YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Christmas is all sorts of PTSD trigger-y for me. I have Complex PTSD, so it's not just one Christmas, but a combination of all the Christmases.

When I was little, my parents, mostly my dad, would get me whatever I wanted. Literally, he would try to get me the entire list. As I got older, my lists got smaller albeit more expensive. I understand it's hard to shop for teenagers, but if they hand you a list, you're definitely in the lucky few. My mom was pretty decent at buying me things that maybe I wanted and needed, or just needed (re: socks). But my dad got stuck, getting me gifts a 7 year old would enjoy, not an 18 year old. It was physical proof that my father didn't even try to understand me.

As I was growing up, I would always get each of my parents one thing on my shopping excursions with our church's youth group. I remember every year I got my dad something and the look of disappointment on his face was too much for me as a 10 year old to see. Every gift seemed disappointing to him since I clearly was not rich enough to get him the lavish gifts he felt he deserved. I could hear in the tone of his voice that he felt required to say thank you and I didn't feel it. I didn't feel his gratitude or thanks. Every year I tried so hard to get him to like the gift I gave him and every year I'd get a, 'Oh... thank you...' and the gift pushed to the side. (You know, I don't think he ever wore this one scarf I bought him with my own money from work. It sat on the dryer in the basement, untouched for years.) My mom would also occasionally fake her gratitude, but it didn't sting as much as my dad's disappointment.

Every year we would go to both sides of the family. First for lunch with my mom's side who smoked (they have since stopped/started smoking out of the house), then to my dad's boring side. I'd have to change clothes due to my hatred of cigarette smoke, then go sit with a bunch of people I had nothing in common with (other than our co-narcissism for all of our parents). Now, we only go to my mom's side of the family, which is fine. I'd rather go there than my dad's side and embody the phrase 'children should be seen and not heard'.

My father's Christianity was one of my deep reasons to push back against Christmas as a holy holiday. My mother's overwhelming cheerfulness was enough to turn me off altogether. They both make Christmas seem like this day that will solve all the sadness problems in our family, but it makes it so, incredibly worse. How can you be so happy around a holiday that continually disappoints?

Even now, living out of the house away from all my parents' Christmas nonsense, I get depressed that I can't just enjoy Christmas. Get enveloped with the joy for life and family and friends. Love the carols and the traditions. But all I feel is the disappointment and depression and the anxiety of trying to feel the joy many get from this holiday because it never gets better.

To me, Christmas is a big hoopla about childhood trauma.

Hi Hedgewitch,
I just read your note you posted in late November. I have difficulties as an adult with any holiday, but especially at Christmas. In my highly dysfunctional family, my father was a professional that made great money at his job. But, he was an alcoholic and gambler spending most of his time away from our family. There were 5 children and a raging mother in reaction to my father's behaviors and neglect. Christmas time and birthdays... meant that money needed to be spent decorating the house, cooking special foods, and getting gifts for the children. My father and mother began their raging battles early. My mother requesting money for the occasions. My father not wanting her to "spend his money." For birthdays my father rarely showed up. His gambling and drinking were far more important. Christmas morning was always stressful because my father was angry with my mother for buying too much. He would open our handmade or inexpensive gifts and not make a sound. He'd stack them up. I don't remember if he even kept them. My mother, in the meantime, was too cheerful. But the cheerfulness didn't feel aimed at the children. It seems it was to goad my father. As we grew older into our teens and college age, my mother made the decision to spend holiday times with her boyfriends. We were always told to lie to our dad who she was still married to that she had to work. Sometimes she had prepared ahead of time for the children, but as my little brothers graduated highschool her planning stopped. When my parents divorced my mother became totally involved with her boyfriends' families, and I didn't even see her despite the plans that I would visit her for the Christmas or Thanksgiving holiday. She never came home or was on a cruise or vacation. My father moved away and was always involved with his drinking and gambling while struggling with his failing business affairs. He saw no need for the holidays either.

In the past years my mother has been happy with a long time boyfriend she shares a house with. She now makes major holidays important to our family because of the grandchildren. She's often "insulted" that my agoraphobia doesn't allow me to travel to some get-togethers which are always in other towns. She is still a rager, but it comes out as judgement of others. Things I laugh about. My brothers are not taking my her grandchildren to church. They weren't raised going to church... but still they are at fault. They don't use spanking so they are raising very spoiled children. I feel that without a proper father figure my brothers are doing the best they can with their children. Not always perfect, but getting a lot of it right.

Holidays and my birthday are tough times for me, but they are better since I keep working on coming to terms with my past and how it has affected me in the present. I hope you were able to come to some peace around the holiday. Make your own traditions and try hard to leave your parents old behaviors and your hurt feelings behind.

You expressed yourself well in this post. I could imagine the pain you were feeling when you wrote it. Holidays have always been a struggle for me. I don't feel like writing a whole bunch about it right now, but I wanted you to know I read your post. What did stand out to me was your feelings about your gifts never seeming enough. That sucks.

I felt shame at my reactions towards my daughter over the years when she has given me gifts and the disappointment I have felt. I've never felt special and one day I helped my daughter pick out a vase with some fake flowers for her new step mom. A couple of years later after the step mom had left her dad; I received the vase and flowers back with a huge detailed explanation of how my daughter had went to pick out this special gift for me. I was so hurt because I hated the step mom. She had been unkind to me and treated my daughter badly and I could not see any beauty in the gesture. I just felt cheap. I threw a little fit as my daughter in general had been abusive towards me because of her emotional pain and things going on at her dads (she was taking it all out on me - the safe person in her life) and I was in a very bad place at that time. I wish I would have reacted differently.

I have been very honest with my daughter about how I love any gift from her if it is from her heart. I love it when she paints or draws for me or makes me a card. I hate it when she spends money on me unless it is something very specific that I picked out because otherwise, it might not mean anything. To me a gift from anyone is quality time. Spend time with me, go have a meal with me. We can pay our own way, hell I'll treat YOU out.

I remember being in a foster home and watching one of my foster sisters (my foster mom's actual daughter) opening a pile of presents and I only had one or two. I felt so small and unloved. I did not get anything I wanted. It meant nothing. I wanted love. One Christmas a couple of years later I received a present from one of my actual blood family members and even though I was not crazy about the contents I felt like I had just won the lottery as I looked across the room realizing that the big pile of presents that my same foster sister had AGAIN wasn't really love. She was pushed aside a lot. She had a very detached relationship with her mom. Sometimes I was closer to her real mom than she was. I felt sad at that realization. They were just buying her off. She consistently had nice things given to her and bought for her. She did not seem to care and I don't think she really felt loved.

I studied something about love languages a while back and it really helped me to understand myself and when I am hurt by rejection after trying to give the kind of love I like to receive I try to comfort myself by telling myself that quality time must not be that person's love language so trying to spend time with them won't work. Maybe I need to give them a hug or a small gift and it will make their day instead.

Sometimes I run across other people who share the same love language as me and I find that priceless.

My daughter gives awesome gifts now - so even though I feel a little ashamed about all that happened - I'm glad that I was truthful - even though it was not pretty. My temper tantrum and brutal ugly honesty helped my daughter be a beautifully thoughtful person. I would probably do it all over again. Maybe minus the tantrum.

Yes, I have had a good deal of experience with EMDR and it has been a life saver to me....if you would like to ask any questions, I'll check back here frequently. I would write my experiences but won't unless anyone wants to hear about it...I have been working on childhood sexual abuse and parents I'm not bonded to who were so fucking stressed out while I was growing up our home was a hot bed of anxiety and depression.
Anyhow let me know.