7 Tips to Get Through Family Stress during the Holidays
By Badassery member Elise Schuster, Founder and CEO at okayso, a gender non-conforming and queer sex-ed peer health educator, reader of anything and everything, eater of chocolate croissants and rollerskater.
Holidays: cozy knit sweaters, pumpkin pie-scented candles, delicious food, and good times with family. Unless…that’s not how your family works. Instead of being a time of togetherness and joy, coming together and celebrating with family can often be a source of stress and trauma.
I have experienced the stress of spending time with family my entire life. I come from a conservative, religious family in the Midwest. When I say conservative and religious, I mean there’s a portrait of Jesus on the wall in our house and my step-father buys bibles in bulk because he gives them away to people he’s trying to convert. My grandmother counts the time she went to “the holy land” with Jerry Fallwell, who blamed feminists and lesbians for the 9/11 attacks, as one of the highlights of her life. I could go on.
Then there’s me: a gender non-conforming, queer, sex educator, socialist. I’ve sold sex toys, I’ve worked in abortion rights, I believe in climate change. There are a lot of things I love about my family, but they also support policies and politicians that seek to erase my existence and the existence of my community, so family gatherings can feel incredibly draining. I spend enormous amounts of emotional energy trying to decide how much of myself to share or how far to take an argument, always trying to balance where I can be most effective as an advocate for the things I care about while still taking care of myself.
I see other people trying to find this same balance in my day to day work running okayso, a free app that connects young adults to experts to have personalized conversations about sex and mental health. We get tons of questions from users around the holidays because of family stress. Whether it’s childhood trauma, identity conflicts, politics or something else, users write to us when they’re about to visit family, are in the thick of it, or are trying to process how it went. One user I’ll never forget wrote to us right before Thanksgiving. He was gay and a freshman in college. Exhilarated by the freedom he found on campus, he was dreading going back into the closet around his extremely homophobic family, even for just a few days.
Trust me when I say that if you’re experiencing these family challenges around the holidays, you are definitely not alone. It’s OK to not look forward to the holidays or to feel like there’s something missing for you.
If you do need to see your family, you’ll make it through—promise. Here are some of my tips to help you manage the family stress and set boundaries:
1. Have a friend on standby: whether you’re furiously texting a play-by-play underneath the tablecloth or taking a walk around the block to yell into your cell phone, have someone you know you can reach out to who can provide all the validation you need that yes, what your uncle said is indeed completely wakadoo.
2. Vent on social media or a journal: If having a friend on call isn’t quite right, you can always vent on social media or write in a journal. Getting your anger out onto a page can help you process it because it’s no longer just rattling around in your head.
3. Make a list of conversation topics that are “off limits” and stick to them: you don’t have to engage on every topic, especially ones that are triggering for you. It is 100% OK to say you aren’t going to talk about something and walk away. Take care of you first. There will be other opportunities if you feel like engaging at some point.
4. Have some alone time
Some families are all together all the time (mine is this way) and it is a LOT. Carve out some alone time each day for yourself, whether you’re “running an errand”, “taking a walk” or “going to the bathroom”—and then not coming back until you’re good and ready. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about your family; it simply means you might need a moment alone to catch your breath..
5. Have a feel good movie or playlist nearby
We all have that thing that cheers us up, so have it at the ready. Maybe it’s the Ghostbuster remake, maybe it’s Janelle Monae, maybe it’s a YouTube playlist of babies eating lemons.
6. Have an exit strategy
It’s OK to leave if you really can’t be there anymore, but it feels extra hard if you don’t have a plan. Can you crash at a friend’s house? Hop on a bus? Grab a taxi? Make a plan ahead of time so you have it if you need it.
7. Celebrate with chosen family
Take time to celebrate with the people you love who also love you in your entirety. Whether you chose to do this in addition to or in place of spending time with your relatives, be sure to carry those memories as the cherished ones during the holiday season.
The most important thing to remember is to get in touch with what is most important for you and do that. You do not owe anyone your time, your heart, or your emotional labor. The holidays are a time to pause and reflect on what we feel grateful for and the love that we do have in our lives. How we want to interpret that is entirely up to us.
Check out more about Elise on their Badassery page. We encourage you to also share your personal stories using the #RedefiningBadassery hashtag!