of my Grandmother's passing back in May, I have given thought
to the concept of Traditions over the past several months. My
grandmother was keeper of holiday traditions in the family as long as
she was able.  In a sense, I am thankful that she did keep traditions
and I miss them.

Some people hate traditions. The traditions bring back memories of
pain and abuse, and the family control freaks sounding like Tevye in
Fiddler on the Roof shouting “Tradition!”

Some people cherish traditions. The traditions remind them who they
are, where they came from, and where they belong. Traditions ground
them.

Some people grieve the loss of traditions. Their absence makes for a hole in the
middle of their hearts.

Christmas and Advent are traditions in the very sense of the word.
They are not in the Bible. However, they are reasonable traditions
that Church Fathers started in the Fourth Century AD as an alternative
to a pagan celebration.

Traditions are at the heart of holidays that also are very much sticky
subjects that bring about a confusing mess of feelings. Part of
surviving and coping through the holidays is deciding what traditions
can mean in your life.


For a starting point, I will start with the good old Webster
Dictionary. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition) .
The definition is
1 a: an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought,
action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)
b: a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the
past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of
mouth or by example from one generation to another without written
instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4: characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>
In terms of the holidays,

We usually take traditions given down to us and pass them on.  They mean
something to us.

Besides the gathered meaning, traditions bond us together. I have decided that
traditions as part of my family life make our relationships closer and
give us a sense of appropriate closeness or intimacy. We will enjoy
the practices we have engaged in over the past several years.

Where traditions seem to fall short is when they engender the pursuit
of delusional nostalgia of old fashioned holidays. Traditions cannot
take us back to earlier times when we did not have those problems. 
Let's face it, those  earlier times had different problems and were not
problem-free.

However, part of the grief at holidays is that some family traditions
lose value and meaning. Family changes, divorces and deaths either
evaporate the traditions or change the significance from fulfilling to
painful. Memories of the traditions also can be painful because the
traditions embody the family member who was at the heart of the
tradition.   If not for the loss of the family member, there is always
the economic necessity of job transfers and relocations that mean for
families not being able to come to be part of the tradition.

As emotional human beings, we can feel lost without the tradition.  Oh
yes, we can put on our shells of faces, but the pain will still go on
inside for today is going to happen despite the tradition or its
absence.  The pain can lead to engaging in addictive behavior,
over-eating, depression, maybe even thoughts of suicide.
In the end, theologically, the tradition is not Jesus Christ.  The
tradition is not the liberating faith that Jesus Christ came to earth
to bring.   As I seek to live this holiday season, I really seek to
live . . . not be stuck in the black, emotional cloud of expired
traditions.

I do not leave you with any particular advice today, other than
recognize you have a choice. You choose how you will feel today.  You
will choose what you will do, just as I will choose what I will do.

A Relative Near Death at the Holidays: What matters today?.

As I wrote earlier on November 30, death knows no holidays.  People will die after long illnesses and then people will die suddenly.  It doesn't affect us until it is a member of our family.  This holiday weekend many people will be in hospitals with their critically ill and terminally ill loved ones.  Many people will be called to nursing homes and hospices because the time is drawing near.   It will be a difficult holiday for which many will  survive.

Today I am one of them.   A few days ago, we got a tip off of my cousin's Facebook page that my grandmother was not doing well and did not seem to have very long.  (In my family . . . information is where you get it as we are not particularly close and live long distances from each other.)  My wife called for me and got more specific information--it was not looking good--in summary--my grandmother was slowly slipping away.

I wavered over the decision whether to come or not come.  I decided to make the run just before Christmas Eve to see her at least one last time.

Yes, my 101-year-old grandmother has bugged me over the years in one way or another.  Even though I am in my mid-40's, she still talked to me as if she saw me as the little kid.  She reminded me last year that as a five-year-old I still promised to hug her.  (Berne was a genius in his Transactional Analysis theory--because it describes my relationship with my grandmother to a "T."   She still talks to me as a little kid even though I have two masters and a doctorate.)

Being human

Even though I am a mental health professional, I am still very much human.  We mental health professionals as humans still have feelings.  We cannot look objectively at everything.  On the personal side of things, we have to be human.  For me, I have to say that I am numb as a reaction to this situation.

Hopefully, a mental health professional practices what they preach, but in my experience, I have met many mental health professionals who do not practice what they preach.  They can reach over the professional-patient boundary to tell patients how to do things, but their private world is quite often a hot mess.  For them there is a grave lack of integrity between what they practice and what they preach to the point that they are the pot calling the kettle black and are just miserable colleagues to be around.

Over the years, I have sought to suggest only things I would do myself or have tried myself.  My patients and clients are my fellow human beings that I serve.  I may be the professional, but they are of equal worth to me, and today I am trying something again that I have suggested to others.

What really matters today? 

Being human today, I have found myself to have been a bit like a robot.  I had one mission: to get out of work early and drive like a crazy man (yes I said crazy) five hours to see my grandmother.  It was what mattered today.  I have had to ask myself what matters so I do not regret things?

While it is not perfect and that there is always the possibility of regret later when we do our hindsight 20-20 analysis,  I think that those in a similar position today--who have a loved one near death or who is critically ill may do better by asking the question:

What matters?

Asking what matters helps us identify the basic and simple priorities.   Numbness does not allow us to do much thinking about details and fine points. Feeling overwhelmed makes one tend to think in concrete terms and extra-tired when we try to figure everything out.   Asking what matters also tells us about our values and helps us feel some sense of clarity

For me, it very much mattered to come and see my grandmother.  Even though she did not like look herself, was confused, and could not say much, seeing her was the right thing to do.  I fulfilled my promise to still hug her 41 years later.  I feel at least some peace because it is what matters in this moment and I believe I can look back on future holidays and take comfort in it.

May you find peace in what matters.

Past Childhood Trauma and the Holidays

As an academic and as a professional, I have worked with many people who are survivors of childhood trauma.  For many survivors of trauma, the trauma lingers in the memories at the holidays; it is not so nice to remember in December.

There are several types of childhood trauma: sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, accidental injury, and witnessing violent and catastrophic events.  Many adults who had childhood traumas are affected at the holidays.

As a professional I have seen two general trends from survivors of childhood trauma: 1) overall avoidance of their families, and 2) struggling with flashbacks.  As with many things, I admit that I may be over-simplifying matters.

The avoidance of family members and family gatherings comes from personal choice, or from rejection by family.  Many people who suffered child abuse by parents and uncles and grandfathers run when they get the chance and do not look back.  If the child reported the abuse and child welfare authorities came in and investigated, the child is made out to be the lying villain.   There are problems either way.

The abused child. 

A child who discloses the abuse is considered to be a traitor by spilling the family secrets.  It is amazing how the adults in a family will engage in all-out psychological warfare to get the child to say that the child lied.  The child who recants the allegation is allowed to be a second-class family member as they are branded to be a liar and not to be trusted, but they are still allowed by family.  The child who sticks with the allegation may be rejected forever as a family member and becomes an orphan or is recognized as being dead to the family.

The person who did not disclose the child abuse out of fear and isolation has their problems later.  Many families with the presence of active sexual abuse have ways of appearing very private and guarded.  The child being abused is often made to feel isolated and helpless.  Family boundaries are observed as being farther out than normal and strangers are given warning shots in the forms of dirty looks, strange tirades, and bizarre passive-aggressive gestures that the strangers will give up in trying to be friends.

Children are also perfect victims.  The abuser also sends a regular warning message that reinforces the possible consequences of disclosure that can include death threats or making the child to be a heartless destroyer if they tell.

I still remember a patient telling about a step-father abusing her under the threat of killing her mother. The  patient said that she continued to allow her step-father to abuse her because she thought she was saving her mother's life.

The surviving adult

Not all adults who suffered child abuse by family members are severely affected.  Many adults have repressed  memories of the abuse or just are not affected.   However, many are affected either by having to deal with the pain of estrangement from family and/or the pain of flashbacks.

For the adult estranged from the family due to abuse, there can be a revisiting to the anger and sadness that estrangement brings.  This person may still long for the ideal traditional family gathering where people love each other, and they revisit the feelings of grief that they do have it.  This person has been cheated out of what is portrayed to be a normal family life, and the commercials at Christmas remind them of it.

For the adult who was abused by an uncle or grandfather, the holidays may mean potential contact with the abuser or perpetrator.  I have had multiple patients who talked about how the abuser was liked by everyone else in the family.  The repeating theme is that the rest of the family is denial about how this lovely person could ever do such a horrible thing.

The average survivor of childhood abuse or trauma has flashbacks either way.  A flashback is essentially a nightmare that that you have when you are awake, but it is based on what actually happened to you.  The flashbacks can be severe enough to take people out connection with reality.

Flashbacks are triggered by the different sensory experiences that we encounter.  Someone can remind you of the trauma.  A smell can take you back there.  A sound can take you back there.  A tactile sensation (something you feel) can take you back there.  A taste can take you back.    When you are taken back you feel fear and possibly terror and you are not necessarily being rational in your thinking.  I have been told by a number of patients that I reminded them of their perpetrator, and I had to bring them to reality by reminding them that I was who I am and I was not that person.

Choices

Books have been written about coping with child abuse, and there is just so much that could be written about surviving the holidays if you have related to this.  I will present some general options.

If you have been estranged or isolated from your family from the holidays due to childhood abuse, you have a choice of attempting reconciling or you have a choice of making the best of your situation.

You have a choice of making your holiday meaningful and as special as possible.  If you are needing togetherness and belonging at the holiday, then that is what you might consider creating.  I think that this is short notice for many people, but you may want to explore about hosting a gathering or find a gathering.

If you are being pressured to go to that family gathering where that perpetrator will be, you can say no.
Given how some of these family matriarchs and patriarchs can be, I cannot guarantee that you and your decision will be respected and you may be subject to persuasive shaming and self-pity.

It is possible that you will be reminded of gifts and money, and all that they have done for you.  Family members giving money and gifts often buy silence and compliance.   You may reluctantly choose to go because you feel you must.

If you are persuaded to go, you might choose to develop a survival plan.  This survival plan can include 1) go for a limited period of time, 2) plan where you will be and who you will sit by to avoid the perpetrator, 3) what you do, say and talk about if you have to talk to the perpetrator, and 4) have your excuse for leaving and rehearse for when you plan to leave.  If there is traveling involved to someone's house in another city, get a rental car and a hotel room to escape to.  If you are interested in reading more about this type of survival plan, you can look at Kaplan's book When Holidays Are Hell.  Go to this link:  http://www.amazon.com/When-Holidays-Are-Hell-Gatherings/dp/0934252777/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323574038&sr=1-1 and buy it new or used.  (I note here that I do not know Ms. Kaplan and I am independently recommending this book and I am not getting any compensation for recommending it). 

One last choice you can make is to isolate and be by yourself.  It is often the way of survivors.  You are in control and you can choose to take your pain on yourself by isolating.  I do not recommend this, but I also see that this choice to isolated may have other complications.  If you are going to isolate and be by yourself on the holidays, then I would suggest that you do things that make you happy.

This is a difficult subject to have written about.  In the end it is all about choices.  We do not all have the same choices, but it is up to each of us to select among our options, and hopefully we will choose that which is going to be best choice for us.   I do offer a message of hope: the holidays do not last forever.  There are only 23 days until the third of January.

Control--the Holiday Slaver

Control is a holiday survival issue.  I do not think I am going to do justice to this topic, but I hopefully have useful ideas or at least some entertaining thoughts.

People who are trying to survive or who have identified themselves as survivors usually have control issues.   What this means is that they have to be in control or be in charge or be in power.  We often refer to these people as "control freaks."

Controlling behavior overall is motivated by some kind of anxiety.  The suppliers of the anxiety include past trauma and irrational and caretaking beliefs.

In the context of one person

When a person tends to be a control freak or a controlling person, they tend to engage in subtle and not-so subtle battles for power.  It has to be their way . . . period.  It is typically an all-or-nothing deal with all or nothing thinking. 

Controlling people tend to be passive-aggressive and abusive.  They play games with other people who are perceived challengers to their control.  The people they draw to themselves are dependent and have a need to be controlled or taken care of.

Control freaks typically develop tiny kingdoms of the few followers who will follow them.  This means that control freaks have few friends and have burned many bridges and made many enemies along the way.   Besides being dependent, the followers usually have some sense of obligation that keeps them stuck in emotional or financial slavery to the control freak.

I recall one co-worker demonstrating controlling behaviors in the office.  She was a receptionist, but she did not want anyone hanging around her.  She was the one who always brought the cake for office birthdays and personally financed the candy dish.  I recall in my supervisory position wanting to monitor the operations at the front desk given some repeated problems, and within about three minutes she went from gentle prompting to leave her space, to anger and then almost braking down with a disclosure of some inappropriate personal information. 

Now, I think that the inappropriate personal information was an attempt to put herself in the victim role and that I was being portrayed as a perpetrator of sorts for persisting in my staying there to observe.   It was bizarre, but she had to  have control and she threw at me a number of emotional weapons including some drama.

I have concluded that control freaks do indeed control for a reason.  They are fragile and they are scared and they are hiding behind being controlling. 

Control freaks are never happy. The need to control is insatiable--either until the day they die or the day dementia becomes severe enough, they will attempt to control others by any means possible.

In the context of the family

In the context of the family, people who play control games are identified as the ones who exasperate the other family members.  In-laws (those connected by marriage) especially tend to exasperate or get  exasperated.   The individual need to control is stronger than the collective need to get along and foster acceptance.

Personally, it has been nauseating to see adults play games.  I have also found it to be disingenuous and hypocritical (especially in one family member who has spoken at Christian retreats).   I confess that as a human being I wanted to have control because I did not want any more abuse from certain family members, and I wanted to avoid certain family members disrupting things like my wedding.

As a professional hearing patients/clients tell me their story, I have came to the conclusion that the vast majority of families have control games.   Some are worse than others.   

In the context of the family, drama also seems to fuel control games.   Passive-aggressive message-couriers drive splits between other family members by reporting:

they hate you,

 or

they are mad at you.

In reality the truth is out there, somewhere as to who is really mad and not mad, but the splitter has a sense of control because they are conquering by dividing, and everyone else stays away from each other out of a perception of the need to protect themselves.  Everyone feels like they get something bad out of the deal--but they get something.

If there is a divorce and a particular toxic ex-spouse with a borderline personality, then hang-on Arizona.   I have been aware of several friends and acquaintances who had ex-spouses with borderline personality disorder and they have had year after year of misery dealing with the emotional terrorism and control games.  The emotional terrorism extended to extended family in these cases.

Control Issues in the Family at the Holidays

The family is not going to stop playing these control games at the holidays.  No matter if there is a call for peace on earth and good will towards men, it is not going to happen.

Many families have a general understanding and tend to go along with the power.  The holiday celebration will happen at a particular person's house and be according to certain unwritten rules.  The matriarch or patriarch runs the show and people will bow down to that person's authority--end of story.  

Many otherwise-strained families are able to put on happy faces for four to eight hours before either the wine, vodka, or rum-laced egg nog has kicked in or the the nice conversation has stopped.  When the guard has been let down, the control games start again. 

Many chaotic families with numerous family members fighting for control stay away from each other.  They moved away from each other or do not get together for good reason--they all have to be in control and have lots of past grudges and pain.  Maybe they will send presents and maybe they will call on the phone at Christmas--but that is it as the powerful need to control keeps them apart.  

 The reality of control over others: you can never really have it

Control over other people is an illusion.  I have talked to many people that put so much energy into it, and they never get it.  They cannot have meaningful, secure relationships, and they are never happy.  The pursuit of control over others will drain you dry and ruin you.

I think part of making for a better and happier life is surrendering to the reality that you cannot have control over anyone but yourself.  I think that it can make for a happier holiday season too. 

The ceasing of trying to control others allows you to stop wasting your energy and resources.  It also allows you to be able to rest and be at peace, have less anxiety.

Giving up the pursuit of trying to control others does not mean that you are becoming a push-over or weak.   However, what you do with that extra energy and that increased sense of peace is up to you. 

When some people begin to work on giving up the perceived need to control it can be scary.  There is another anxiety that comes along and asks if you are being stupid or foolish?    It is a question that you will have to determine.  As for me--I asked myself: what do I really have to lose?  Trying to control wasn't doing me any good in the first place.

Tomorrow, I will talk how many people start to get tense about holiday gatherings--it is related to control.

Second Sunday of Advent: Peace. Know and Appreciate it when you have it.

Today was the lighting of the peace candle on the Advent wreath at my church.  I was actually standing at a door to greet people coming in so I missed it.

Peace is a subject that varies in interest from year to year.   There are different years when people seek peace more than others.

I think that the world as a whole has never had peace.  There has always been a war or conflict somewhere between people groups or nations.   

National and inner peace are blessings.  People do not seem to appreciate peace when they have it.

National Peace

Here in the United States there does not seem to be an emphasis on peace as much as there has been in recent years.  Here in the United States, there is more focus on jobs and the economy and the different "occupy" demonstrations around the country.   That is curious to me given that the United States has essentially been engaged in war activities for the past decade after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. 

The United States has been blessed overall as a nation for the past 146 years not to have had war within its geopolitical borders since the Civil War ended in 1865.  The exceptions have been the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 70 years ago on December 7, 1941 and then nine-eleven/9-11.  While the US has been engaged in some kind of war for nearly the past 10 years, the war has typically been across the ocean or outside of US borders.    I think that many people do not appreciate the peace that we have within the country and the peace that we have with our two bordering neighbors Canada and Mexico. 

The peace was not always perfect.  There was a 45-year "Cold War" of tension or nerves between 1946 and 1991 between the former Soviet Union and United States over who was going to push the button first. The Korean and Vietnam Wars actually could be called puppet wars given that both the USA and USSR supplied materiel and personnel in both conflicts.   Overall, many fretted over the nuclear threat, and it seemed that olympic competitions between USSR and USA athletes were symbolic in suggesting which was the better country (especially the 1980 Lake Placid US Hockey Team). Occasional  "Fallout Shelters"signs can be seen as artifacts where people could have gone  in case the button was pushed.

The United States seemed to become complacent between 1991 and 2001 and lost an appreciation of peace until Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda Network used fully-fueled airliners as bombs that one Tuesday in September.  After the attacks Bin Laden even continued his taunts that the U.S. would only dream of peace.   Now that Bin Laden is dead and at the bottom of the sea, I wonder how much we appreciate the added sense of peace?   (Not so fast, Al Qaeda is busy in Africa giving out money and candy to recruit.)

Inner Peace

Inner peace has been more elusive for people than national and international peace.   After being in the field of mental health, I have concluded that there are both religious and non-religious people who will never have inner peace even if it hit them in the face because they do not have an understanding of what it is and how to practice it . . . nor are they willing to begin to practice it.

I think that inner peace essentially means not having anxiety and having contentment.   Some web sources use the terms inner-harmony and balance.  I think that it is not a tangible state or something that you hold in your hands, but it is a combination of perspective and practice that you and I engage in.

I think that a person who demonstates inner peace is able to be still and sit still most of the time.  A person with inner peace has perspective as to the larger picture.  A person with inner peace is able to be calmer when a problem occurs. 

Notice, I said "calmer" because there are going to be days when the person with inner peace is going to have a bad day with crises and stress and tension.  A person with inner peace is still human with faults and limits.

The absence of inner peace

People who do not demonstrate inner peace are always tense and cannot sit still.  They talk about what they hate and what they are bothered about all the time.  The imperfections in things around them bug them.  They worry and make it clear that they worry.  They justify their worry as it being a family trait.   

I remember an experience where I was conducting a therapy group and putting some drink powder in my water bottle.  It clumped up at the bottom, and a patient across the room expressed distress and irritation about it.  I had a big lesson about inner peace--that patient did not have it--it was my bottle of water and it was not hurting her.

Many people who are big-time worriers are also survivors.  They keep their worry to themselves and they will often somatize their feelings, which means more headaches and stomachaches.

People who also lack inner peace tend regularly to engage in different negative thought patterns that include:

• People Pleasing (including trying to please the grouches in your family)
• Walking on Eggshells
• Believing that they cause the feelings of others
• Caretaking and rescuing
• Catastrophizing (everything will turn out for the worst)
• All or nothing thinking
• Dwelling on the past (primarily hurts and failures)
• Perfectionism
• Personalizing and inappropriately taking responsibility for the problems of others
• Believing that you should always be doing something.
• Believing that you should always be doing it better

Beginning to practice a sense of inner peace

When I was in seminary, I admired a classmate by the name of Tim.  Tim was able to sit down and take his break and be quiet.  I had a difficult time sitting and being quiet at that time.

Of course, I saw different Bible passages such as

• John 16:33

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (NIV)

• Psalm 29:11

The LORD gives strength to his people;

the LORD blesses his people with peace. (NIV)

and of course Isaiah 9:6-7
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

I do believe that there is a peace to be gained in having a personal relationship with God by placing your faith in Jesus Christ. If you want to read more about it, go to this link or URL:
http://rbc.org/personal-relationship-with-god/

Mind you, there are many who would identify themselves as Christians who have a personal relationship with God, but they do not have a sense of inner peace.  I have known lots of anxious people in churches who appear to be at anything but peace--I have been among them in the past. 

Anyway, I began to ask myself, how I could be more like Tim?   It has been a long journey in practicing peace inside of me.  Of course I have been a person of faith for most of my life, but I had found myself always being stirred inside--I had so much going on inside my brain and I struggled with what was and was not a waste of time.

I think that developing inner peace also includes changing what you do to practice a sense of faith.  Faith is what takes over when your knowledge stops.  I think that developing a sense of inner peace aside from religious faith means changing to practice a philosophy that includes:

• Surrendering to the reality that everyone has limits (especially you)
• Sitting still and resting is required to be able to do things well
• You have to take care of yourself too.
• You cannot please a grouch--they enjoy being grouchy.
• Everyone is responsible for their own feelings--you do not make anyone worried or angry
• You decide if you are going to worry or get angry.
• Help if you can, but allow others to fail
• The worst rarely happens
• Things are neither all bad or all good
• Dwelling on your past hurts and failures rarely helps you be better today
• Very few if anything is perfect in this world
• You can only be responsible so much 
• There is only so much analysis that is worthwhile and usuable--too much analysis becomes worry about stuff outside of your control.
• The control that you and I have only is in the moment and is over what we do.

It is a long list of things that a person can do to center themselves and practice inner peace.  I think that practicing peace does not mean that we do all of these things at the same time, but we do things one moment at a time as the different situations come up.  Life is not that complicated--when you and I live it, we live it one moment at a time and one day at a time.

In light of that, I have came to appreciate the 12-steps programs emphasis of "one day at a time" and their emphasis of the  Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer (primarily the first part) :

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

The Serenity Prayer is a way that helps people focus on stuff like the list.  I am aware that many people in recovery from addictions and codependency pray the Serenity Prayer many times a day when they are anxious or in emotional pain and it does help.   They are practicing serenity as they need to while living their lives.

Wrapping it up:

Christmas in itself does not guarantee that you are going to have peace.  In a theological sense while Jesus Christ gives a peace that the world does not give, it is still up to believers to accept the peace and practice it.   As the holiday season has evolved into a commercial spectacle, it has told people more than not is that they are supposed to have peace, but there is little to no answer on getting.

Some people never really practice faith in a way that gives them inner peace.  They want to control instead of admitting and surrendering that they cannot control and are a human being.   They continue to be in pain over the way they continue to act the way they do, but they remain a slave to it.   

There are a few lucky ones who seem to automatically seem to have peace inside of them.  The rest of us who want it have to practice it. 

Tomorrow, as a continued exploration of peace, I plan to expand on the matter of regrets.   

Expectation and Magic versus Self-Sabotage and Tragic

(In this post, I am putting away the professor podium for a bit and the following warning is issued: The following personal history is indeed soul-bearing and maybe a little freaky to read, but hopefully serves a purpose.)

As my surviving grandparents had starting going to Florida before Thanksgiving and my brothers went to college, and had graduated from college and got married, I began to hate the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  I thought they were boring and empty and lonely. 

The penultimate of my discontent during my high school years was one Christmas Eve when my mother said,

Just bring the presents in here and we will open them while we watch TV. 

I demanded that my one brother who was home, my mother and father do it after the TV show away from the TV.  I was mad that opening presents was profaned in such a manner.

As my family evolved to just me and my parents at home and my brothers coming home for only a few days, Christmas was just terrible.  Mom and Dad just laid around and did not seem to want to do anything special or create any traditions.

I made my complaint about Christmas being boring to my mother several times.  She said that it was real life.  A few times she added the "Everyone knows that . . . ."  My desired response was "Well then why in &*#$ did not you not tell me so I would know?" (But I held my tongue.)

I sang a solo Christmas Day 1984 in church--This Little Child by Scott Wesley Brown, which was a serious Christmas song that was as much political commentary as an affirmation of belief.  On the way home in the car my brother laughed at me saying that I looked like I was in pain.  I elbowed him hard and said that I was indeed in pain--and he was not respecting it (I still don't think he got it).

As a senior in college I cooked up an excuse to avoid being home for Christmas by volunteering to work for free at a TV station news department writing copy and operating the teleprompter and working the assignment desk as an assistant.  I just did not want to be home because I perceived that there would be conflict with the few who were there. 

During my first year in seminary, on December 27, 1987 I made a decision to drive eight hours in a bad snow storm from Des Moines to Minneapolis because I had to get out of the house (on a good day it would have only taken four hours).  It was against my better judgment as I did not have a credit card and I had a burnt out headlight, but it was my choice, and I just felt that I could not stand being at home any longer, and I would rather have been lonely in my apartment than at home.  

I came to hate Christmas as a holiday and felt it to be empty.  It wasn't that I was not getting what I wanted in terms of presents, but no one in my family was committed to create any warmth or tradition. 

When my wife miscarried just before Christmas,  I realized while walking into my nearby Meijer that the pain from it distracted me from the loathing of Christmas.  In this case I had replaced one pain for another

Christmas did not start to become good again until my daughter had turned two--as I and my wife could make some decisions on creating traditions.   

Expectation:

Expectation is both what you are looking forward to and what you believe should happen.  As I look back at those years, I had the expectation that Christmas was supposed to be this really warm and fulfilling time, and other people were supposed to help make it so.

As my expectation began to be dashed Christmas after Christmas, I began to get cynical about the Christmas holiday.  Of course I still believed in the story of Jesus's birth, but I began to take note that the celebration of Christmas was not in the Bible and that the repetition of Christmas Hymns was getting old.   I thought that the endless playing of Christmas music in stores and on the radio and in my secretary's office was pointless.  Maybe Ebenezer Scrooge, as fictional as he was . . . had a point.

As I look back now, yes, my parents showed their humanity and probably their own surviving by not   creating anything special at Christmas for their teenage son at home.  Yeah . . . I think that they could have done better, but how I analyze and look back at them is a choice . . . I do not think that there is a right or wrong answer to what was really happening three decades ago, but how I choose to think affects how I feel now.  It turned out best to forgive them and to move on.

The journey has taught me that how I do think about creating expectation and magic versus self-sabotage at Christmas matters.  I admit that during all of those years I had engaged in a negative-mental filter and self-fulfilling prophecy.    I began to expect that Christmas was going to be terrible--and it was and that Christmas was terrible because my family did not get together like other families did.

Christmas is not magic, but it does not have to be tragic.

As a rational, educated adult in my mid-40's, I still think that Christmas is over-done and over-exploited--in other words I am still critical of what is now the holiday season.  I do think that many people are looking for Christmas to provide wonder and fulfillment and meaning in an otherwise empty life and will spend money pushing that envelope to feel that Christmas Spirit.

I think that there can be some meaning in Christmas, but it will indeed be only be some and will not make us feel complete and perfect.  That is okay.    

Acceptance and Change

If we were expecting Christmas to make us feel totally complete and perfect, we will feel disappointed. For many of us, we have to stop playing the passive role in expecting meaning and fulfillment to just happen to us or be delivered to us.  Our dysfunctional families are still the same dysfunctional families and they are not about to change--but we can change ourselves.

Some of us have to stop dwelling on all of the past empty Christmases and decide what we can do now to give us some meaning.   It is not a perfect process because some will have to grieve the past to move on. Grieving may include having anger and depression because of the hurt and wasted years.

I think that after getting past the grief, acceptance means that we begin to look for what is good-even if it is the 200th time you have heard Jingle Bell Rock.  I think that sometimes to search for what is good and enjoyable at the moment makes it more pleasant even if the painful past Christmases are still in the back of your mind.  Nothing is all bad or good.

At this point there are 21 days until Christmas.   I would like to think if you relate to this material, you have time to begin to turn things around a little.

Grief and Loss at Christmas—feeling your feelings? Or stuck in the past?

A Recap

Grief is the natural emotional response to the loss of a cherished person, thing or idea. As noted before, I buy into the Kubler-Ross model that there are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance.

Yesterday I discussed how anger is the underestimated emotion of grief during the holidays. Anger as part of the grief process is a strong feeling that people get stuck and paralyzed in if they do not work through it or resolve in.   People who are angry because of a loss can be unbearable to be around and can disrupt family celebrations.

Denial and Bargaining

When it comes to the other stages of grief, people may get stuck in the the denial or bargaining stages if they are dealing with a divorce or relationship estrangement. I have met one person who appeared to be stuck in the denial stage and they were apparently high on pain medications when expressing their bargaining with God to bring their mother back. However, usually when a loved one dies, if people are not having problems with anger, they are feeling depression.

Depression

The depression stage in grief is supposed to be after the “bargaining” stage (it may not be). In this stage a person has realized that they cannot bargain anymore. In the depression stage of grief they feel stuck and stupid and helpless. They usually do not feel this stage for awhile until after their loved one is gone.

The depression stage of grief does not exactly have an end to it. From what I have read it takes as long as it takes . . . everyone is different. When it gets in the way of a person's daily functioning . . . that is when people wind up in the hospital or at the door of the psychiatrist or counselor.

I have found that people who may be stuck in the grief stage of depression were people that did not have a way to get their emotional needs after the loved one died. One example was a guy who was a “mama's boy” whose mother and father died in the same year and he was stuck believing that he could not stand to lose anymore relationships. Another example was a lady whose mother was her only best friend and when her mother died she lost both her mother and her best friend and she had no other close friends by which to bond and talk and trust with her feelings. The guy was not ready to change, but the woman accepted the advice of calling people in her church to make connections—the woman got better but the guy did not.

The holiday is just not going to be the same

The first set of holidays after the death of a loved one are typically the hardest. It is the first holiday (s) without them and you know it.

If the loved one was the matriarch or patriarch or family leader or who was the organizer of the family celebrations or had a central role in cooking, decorating or organizing, it will feel like there is a hole or something is very much missing. I have been aware that when a mother or father dies, the adult children fall out of touch with each other. No one was willing or feeling capable to organize a family gathering.

I think that for many the phrase the holiday is not just going to be the same is really the holiday will never be good again. I do think that there is some legitimate coming to terms with the holiday not being the same—because it is factual and logical. The holiday is not going to be the same because that loved one is no longer there.

I think when someone is going through their first holiday without the loved one, that this is another time where it is appropriate to be sad and mad and depressed all over again. To deny yourself these feelings is to deny that you are a human being with needs.

Dwelling and living in the past versus moving ahead.

Many people dwell on the negative thought that the holiday is just not going to be the same. Some will dwell on that thought to the point of depression. Cognitive therapists would call this a negative mental filter where a person's point of view is polluted by the dwelling on one negative thought.

I think when people dwell on the holiday is just not going to be the same, they start getting stuck in the past and start missing the present. It is my opinion that when this goes on for two or three Christmases, it suggests that someone may be stuck in grief.

It is not my original suggestion, but people who have lost that family member have a need to move on and make the holidays good again. Making it good again does not mean making it perfect or trying to make it just like that deceased loved one did.  I think it means gathering together to continue to have relationships. Maybe there can be an honoring of family traditions which bind relationships, or maybe there can be a new tradition to celebrate. I think that families merely being together at Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate can be surprisingly fulfilling and delightful.

The barrier of the family--when they don't want to move ahead with you 

It serves to mention, that not all family members grieve in the same way at the same time. If you are wanting to move ahead and try to organize a family gathering at Christmas or other holiday, you may have one or more family members be resistant or uncooperative.

The reasons are endless for family resistance but here are a few ideas. Maybe people are angry. Maybe people are just not wanting to talk about the loved one. Maybe mother was close to all of you but you weren't close to each other. Maybe some family members got together out of respect for mother despite not being able to stand each other (this even happens in religious families). I would like to say a little investigation may be needed, but such answers are not necessarily hard to get.

If your family is not going along with your idea to have Christmas or the holiday gathering, then you have some other choices to make. They all seem to center around the question of: How can I make my holiday good this year?    

Acceptance: How can I make my holiday good?

When people begin to focus on: How can I make my holiday good? versus It just won't be the same, a person is moving into the fifth stage of Acceptance. Acceptance is where a person begins to reach the conclusion and feeling that it is possible to heal and move on. Acceptance does not mean you will forget the pain or loss, but it does mean that you are in a better place to live your life . . . and I do mean your life.

It is all easier said than done

Any kind of discussion about these matters is easier said than done. I think that the journey of grief and loss is a miserable and stressful one that takes not just an emotional toll on someone but also a physical toll. The emotions of grief are physically stressful and lead to stomachaches, headaches, and muscle aches in addition to insomnia.

Despite the theories, the journey of grief and loss is still an individual journey. We all must figure things out for ourselves. We have to reach our own decisions and we all move on in our own ways.

For those of us who have prided ourselves on being the strong ones, we may have to surrender to being weak. We cannot do it all for ourselves and everyone else. We may cry and pout that we can't be all things to all people--but it does not mean that we failed.

We need grace in our grief

We (especially the strong ones) need grace in our grief, which is often defined as “unmerited favor.” We need a gift of relief. The original meaning of Christmas is that gift from God,  Jesus who came to earth to give us life and give it to us more abundantly. While Judaism would disagree with this interpretation, Isaiah 53 foretold that Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering. Psalm 34: 12 also says

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (NIV)

Approximately 33 years after being born in a stable and laid in a manger, Jesus died a humiliating public death on a cross after an unfair trial--he did suffer and he did it for us.  But death did not keep him in the grave--he arose from the grave after three days and is in Heaven to come back one day for the people who have accepted him as savior.  It is not a perfect option, but it can be comforting or soothing to know that God is a personal God who is not distant and uncaring. I think that people who seek God and His grace will find God--the Bible tells you how you can. 

Closing comments:

My Google statistics page indicates that I have readers in Germany and Russia beside the United States. Thanks for following this blog—I hope that it is meeting your needs.   If there is a topic that you are looking for discussion about to meet your needs, please make a comment.

Death Does Not Take a Holiday

Many people who are surviving the holidays have grief and loss issues. This post will explore what the death of a loved one does to the holidays.

The grief and loss issues come up on at least two accounts.  The first account is that a loved one has died on the holiday and the holiday is spoiled.  The second account is that the deceased loved one was a central part of the holiday celebration.  Either case tends to make for a holiday to become a day of sadness and depression.  

Christmas is the holiday that death ruins for the most people.   So much expectation is put on Christmas to be a happy and joyful time, that many people become fatalistic that Christmas is just going to be terrible; in other words they engage in creating a "self-fulfilling prophecy."
When people keep telling themselves over and over again that Christmas is going to be bad that they indeed make it bad.  They may also dwell on the line "Christmas is just not going to be the same."

Hearing "It's the most wonderful time of the year" on the radio almost makes one want to talk to Andy Williams or whoever is singing the song and tell them to cram it where the sun doesn't shine.  When feeling your grief issues, you are not happy and it seems that there is very little that will change your mood.

Death is a normal part of life.

The reality is that death is part of the normal function of life.  (I realized in the late 1990's as I had one month to wait for my brain tumor to be removed that if I died, the world would go on without me.) Life begins and life ends.  Just as babies will be born on Christmas, death does not take a holiday either.  People of all ages will die on Christmas.  People will die expectantly or suddenly at or around Christmas from all different causes that cannot be controlled by medical science.    
People will sadly die in car accidents at Christmas.   Since I had dabbled in journalism in an early part of my life, I became soberly aware that the common news staple of local TV stations (in the United States) is the story that tallies how many auto fatalities occur on the holiday or holiday weekend.  

Suicide at the holidays   

Besides car accident fatalities, there have been and will be people who commit suicide at Christmas.  There are people who feel alone, overwhelmed and hopeless, who feel that they have no other option.  Some of them have a mental illness and/or are abusing alcohol and drugs--which makes the problem all the more worse.  Having worked in a psychiatric hospital for nearly 10 years, I have noted that ironically--the adult patient population goes down at Christmas and not up.

I hope that if you are reading this, and contemplating suicide, I offer you a message of hope--there are always other problem-solving options other than suicide.   I would hope that you are reading this to help you cope another day or better yet  . . . another holiday season.  

I would trust that you have local mental health services or a crisis line that you can call.  If you are in the United States, you can call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).  It has trained telephone counselors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to take your call.

When the loved one was the host of Christmas  . . .

A complicating factor of grief at the holidays is when the now departed loved one was the Christmas host.  There are many families where one person made Christmas happen: they hosted it, they cooked the dinner, and they were the tradition-bearer of the family by getting everyone involved in the activities. 

With the loved one gone, the traditions that help bind relationships transform into reminders of the pain.  Many families seem to fall apart and lose touch with each other as a result.  Invitations to get the rest of the family members to come for Christmas after the love one passes may be impossible.

Grief at the Holidays is not that simple

Grief is more often a complicated matter than we would expect.  Grief is more than just feeling bad.  There are a number of aspects of grief that I will look at in the next couple of posts that need their own consideration. 

Moving from Surviving to Thriving-- Beginning to Understand the Meaning of Trust

Survivors as a rule do not trust others, and for good reason.  Many people surviving family dysfunction have learned from their families not to trust . . . including their family members themselves. Some people also get brainwashed not trust themselves in the process because none of your caretakers any sense of confidence in you.
If you are not supposed to trust your family nor trust others, you are in a another paradox besides being stuck behind a wall of emotional isolation. . . . you are in a position of emotional abandonment where there is no one you can rely on to the degree of your need.    Similarly to what I have observed in my previous posts, the Holiday Season can make things feel worse--the rest of the world seems happy during this time of year while you feel terrible because you are alone, you may not feel like you can trust anyone, and your family is no consolation to you.

We need other people

Our families never really meet all our needs.  When your family is especially dysfunctional, they create some needs . . . or leave some needs unfulfilled. 

I think that from culture to culture and society to society, people have needed relationships outside of their biological family to meet the emotional needs family cannot need.  When you especially have a toxic, dysfunctional family, all the more it is likely you need friends . . . perhaps to be the surrogate family that your biological family cannot be.

However, if you cannot trust, you will be unlikely to make the friends that you need to help improve your experience of the holidays.  Trust is a glue in relationships.  If there is no trust then there is no relationship. 

With a friend you trust, you have a good sense of what he or she is like.  You have a good sense of what you can tell them.  You can tell that a friend accepts you for who you are, even when you show your fear and vulnerability, and even some stupidity.

Considering the concept of trust

Trust is many things.  I would like to define it as a act based on belief informed by knowledge.  To get trust, someone has observed you over time and has enough information to satisfy their doubt--you are going to be worthy enough to handle something valuable or accept their vulnerability.   A math-like formula that seems to fit is

TIME + BEHAVIOR= TRUST

When you meet someone, you are going to see how they act first. As crudely depicted by the below grid-like diagram, there are a series of boundaries that people have to cross to get increasing levels of trust.

      NO TRUST--------------------------------------------------------------------------------MOST TRUST      A STRANGER------------------------------------------------------------------------------A BEST FRIEND

The people you have met outside of your family all started out as strangers to you. They have demonstrated how trustworthy or how untrustworthy they are by their words and actions. 

The new people you meet now all start out as strangers. Some of them will demonstrate that they are good and trustworthy, and some will NOT.

Here is an example how this grid idea works.  If someone looks appealing enough to talk to, they have crossed the first boundary.  If they are nice enough in that first conversation of "small-talk" or social nice-ness, they get to graduate to the next level.  If in the third conversation, they seem to be accepting of a little more serious conversation, they move on.  The moment they mock you for a belief or view or a preference, a fear of spiders, or that you are going to see a psychotherapist or psychologist, you have learned that the degree of trust you can give stops right there. 

The following triangle diagram suggests how we order the relationships in our life.

You and I only have so much energy and time to have relationships.  We are not going to be able to be friends with everyone.  The majority of people that we know are not going to get the same amount of trust towards the top.  For example, I am not going to trust everyone I know to watch my children--in fact, I trust very few with my children--I do not have the time and energy to get to know whether everyone is trustworthy.

Furthermore,  not everyone has the same interests and attractions.  If I meet someone who is really big into mountain climbing and I am not, and all they do is climb mountains, we are not going to have much of a relationship.   If you do not have much in common, you may continue to have a distant friendship or occasional conversation, but you are not likely to be close.

I find it liberating that I do not have to try and be friends with everyone.  It is also liberating to see that there are different kinds of friends and I do not have to trust everyone the same. 

Family relationships fit in this triangle too.  The reality is that some people in families will burn bridges between each other, and then rebuild bridges, and the burn bridges again.  Family members can move from one level of trustworthiness to another and then back again. 

Trust is a great experiment

As noted above, good friends make tolerating the holidays more possible than being alone, but if you have been an isolationist, you are going to choose whether you are going to try the experiment of trust.   

Trust is still very much an individual choice. I can tell you how it happens and how it is formed, but I cannot get you over the hump of inact. Either you will do it or you will not do it.

I assume that if you have been surviving for a long time, and not just at Christmas, it has satisficed that you have not trusted.   People who have been surviving are sadly tolerant of the discomfort they feel in isolation.  It is not really contentment, but it is a perceived amount of less pain than if you were getting hurt in the worst way imaginable by other people.    

Beginning to trust is daunting and scary. Many people beginning to trust as adults think in black and white terms that we have to trust everyone all at once. With this mindset, those survivors show that they are ambivalent about changing and trying to trust and be more social.   The good news is that we do not have to (nor should we) trust everyone to the same degree.

If this has hit home for you today, this season of Advent and the holidays is an opportunity for you to trust in many ways.  I would like to think as a human being, your trust means something to you.  Your trust is valuable because it is not coming cheaply, whoever gets your trust will hopefully have earned it. 

As I consider the core of the Advent and Christmas Story, I find that we are called to trust  someone who came to earth in the most humble of ways to live a sinless life, and give up that life for the whole world that whoever believes will not perish but have ever lasting life.   When we believe, it does not matter how much education we have, how much money we make, how many bad things we have done, or even how old we are--the trust of anyone who has the ability to trust is valid and valuable--whether it is in a new friend or a savior.