Deprivation and Sorrow

                The late Furman Bisher (1918-2012) wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2008 about his austere Christmases in Georgia as a child.  Everyone was poor in his community and they got oranges as treats at Christmas.  Bisher wrote that his wife had just bought him a little red bicycle for Christmas so he would not be the only one to have not gotten one.   Cute, but I wonder whether that gesture really healed any hurt or filled any hole in his psyche.

Many of us, if not all of us can point to some form of deprivation that we have suffered in our lives.  Deprivation often has a physical connotation, but if we were to look at Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we may have all had some kind of deprivation of our emotional needs, and it probably bugs some of us on a recurring basis. 

Deprivation is the lack or denial of something considered to be a necessity.   It seems likely that not all the deprivation that we have experienced bugs us, but a few things that really mattered rear their ugly heads at one time or another.  When it bugs us, it is more than grief—it is chronic sorrow because it comes up again and again.   The holidays are one of those times when it comes up again and again.

Not everything that we have been deprived of holds the same weight, and hopefully we do not dwell on it all the time, but some of this deprivation was a significant enough hut that we have some moments of deep sadness and re-living of pain.  If it is not sadness, we relive the anger.

There are family members who may have deprived us of traditions and recognition.  They may have not invited us to weddings or they treat us like family secrets.  They may never invite us over to their house and avoid us.   They demonstrate by actions that they treat other family members as favored and us as the red-headed step-child.

Peers from school days may have deprived us of the respect that we needed. Maybe we were picked on, teased and bullied, and they did not realize that they were hurting us instead of being funny. It still amazes me that a 73-year-old South Dakota man shot his high school bully dead in 2012 over a jock-strap prank from over 50 years earlier.  Some people do hold onto the pain and sorrow from such deprivation and go to such extremes.

Employers may have deprived us of raises and promotions and recognitions.  The average employee who has been with an employer for a long time has typically felt unappreciated by the employer (https://www.eremedia.com/tlnt/heres-why-your-employees-are-just-not-that-into-you/). Promotions are being given to younger yes-men and yes-women who play the political game versus those who have done good work and have been faithful employees.

Churches also tend to betray and disrespect a number of members by not supporting them in times of trouble and by failing to recognize special events and graduations.  Pastors did not come when you needed them.  Churches put your graduation as an “omitted degree” instead of recognizing you like others in the Sunday morning worship.  Some of this disrespect is ignorance and some of it is blatant politics.   Many people leave churches because they felt deprived of the meeting of those necessary emotional needs (telling the music minister how mad you are at him tends to be worthless and leaving is just easier to get away from the pain).

Colleges and Universities may change their policy and deprive graduates of traditions that have been going on and on for previous years.  Certain degrees may not recognized in commencement because of some agenda to down play the president’s idiocy in handling a controversy over allowing a guy who attended less than a semester to be granted a Ph.D.

At the holidays the sorrow over deprivations can be more acute.  Christmas tends to bring out the inner child in each of us in good and bad ways.  Yes, our inner child will sing along with silly Christmas songs.  But the inner child hurts with the rumination of the deprivation we have suffered because the real world has kicked our butts and made us cynical.

I don’t have any easy answers but to say other than for many of us, the pain of current and past deprivation at Christmas is real. The chronic sorrow over deprivations from childhood and deprivations in more recent years does happen.  I suppose that we have to recognize it when it happens and try to get our minds off of it as best as we can, but after awhile it tends to be worthless to talk about it with family and spouses because they are tired of you talking about it and tell you to let it go.  

                We live in the present, and sometimes it is a struggle, especially during the holidays.  

It isn't about you: The avoidant ones we want to talk to.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States.  (Canada has its Thanksgiving day the second Monday of October.)  It was created by President Abraham Lincoln to be a day of giving thanks to the “Creator.”   Between Christmas and Thanksgiving, the latter is the preferred gathering day for families.  

Other than eating too much food, families are supposed to have some kind of interaction.  The interaction is where the problem tends to be.  Of course there has been discussion about what happens when people drink too much and say regretful things.  There is little about the avoidant family member who does not talk or shies away from being around family.

The avoidant person may be us.  I do appreciate that given family dysfunction and trauma, some avoidant people have such a strong aversion to being around family in the name of self-preservation and PTSD.   The one staying away may be the one hiding in shame or anger.

      There will be avoidant family members who are reluctantly there but choosing to be avoidant of others because they want to avoid the typical drama.  They don’t want to be around the uncle or other family member who has had two “Rum and Pepsi’s” by dinner and has finished the bottle of rum off by 6pm.  

There are a few who seem to be arrogant.  You go up to them and say hello and they avoid making any kind of response other than a vague utterance and they walk away.   You might try a second time and they repeat what they just did.

However, there are some avoidant family members who are hard to figure out.  They act in such controlling ways that they just do not talk or even return phone calls.  If they come to see others when you are not there or they drive through your city not stopping to say hello.  Maybe you are in their city and you call them to see if you can come by and they tell you that they are sick.   They seem to do everything to be avoidant.

The main question that most ask in response is: why are they doing this?  The answer that many ask in response is “Did I do something?”   They may answer themselves again by saying, “I must have done something or they would not be acting like this.”    They engage in personalization.

Personalization

            Personalization is what has been called a thinking error.  It is taking responsibility for something that is not your fault. Or it may be taking more responsibility for what happened than is yours to take.

            The classic form of personalization that I see in my work is the adolescent to takes it personally that someone insults his or her mother or father or family.  Some insulting peer goes “Your momma” and the personalizing adolescent hits the peer.  The adolescent has taken upon himself or herself that he or she is the defender of the family.

            Another classic form of personalization is to say “I must have done something or they would not have acted that way.”    Maybe someone gives you a dirty look or is rude to you and if you personalize it the conclusion is that you must be at fault for something.

            The reality is that just because someone gives you a dirty look or is rude to you it only means they gave you a dirty look or were rude.  It does not mean that you did anything.   Some people are just rude and give dirty looks.   They did it because they did it.   Neal Peart, the lyricist for Rush aptly wrote in the song Roll the Bones “Why does it happen?  Because it happens.”

Reframing it back to your family

            So, if you are going to be around avoidant family members you can be less distressed by stopping trying to analyze why they are avoidant.  It may be a friendly measure to go up to them and try to have friendly small talk and see if they talk, but if they withdraw, they withdraw.  The avoidant family member is choosing to be avoidant because they are choosing to be avoidant because they are anxious or guarded from previous family spats on the holidays. 

            Just a disclaimer here, if you are going up to the avoidant one  to yell at them, call them something that sounds like “Ice Hole” or tease them for their behavior last holiday, I would not blame them  for avoiding you.    We are not responsible for the feelings and choices of family members, but we are responsible for what we say and what we do and we may get some consequences.

            One more thought about the avoidant family member: they may be a bunch of vacant space not worth knowing.  I have found that many avoidant people are bitter control freaks . . .  nothing more and nothing less.  They control by isolating and they do not let anyone into their lives except for those they can control.  Talking with them is woefully unfulfilling because there is nothing to connect on with them.   

Concluding Thoughts: It isn’t about you.

            It isn’t about you when it comes to the avoidant family member.  Most normal people will talk and make effort to connect with others at family gatherings tomorrow.   If you make an effort to connect with the typically avoidant family member tomorrow and it bombs, at least you tried.   If the avoidant family member otherwise claims that you are in their space or are bothering them, just let them be in their own private world.   There are better things to do with your holiday experience such as being with the family members that want to talk and play than be consumed by the avoidant family member’s reclusiveness. 

Anhedonia. Grief and Loss in the time of Feasting, Snacking, and Partying.

We were not listening to the most religious music going to church yesterday, but there could not have a better "teachable moment."  My son and daughter were actually listening to the words of Santa Baby as sung by Eartha Kitt.  The woman in Santa Baby wants it all and as my daughter astutely noted, she wanted it now!   My daughter is a smart girl.

Stuff is supposed to make people good at the holidays.  It is either supposed to get us in touch with our inner child or it is touching that someone was thoughtful of us and what we like-- and it shows that they cared.

The holidays also have an emphasis on food.  There are many special holiday dishes, snacks, desserts, and drinks.  The food is more than just about the taste (especially if the tradition is Lutefisk), it is the tradition.

With grief and loss A 50-cent word that seems appropriate to consider at the holidays is Anhedonia, which is the inability to experience pleasure.  Presents and holiday cuisine do not bring pleasure or the Christmas spirit and the song Santa Baby does not fit where you are. Holiday food and drink does not taste great.  Parties are just not fun and you may not want to be around people.   The following are possible ways people in grief show anhedonia.

If someone is in the shock/denial stage, there is often little to no room to think about presents.  The world has just been rocked and the thoughts are just somewhere else.

In the anger stage, there may be a number of different manifestations of this uncomfortable emotion. There may be a preoccupation of guilt with anger towards oneself.  There may be anger towards others in your family for their disrespect or apparent thoughtlessness. It may very well be possible that someone is not interested in looking at the Christmas Story and its theology because of anger towards God.  There is too much anger to be able enjoy the season and the meaning.

In the bargaining stage it may be possible that people go overboard trying to recreate Christmas in the way it has always been.  This is the chase of nostalgia. Some people may just wear themselves out trying to do it all, buying it all and recreating the feeling.  Some people may claim that this is really putting off their own grief to be strong for others, and there is no satisfaction.

In the depression phase there is the out and out depression.  Nothing is good. Nothing is pleasurable. Things are empty and numb without feeling.

With anhedonia, the Christmas music can seem like irritating noise. No, it's not the happiest time of the year, and you can take your jingle bells and cram them where the sun does not shine.  Shut up about what you want Santa baby to bring you.  If this is you . . . you hopefully show self-control and keep the words inside your head versus actually saying them and creating collateral damage.

How do we deal with it?  Accept It. 

Sometimes there is nothing wrong with saying that we are in grief and that we are feeling grief.  We have to give ourselves permission to feel grief.   Grief is the normal emotional reaction to the loss of something significant.

The feelings are going to come.  The feelings are going to go.  The feelings come and go when they do.

We don't have permission to say and do anything we want, but it is up to each of us to give ourselves permission to feel.  Stuffing feelings is not always an act of showing strength or maturity.

Accepting that we are in grief means telling ourselves that it is okay to feel what we are feeling. We are affirming that it is normal to feel anhedonia in grief and loss and that we are normal people. Yes, we feel Bah-humbug, but that does not make us an Ebenezer Scrooge.

For the record, if you are having thoughts of suicide, you may want to call your local or regional mental health hotline. If you live in the United States there is a National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255.

Stuck in Grief? 

Being stuck in grief is a little tricky.  Opinions vary as to how long grief should last.  Some people continue to grieve years past the loss to the cost of normal functioning.  There is often a point where the grief is no longer about the actual loss but some secondary gain.  If you wonder if you are stuck in grief, it may be in your interest to go visit a therapist or counselor and explore this.

I hope that this has met a need.  If you like it and think it would help others, feel free to re-post it and pass it along.