How you can avoid crying in the closet this holiday season
Healing fantasies and what I learned after three Thanksgivings of doing too much in too little time.
Dear Friends and Loved Ones,
Happy holidays and upcoming new year and one more day we get to breathe air. December seems like a good time to review some of my favorite advice for anyone anticipating awkward or stressful times with family.
December posts will rely heavily on the wisdom of Dr. Lindsay Gibson and one of my favorite self-learning books: “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” by Dr. Lindsay Gibson. I frequently recommend it to client and friends. Please go read and buy her books. You will learn about yourself, what you learned from your family of origin, and how to grow to be the adult you want to be.
TLDR on healing fantasies and better holidays with family:
- Your loved ones are pushing your buttons because they made your buttons.
- We are all doing the best we can.
- You cannot change anyone else so stop trying.
- You can only adjust how to relate to other people or the experience in front of you.
Everyone who has another meeting to get to, feel free to move on. You got the nutshell version. Anyone with more time on your hands, please sit back for a story. [insert wavy lines to indicate flashback sequence]
Years ago I wrote a semi-regular column for my Denver neighborhood blog. (Found here. Look at baby Kerry!! So few wrinkles and so much to learn.) Two or three years into my blog writing, I realized that every Thanksgiving essay told a similar story:
- Part 1: I start with grand and wildly unrealistic expectations about the day.
- Part 2: I am sure I must achieve these expectations to demonstrate to my family that I love them down to the edges of my toenails (and also to prove that I am a worthy human).
- Part 3: Life happens, there are inevitable bumps, and oddly my family does NOT spend the day in a state of peaceful love, serenity, and admiration of their wise, loving mother/wife.
- Big finale: I spend at least 20 minutes of the day crying (typically in the closet or next to the oven).
- (You can see how this got a little cringe-worthy by the time it was an annual tradition.)
This whole song and dance was what Dr. Gibson calls me practicing my role-self so I could achieve my healing fantasy. Implicitly, I was saying to myself
If only I am __________ or have __________ then I will be enough and it will all be ok.
My specific brand of human-ness means that I say to myself “If only I am prettier, nicer, and do more, then I will be enough and my family will be happy.”
As Dr. Gibson points out, “Unfortunately, the healing fantasy is a child’s solution that comes from a child’s mind, so it often doesn’t fit adult realities.” Ugh, yes! This fantasy collapsed each Thanksgiving.
- Every year I despaired as my immature fantasy smashed against a rock solid reality.
- I created too much to do in too little time.
- I combined this with a bunch of family members with their own thoughts and emotions and *agency*.
- My immature vision of THE PERFECT THANKSGIVING = impossible
Sigh, aren’t we a bunch of silly primates sometimes? Seeing this pattern and articulating my own younger-self-dream were important first steps for detangling from a web of sugarplum visions that are setup to fail. Saying goodbye to the old dream helped me develop a new vision of family time made with an adult’s mind. I started to create a Thanksgiving for the reality we live in. (More on how to do this later this month.)
Your homework:
- For this week, I humbly suggest you begin to look for the ways you fuel your own healing fantasies, and especially where your experience tells you that it isn’t working.
- Look for the times you yearn to recreate old memories or you work to make something perfect (and likely unattainable).
- Look for the ways you crush yourself into a list of adjectives and expectations in the hopes of fulfilling these dreams.
- See where it leads when you complete this sentence: If only I am __________ or have __________ then I will be enough/happy/safe.
Further reading and listening
- Gibson, Lindsay C.. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. New Harbinger Publications.
- My dear friend Debbie Sorenson’s fabulous podcast “Psychologists Off the Clock” (highly recommend all episodes). This interview with Dr Gibson is a great place to start. https://offtheclockpsych.com/263-relationships-with-emotionally-immature-people-with-lindsey-gibson/
- Mental health professionals, I’m offering a live training in Wellington, NZ: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/when-act-isnt-simple-an-act-in-practice-workshop-with-dr-kerry-makin-byrd-tickets-752956983607
And finally, I recommend this gorgeous post by on ways to make life more gentle.
“Realise your inner life is the cabin in the woods you seek.” 💗 Humbly adding my own suggestions for making life more gentle:
- start and end days with silence;
- do less and more deeply;
- try to see it their way;
- surrender.
Wishing you a lovely week, some moments of silence, and a reminder that maybe (no matter what hardship we face) these really are the good old days. Weekly post 2 of 52 complete, see you next week.
Ngā mihi nui, Kerry
