Christmas/spiraling with memories after losing everyone this year
I lost so much this year and Christmas is already so triggering. And this is my first year without the one support who has been here for it all, my dog 🍊🐶
I am haunted by images of my storage unit with all of the memories of things I made or did with the people who ended up being so cruel. Of all the memories connected with family and friends.
We are working on a plan to go through those gently ❤️
However, it doesn’t make it easy. It is hard to lose all of that and still be fighting for help and support and basic human decency. Relationships and memories with others really build your life. It feels like I’m losing much of what I had for 37 years.
I guess this is what it feels like to be a complex trauma survivor.
Anyway, specifically I’m dreading the ornaments that were given to me or made for me by kids who have grown up and now hate me because of what their parents have told them (I don’t want to work, I’m taking advantage of the system, I’m lazy, I did this to myself). I have always wanted to have a tree with ornaments of happy memories from the years. I was working on it and have so many. It hurts that these are there and I don’t know what to do with them. I am not sure if I want to keep them or donate them. I don’t need to decide now. Just the thought of the ornaments makes me start sobbing.
I have spent the last several years creating my own traditions with myself but tbh Christmas is just not a holiday I can safely handle alone. I will have flashbacks no matter how many coping skills I use and how much I prepare. That has taken me years and years to admit.
I just want to have more people in my life again. To have people to celebrate with and to laugh with. I know I will. But it’s not happening while I’m experiencing so much trauma.
I’m grateful I have my boyfriend this year. He is respectful about my christmas triggers and my hot and cold relationship with the holiday. I asked him to put lights up. We made gingerbread houses (his was a lot better than mine). I’m going to try to make some cookies. These to me feel like safe Christmas activities that I can actually do (delegate the lights to him).
Has anyone else found ways to make Christmas triggers easier? (Especially without children- not having kids around has been a huge holiday killer. What’s Christmas without seeing the chaos and fun of kids opening gifts? Honestly though)
#MentalHealth #ADHD #CheckInWithMe #Anxiety #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #PostTraumaticStressDisorder #PTSD #Trauma #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks