Blog 2: Happy F*ckin Holidays
The holidays are a weird time for me and many other individuals who come from dysfunctional families. It’s a weird time when all the issues and traumas of the past are for some reason forgotten and we all try to pretend we’ve gotten along perfectly since day one. Now I’m all here for putting your differences aside and just enjoying each other’s company, but I also think the holidays are a great time to focus on family values (or the lack thereof). It's a time for following old traditions, but maybe more importantly, a time to start new ones.
I had a conversation today (the day before thanksgiving) with one of my good friends who mostly feels the same way about this time of year as I do. He was venting to me about how he was upset with his divorced parents for putting him and his sister in the middle of their family’s holiday drama. Without getting into the details, his parents had essentially made him and his sister pick who they wanted to spend time with this year, and they were not making the decision easy. At first, I didn’t know what to say to him. I empathized because I know what that’s like, but didn’t have any advice. Then, I started thinking about the idea of tradition and how this would be a great time for him to start a new one in his family. I told him that instead of stressing himself out trying to give an answer that would please his parents, to instead give an answer that is true to how he feels. I told him it’s bullshit that he’s spent so many years of his life as a victim of this divorce and it was time for that to end. I told him to take this holiday season as an opportunity to start a new tradition of teaching his parents how he deserves to be treated.
That’s a specific piece of advice that I gave him in this situation, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unfortunately relatable this situation is for many of us when the holiday season comes around. We spend so much time stressing about everything for everyone else, that we often neglect ourselves. We spend so much time taking care of everyone else, we forget to take care of ourselves. So this year, my strategy and advice to all of you is to be selfish. Not to the point where no one want’s to be around you, but just enough to show your family that you are done with the bullshit and you deserve to be treated a different way.
I had a conversation today (the day before thanksgiving) with one of my good friends who mostly feels the same way about this time of year as I do. He was venting to me about how he was upset with his divorced parents for putting him and his sister in the middle of their family’s holiday drama. Without getting into the details, his parents had essentially made him and his sister pick who they wanted to spend time with this year, and they were not making the decision easy. At first, I didn’t know what to say to him. I empathized because I know what that’s like, but didn’t have any advice. Then, I started thinking about the idea of tradition and how this would be a great time for him to start a new one in his family. I told him that instead of stressing himself out trying to give an answer that would please his parents, to instead give an answer that is true to how he feels. I told him it’s bullshit that he’s spent so many years of his life as a victim of this divorce and it was time for that to end. I told him to take this holiday season as an opportunity to start a new tradition of teaching his parents how he deserves to be treated.
That’s a specific piece of advice that I gave him in this situation, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unfortunately relatable this situation is for many of us when the holiday season comes around. We spend so much time stressing about everything for everyone else, that we often neglect ourselves. We spend so much time taking care of everyone else, we forget to take care of ourselves. So this year, my strategy and advice to all of you is to be selfish. Not to the point where no one want’s to be around you, but just enough to show your family that you are done with the bullshit and you deserve to be treated a different way.