Childhood Trauma and the Holidays

Childhood Trauma - It Stops With You

Due to the pandemic, most of us won’t be attending family parties this year. For some, that might be a relief. If you’ve experienced childhood trauma, hearing friends discussing their holiday plans makes you feel uncomfortable. Your experience of family get-togethers has been less than positive. Then, after the holidays are over, hearing the details of everyone’s menu and family traditions makes you feel out of place…

“Ashley’s menu was fantastic this year... This year’s party game was the best we’ve ever played...The kids loved that karaoke microphone, but I think the grownups liked it even more… Who knew Andrew had so much talent telling jokes, I doubled over from laughing so hard…Grandma cried again this year and I had to explain to the kids that when Grandma cries it’s because she’s happy…I think Grandpa loves the kids more than anyone else in the world does, don’t you…”

As we celebrate the holidays, we’re also celebrating our family.

But that’s not true for everyone.

Some families appear intact, but appearances are deceiving. If you’ve experienced childhood trauma,  the holidays are a reminder of what you don’t have and generates old feelings of grief.

Your grief goes unnoticed by others (disenfranchised grief). Not only are you grieving but you also feel isolated, making it hard to feel connected to all the festivities that excite everyone else.

If these feelings are familiar to you, know that there is a way to recover from trauma. The first step is to understand where and how the trauma originated, because trauma is often passed down from one generation to the next.  One cannot triumph over an invisible adversary, and childhood trauma is often invisible. The defining question is never “What is wrong with you?”.  It’s “What happened to you?”

Even if your trauma is intergenerational (the toxic inheritance), you can break the cycle.

Working through trauma is hard, but after the work is done, you’ve identified, processed and assimilated all the nuances and subtleties of your experience. You’re ready to move on and recognize that your challenge now presents you with an opportunity. Examining your personal history and the gaps in your development is a strong incentive to do thing right. You can have the type of family where its members and its traditions are honored.

Danny never realized that healthy families sit around the table engage in relaxed, convivial conversation. His family parties offered the delicacies one would expect, but lacked the type of interaction that would give him good feelings. He craved the type of conversation where he felt that others were genuinely interested in hearing his ideas, or what was important to him. Typically, his family conversations were void of the latest fad, or world events – things he wanted to talk about. When he brought up these topics, his father shut him down with a sarcastic comment or worse - ignored him entirely.

It’s not unusual for dysfunction to seem routine and typical, if that’s all you’ve ever known.  Danny didn’t know that things could have been, or ought to have been different. Not knowing, and being unable to name the trauma, did not protect Danny from its effects. Instead, it caused him to blame himself for the personal and interpersonal struggles he experienced.

Being unaware is an obstacle to recovery. Recovery can only begin after one understands what they’ve lived through. It took years for Danny to realize that growing up in his family had had an adverse effect on him.

However, Danny can end the cycle of intergenerational trauma and become the father that he never had. He can give his own children the experiences they need to be emotionally healthy.

Getting It Right

Common themes among adults trying to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma include: 

·       A strong desire to give their children a distinctly different experience of childhood than they have had. 

·       Engaging in reflective thought about how to parent. 

·       Being an emotionally supportive parent.

·       Making their children their priority.

·       Providing quality time.

·       Promoting individuality in each child. 

·       Maintaining routines and stability which create a safe home environment.

·       Exercising self-compassion. 

·       Understanding that being a good enough parent is good enough. 

·       Recognizing they’ve been deprived of a role model for good parenting and seeking guidance from a mentor, spiritual leader, therapist, or trusted friend.

·       Learning what normative parental expectations are at different developmental stages.

Post-Traumatic Growth

One can rise above the pain of childhood trauma and become a resilient adult. This is called post-traumatic growth. These individuals often show exceptional empathy and compassion. Post-traumatic growth makes it possible to move forward and not be defined by the trauma that occurs during the first two decades of life. They can model an emotionally healthy lifestyle with the family that they build. 

Celebrating the holidays is also a celebration of families - it can be yours to celebrate, too. If you need help, click the button below. Call today to schedule an appointment - you deserve to have joy in your life.