Lessons from Meltdowns of Christmas Past

What I’ve learned from losing my shit year after year.

Welcome to this tiny corner of the internet where an off-duty psychotherapist keeps the conversation going on how to make sense of this life thing we’re all doing. If you ever wondered what your therapist does off the clock—which, who among us hasn’t?—this is like that. Think of it as the adult equivalent of seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store picking out lemons. 🍋

One thing before we jump in, I show up very much as myself here. Myself first, and all my other labels are secondary. If a therapist speaking candidly feels like too much to your system, that is absolutely is OK and this may not be the best particular newsletter for you.

I’m going to be honest with you from the jump. A part of me feels shame about what I’m going to share with you today. I want so badly to be different than I am about this issue. The key marker shame is at the wheel: I want to change myself rather than meet myself where I’m at and see what I need.

The thing I’m stalling on saying by giving that disclaimer is the abject panic I feel when I have long stretches without childcare. I felt this acutely during the first several months of my son’s life. Now, even a long weekend can send me spiraling. I mean, lord help me once he’s in school and there are summer breaks to contend with. But right now, the pièce de résistance of this experience is the holidays.

There is something about that wide open expanse where it’s mostly just me that causes a profound sense of dread and loneliness. Then if you add on all the additional demand that comes with the holidays–coming up with gift ideas, getting said gifts, gifts for teachers, wrapping said gifts, decorating, get-togethers where I need to organize childcare and remember how to speak to people who aren’t my clients or my family, additional events at school, travel, just to name a few 🫠–it feels less like a delicate falling of snow and more of an avalanche heading right for me.

just your average text conversation with my husband this time of year

I’m keenly aware some of the panic around childcare is about how much I struggled in early postpartum. A prolonged state of sleep deprivation, isolation, over-functioning for seemingly everyone else but myself. I start to fear I’ll go back to how I felt then: drowning while everyone else looks on and shrugs from the shore, “What else did you expect?”

The weird thing is that this panic has nothing to do with how I feel toward my son. I love him, obviously. He’s so fun and sweet and wild and entertaining. He is one of my favorite people on this planet. It’s more self-involved than that (complimentary).

I’m not afraid to be with him–although it really can feel that way sometimes. I’m afraid to be with myself. Which as a mostly introverted person this is BREAKING NEWS. I typically love being with myself. It was humbling to realize this is only when I can control most of the variables and keep the risk of failure minimal.

The truth is that I’m deeply afraid to fuck up.

Particularly at something that means as much as to me as he does.

When I feel like this, there are so many what if’s that begin to cycle through my head:

• What if I’m tired and I won’t be able to rest and he needs me and I get irritable and explode?

• What if I take him somewhere and he gets super dysregulated and I’m all alone and I can’t handle it?

• What if I look away for a moment and he gets hurt?¹

• What if the moment I think it’s OK to set a boundary is actually a moment where he really needs me and I’m not there?

It’s times like these where the line between being negligent and hypervigilant feels razor-thin.

The therapist in me doesn’t hear an adult in those what ifs. I hear a child (respectfully). A child who feels powerless and a deep sense of aloneness. This child doesn’t believe they can weather tough moments, that they can ask for help and actually receive it, that they don’t have to try so hard to be enough, that relationships can tolerate missteps, and that it’s not their job to make everything OK all the time.

So that part of me is desperately afraid to fail.

Another part entirely is afraid of me disappearing into a needless, vacant blob. Of my needs, wants, my sense of self all ceasing to exist. It might say something like, “OK, sure we can focus on all the ways you can do a ‘good job’ but what about you? What about the you that exists beyond being good?”

(created on Canva’s Dream Lab—this is making me want a bob again)

When I said earlier that I panic, I mean PANIC. At least once during the holiday season, I have a full-blown panic attack.

This experience often feels like being completely and utterly stuck. When I’m not actively panicking, this sensation makes all the sense in the world to me.

On the average week, I have a decent awareness of traditional gender roles creeping up inside me–expectations to be selfless, of service at all times, and quietly agreeable. During the holidays, when it feels like gasoline is thrown on the fire of what is needed of us day-to-day, I can’t see as clearly what is me showing up in ways that feel aligned with who I am and what is performative, people-pleasing and internalized societal norms about gender.

It can start to feel like I’m trapped in some movie about my life where I’m not an active participant. It makes me think of the video game term, NPC (non-player character). I know very little about video games other than a few things I’ve learned through clients. What I have gleaned about a NPC is that they are there to serve the story for everyone else. To make things more real, more fun, more easeful, more engaging for everyone else, but they don’t get to play the game themselves. They don’t get to make decisions that center their own free will, desires and interests.

If this doesn’t feel like a description of traditional expectations of a mother around the holidays, I don’t know what does.

A lot inside me–other than that part worried about being good–revolts at this framework.

Despite my socialization, at my core, I don’t actually believe me disappearing into absolute servitude benefits anyone. Not my husband, not my son, and sure as shit, not me.

No wonder I have a nervous breakdown every year. Maybe that is exactly what should happen. Break it all the way down until it’s a breakthrough.

After several years of this dance, I’ve synthesized a support framework with pretty simple touchstones. While they are straightforward, they are also hard as hell to access without a little forethought.

4 ways I’m protecting my wholeness this holiday season:

1. I’m noticing what is happening inside of me.

My thoughts and feelings; the stories I’m telling; the sensations inside my body.

For instance, my fear of failure part shows up in my chest. I’ll start moving around frantically, not really letting my eyes land anywhere for long—certainly not on a person. Meanwhile, I can feel the part afraid of disappearing as it tenses along my jaw and I’ll sense the urge to raise my voice.

When I can notice these experiences, it often helps me slow down enough to hear any insight I could glean. Noticing and then naming can go a long way in creating clarity about what we may need in any given moment. Noticing can be done inside my own mind, through journaling, talking to a loved one, therapy.

My intention this year isn’t to rid myself of these parts of myself, but rather to notice them as they show up. Tend to them as if they were my children, “My love, tell me more…”

the next few fall under prevention, aka what can I do ahead of time to bolster my ability to stay connected with myself.

2. I’m scheduling stuff—including rest.

If I were to look at my Google Calendar right now, all I would see is “SCHOOL CLOSED” across the top bar for two straight weeks. No other activities have been slotted. When my eyes take in this image, it feels as if someone has their hands around my lungs, squeezing.

I failed to make concrete plans a lot during my son’s first year, too. I had this insidious thought that I was supposed to do everything on my own, all the time. I can count on ONE HAND the people I reached out to to spend time with me and him that first year. I shudder at this hyper-independence now.

Now, let’s say instead I schedule a few movement classes (e.g., Pilates at the studio, a yoga class at home, boxing on YouTube) and coordinate with my husband or other supports (e.g., my gym has a kids club, friends who may be willing to host a play date²) to make sure I’ve got the space to do so fully unencumbered.

I also have a lot of tentative plans I’ve made with friends—“Let’s make sure we get together over break!” uttered here and there, but rarely is it set in stone. I thank my lucky stars for friends who get this neurotic angle I possess—sending a Google invite, using the term itinerary when speaking of such plans.

I also have a running list of things to do with my son that we’d both be in to: museums, play places, library, etc. I do better when I tentatively insert these into certain days on the calendar. Even if it’s just a placeholder. I can pivot the day of, if need be.

Extra hot tip: I can put informal shit on my calendar, too. This feels like a radical act. Catch me putting “nap” or “watch TV” in that Google Calendar this year.

3. I’m talking to the people I’ll be around.

My husband and I have learned firsthand the benefit of talking before events about how we are both feeling and areas that may get sticky. Crossing our fingers and hoping all will be fine has gone well approximately zero times.

Like a lot of people, I have a hard time talking in any sort of detail when I’m overwhelmed. I can’t always explain why I need something, I just know that I do. It’s helpful to have a shorthand–a safe word or a physical gesture–where I don’t have to expect myself to defend my needs, but rather just state that they exist. Discussing prior what this may look like is a gift I can give myself and my relationships.

the next one falls under intervention, aka what do I do in the moment when I am spiraling. This is harder. Let’s see if we can surrender to that.

4. I’m stepping outside wherever I am.

When I’m in full-on overwhelm, the solution is never to stay where I am and try harder.

Now, is that what I’ve often done? 100%, yes it is.

Stay and try harder is the Vegas favorite of all my ill-advised strategies. Even though our culture would tell us that this technique is resilient or some shit, it actually just makes me feels more powerless and stuck. Reminding myself I can leave a room is empowering as fuck.

This can look like:

• Stepping literally outside. This is a particular favorite of mine in the winter months when it’s brisk, sometimes even frigid. The burst of cold air almost immediately begins soothing my central nervous system. If I can tag a walk on there, chef’s kiss.

• Go to any other room than the one I was just in that has a door that can be closed.

• Noise-cancelling headphones

• Showering

• Exercise

• A hug can also bring me out of where I am mentally. It helps me remember I am not just what I am doing.

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All of these help me reset and reconnect with where I do have agency and space. Which ultimately allows me to stay more present with myself and my loved ones.

You may be thinking this list is a lot about me—and you’d be right. I often don’t need help thinking of other people. I’ve been sufficiently educated in that aspect of being a human woman. Staying attuned to how I’m doing and what I need is where I struggle.

At the end of the day, I want to show up as my whole self to these moments of our life. And my whole self does not include a domestic goddess who is super good at all this shit and never gets dysregulated. A lot of these holiday things, I do actually want to do. I’ve gotten better at saying “No” to shit I don’t want to do. It’s more that I need a lot more support this time of year and I may be finally OK accepting that.

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For more holiday wholeness:

• How to Avoid Booze During the Holidays on

  Tawny Lara
  ’s
  Beyond Liquid Courage

• Freeing Our Selves from Being Everything from

  All Parts by Eliza Butler, MA, MA

Questions for you:

1. Tell me about your relationship to the holidays? What “parts” of you come up? Bonus reflection point if you can describe how it feels inside your body.

2. What are your go-to’s to keep you whole over the holidays?

• Coming up: My personal favorite NA drinks for anyone partaking in Dry January and beyond.

• Shout-out: Shout out to my editing partner Allyson Marrs who helped me with this piece. Check out her most recent piece, “The cringe and courage of making friends in adulthood.”

• Disclaiming.You can find more info and my full disclaimer on my about page here. Abridged version: I’m a therapist, but not your therapist—even if you are a client of mine ~hi, dear one!~ this isn’t a session. I don’t think you could possibly confuse this newsletter with mental health treatment. Alas if that were to happen, let me say definitively, dialoguing is an entertainment and informational newsletter only, not a substitute for mental health treatment.

• Come say hi! Any comments, questions, suggestions, please feel free to email me at dialoguingsubstack@gmail.com—or if you’re reading this via email you can just hit reply and send me a message. Love hearing from you for any and all reasons! If you DM me, please say something more than “Hi.” I always assume those are bots and will not reply.

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ICYMI:

• 31 thoughts while watching 'The Family Stone' from an off-duty therapist

• saying it all (🍁a fall roundup🍁)

• The Thing(s) I've Pretended to Love

• how i'm trying to change my relationship to change

• The Problem(s) with Resolutions

1. As our ER bills would show, this one is less a what if and when will it happen next

2. This is VERY hard for me to accept, at times, AND it’s been a game-changer. I feel supported, space and connected to a larger community.