Map Your Healing Journey

I am 47 years old, and I believe these are the first holidays where I don’t feel completely ramped up, especially with PTSD.

This is a revolutionary concept for me. Every December, like clockwork, I would get sick. Down for days, major flu-like symptoms, eventual antibiotics needed. This happened every single year during from about the age of 15 onward, when I didn’t understand that the holidays season was the major time of year for my PTSD triggers.

Before I opted to try PTSD Remediation (which I now offer, as it is amazeballs), the holidays were a specifically traumatic time for my post traumatic stress disorder. A large block of the sexual abuse that I remember occurred between mid-November and the beginning of January. And this doesn’t count what I don’t remember, as one of the PTSD symptoms I experience is memory blackout.

In years past, as we ate the candy from our Halloween buckets and the leaves fell from the trees, my brain and body entered into an extended PTSD event, a heightened undercurrent of symptoms that destroyed the holidays for me.

How My Holidays Have Changed

In 2006 onward, the periods of sickness began to decrease after I was diagnosed with PTSD and dug into healing my wounds.

Read This if Your PTSD Ramps Up During the Holidays | Map Your Healing Journey

This doesn’t mean that the symptoms disappeared, especially not right away. For about 20 years, I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas as a far more irritable person. Tired, both physically and emotionally. Angry. Depressed. Anxious. Isolated. It was hard to get moving, even out of bed each morning. My startle reflex was more pronounced. I hated the colored lights and the holiday music that were everywhere. The days were short and light is scarce. I was more tempted to try and use food and alcohol to deal with the symptoms.

Each year, the symptoms decreased, little by little, until the PTSD Remediation and vagus-nerve work that I did in 2020; after that, the holiday PTSD symptoms have drastically decreased.

Not to say that I don’t have symptoms at all. I am a human, after all, and I find that this time of year ramps up my depression, which I wrote about here. Thanks to my age and stage of life, my hormones have been wildly swinging. Thanks to the pandemic, my capacity is much less than it ever was before. Everything is simply so much harder right now, this the reality of living through a global crisis.

Even with all of these daily symptoms that I still deal with, the holidays are much more enjoyable than they ever were before. And I DO still have to carefully manage my energy levels and time, which brings us to self-care strategies that can bring comfort in the darkness.

PTSD Self-Care is for Everyone

Self-care is self-care, whether our actions are specifically for PTSD or anxiety or depression or grief or all of the above. No matter where I’m at physically, mentally, and emotionally, I need to have plans for my own self-care, especially during the holiday season. Here are strategies that I’ve found particularly helpful.

Lean into it. One of the things that I have secretly liked about the pandemic is the freedom to unapologetically be a homebody. Get those blankets and sweaters and fire up the TV and movies, especially the ones that make you happy. Make a fort, an ACTUAL fort. Dent the couch cushions with your body. Take advantage of finding and loving small moments of joy.

Decide what you will not do. Many times, deciding what you will not do is far easier than figuring out what you are willing to do. For example, I typically do not go to holiday parties, shop in the mall, or drive on busy streets. From mid-November until January 2nd, I am mostly at home. I will not try something new. I make no promises to be anywhere or with anyone – I play everything by ear, and I am open about that with everyone.

Schedule everything, including rest. Get out your calendar, it’s time to fill in some details. Figure out a weekly meal plan for the next month or so – take out, crockpot meals, soups are all good. Schedule when you will exercise, even if it’s a 10-minute walk each day. Put in your sleep hours and when you take your meds. When will you go grocery shopping? For example, I go every Sunday afternoon. Do not forget to schedule down time, especially as the calendar fills up with the kids’ holiday concerts.

Practice typical self-care strategies with extra vigilance. I know that staying away from dairy and sugar help keep my depression manageable, so I am extra-vigilant about avoiding them during this time of year, which can be challenging. I also limit the amount of “treats” that I make and when I make them. I go to bed early and walk every day. I keep in contact with friends and make sure I shower every other day or so.

Ask for help. I haven’t always enjoyed the holidays, but I love to shop for people and give gifts. I do the bulk of my shopping online. If there are gifts that I can’t pick up during my weekly grocery trip to Fred Meyer, I ask my husband or a trusted friend to help me out. I also don’t wrap or deliver presents – that’s what the husband and kids are for. I ask for help with chores, with work, with everything. As a trauma survivor who lived ultra-independently for most of my life, asking for help is an EXCELLENT practice.

Focus on who and what you love – Okay, so the holidays are difficult. But I love my family. I love spending time with my kids. I invite them to do what I can do during this time of year, whether that’s going to the movies or my weekly grocery shopping trips or reading on the couch.