How do you get over not-so-nice Christmas experiences that you had as a child?

[christmaspast]

I am posting anonymously so if you recognise me, please don't out me .

I was a pretty dreadful child - disruptive, destructive, difficult - you name it, I was like that and had loving parents one of whom struggled terribly with mental health problems. They hid a lot of this from the outside world and did their best to appear as a normal, middle-class family.

Christmas was always a difficult time because it used to push the mentally ill parent over the edge with stress and I used to act up (I suppose looking back, in reaction to that) by destroying presents, being particularly ungrateful etc. and sometimes, I was sent away (with my siblings) to give our parents a break (not at Christmas but often before or after). Unfortunately, the people we were sent away to turned out to be low level child abusers .

So, as you can imagine, Christmas is not the easiest time for me. I am far better than I used to be and love seeing the children so happy but I still have this 'thought' in the bad of my head - almost like a sadness that things had to be the way they were when I was young. Having children made me reflect a lot (I had never looked back to the past until I had children) but what I really want to do is to acknowledge what happened and just move on but I seem to be stuck. Not depressed or miserable or even unhappy, just stuck with it.

Do you think it's possible to move on and not feel stuck or is it just a question of getting used to having those feelings every now and then but getting better at not letting them affect me iyswim?

Poor you chrsitmaspast . In answer to your question, I have known several people who have learned to move on and how to deal with the feelings when they arise from very good counselling.

Obviously this won't help you here and now with christmas fast approaching. But maybe you can start helping yourself now.

I had some crap chrisitmasses as a child (nothing like yours but...) and it does take time. The most useful thing was to make my christmasses totally different, building new traditions that are our traditions, not Theirs IYSWIM. (I remember my father going ballistic because I woke up 'too early' and went to my mother's bedroom to open it. Clue to one source of problems: my parents had separate rooms . He hit me, snatched the stocking away from me and then started a full-on bellowing row with my poor mother, throwing stuff around, smashing up stuff etc. Well, you can imagine the rest of that day. Not much christmas cheer!!)

I share that example (one of many, sadly) to show that 30 years on, I can't help it crossing my mind every xmas morning when my children wake up at sparrowfart, but I can banish the image by throwing myself into their day and joy and excitement, knowing they will never have that experience; that kind of crap.

I am estranged from my father now. It helped me enormously to write a huge, huge letter one year, detailing all the crap and how he had made me feel. Then I ceremoniously burned it, while telling myself that the negative feelings were disappearing with the letter into the smoke and away from me. It did help quite a lot.

Please see if you can find some counselling in the new year, but comfort yourself with the knowledge that you are a more complex,kinder and stronger human being in spite of and because of what you have survived!
With best wishes for a lovely Christmas this year x

I'm a firm believer in writing things down too - then either physically putting them away and at the same time mentally putting them away or burning them sounds good.

It's important to acknowledge those feelings but also to say that they are what is past, that it can't be changed and it's the future that's important. Make you own (good) memories.

Have a lovely Christmas.

Oh Christmas past I'm really sorry to hear about your sad and painful memories.

I had a very unhappy childhood (although not in comparison to yours) including several awful & distressing christmases and I am so glad now I have ds as I feel, like MrsGrinch and Yulemoon says it's time to make my own (good) memories.

christmaspast, you sound like someone i know

I don't want to go into my past xmasses here - if you are who i know then you know some of it anyway.

I turned xmas into somethig else entirely.

Now its all about my children. I make sure that they have a really good day and that they know that I love them and its my way of saying thank you for being my boys.

I still get a sadness that my xmasses were the way they were but now i am in a place i can think - well you know what, i am glad because i know what christmas should be about and NOTHING and NO ONE will ruin that for my children.

SOme years i get stuck, like you sound. But then i remember that its not happening anymore, i am free from all that and the only place that it traps me now is inside my head. It bloody hurts, but i know now that its the memory that hurts and not tha acts.

Sorry, i am waffling and not really much sense.

Thinking of you x

I'm not sure you know me but thank you all for your kind sentiments and I'm sorry to hear about all your stories.

What I wonder though, is that after counselling, whether you still have the thoughts but you deal with them better or you just don't think about it at all?

I never thought about it pre kids. It was almost as though having kids MADE me realise that it wasn't normal and made me analyse the experience differently iyswim.

I think you still have the thoughts but deal with them better...

not sure if that's what you wanted to hear but....

Take a moment and think of three things you have done this year to enrich your children's lives. I bet you can think of way more than three - and in a very short moment.

Coming to terms with the past isn't easy. But it is possible. Onwards and unpwards mate. Forwards, not back. x

I got trapped in bad xmas memories today, and I'd say, having had nearly 3 years of couselling, that it may make the feelings more raw, but that rawness can also help you identify why, despite your best efforts to make the day happy and different, there's still that fear lurking underneath. Counselling hasn't resolved much because family problems tend to evolve, not stay put. But it has enabled me to see those problems with a bit more perspective. Have you read Susan Forward's Toxic Parents? I know it's favourite on another thread which I've lurked on a tiny bit. I found this book v. good.

Hi, sorry to hear about your childhood christmas's. I know how you feel, but i feel that way in relation to my whole childhood, not just christmas . I only started looking back on my childhood once I had my children and it was only then that i realised that my own childhood had been far from normal and had in fact been abusive.

There's another thread that you might find useful, sorry am rubbish at links but it's called 'But we took you to stately homes - A thread for people from abusive families', please have a look at that, i know it might not exactly fit your situation but i'm sure you'll find it helpful. x