Acceptance, denial, anger, bargaining and depression work during the holidays

[treesgrowslowly]

In the same spirit as another recent thread here started by Looking 2 be free, I am also starting to feel those now familiar holiday feelings.

I love the phrase LTBF used, "tis the season to be wobbly". Wobbly indeed! That is how I've been feeling this week.

So many emotions.

It's the 5 stages of grief, various emotions coming up as I work to process that it is that time of year yet again....

Denial. I used to deny that my parental narc abuse had affected my own holiday experiences. I literally could not see what the narc damage had really done.

Narc parents caused deep damage that comes up around this time and sticks around until the new year.

Denying it always led to feeling even more distant from my own sense of my own needs. That awareness (of my own needs) is fleeting for a lot of narc abuse survivors, and denial around this time of year is so tempting.

To just deny that I'm a survivor, and have wounds that are real, is really tempting once the whole world seems to have put tinsel on itself for 6 weeks. I've been so tempted to put tinsel on my self too, and deny that I have a broken heart that needs to heal by feeling seen, not denied.

Anger. Certainly I've had countless bouts of anger at myself for not being able to just enjoy the holidays. Then more recently, anger at those who discarded me and created the damage in the first place.

Acceptance. The moving target. I can feel acceptance one moment  and back to Anger an hour later this time of year. Some days you feel confident you can heal your broken heart, some days it just seems like you can't.

Bargaining. After being discarded I didn't bargain with them in real life but in my head I spent hours wishing for them narcs to grow up. Wanting to bargain with them to learn and be not narcs.

Depression. Mostly what comes is sadness. Sadness that these holidays will never be what I wanted them to be. Grief at losses that are hard to ignore during the "wobbly season"...

Grateful for this forum that creates space for us to share about our work on ourselves.

Wishing you all as many "moments of unwobbiliness" as possible this season!!

Trees

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Thanks for sharing, Trees.  I'm glad you are at a place where you no longer need to stay stuck in the denial which blocks healing.  I understand why people stay there, though.  It can be hard to look at and deal with the reality of our situation. 

Holidays do bring out grief.  I used to sometimes attend Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families meetings.  There's a line in there about how we heal:  "By gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the past."  I always remember this bc it's so instructive to me.

To feel grief ... or anger or fear ...  can be so unsafe growing up in a home with PD parents.  Those of us who go on to choose a PD partner/spouse continue to have that reinforced.   Sometimes acceptance has to start with just acknowledging and allowing a full range of feelings.  "I'm not bad / wrong / defective because I have these feelings." 

I wish you some peace of mind these coming weeks.  And may the healing be fruitful!  (Heck, maybe you'll even have some fun sprinkled in there.)