Making Amends During the Holiday Season

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COMMENTARY

During the holiday season, many celebrate and spend time with family. But for some, it is a trigger for all kinds of difficult emotions and a sense of abandonment, rejection, and loneliness.

For those who spend their Christmas or New Year in an inpatient psychiatric unit, there is the added weight of guilt and shame, feeling “like a failure,” and even trying to compensate for that through wearing a mask and pretending that everything is indeed merry and jolly. It is an added privilege, yet a burden, for clinicians to act as the anchor for individuals with mental health disorders who might not be looking with hope towards what the new year might bring.

As for families that are not involved in the care of their loved ones when it is needed most, I would like to be curious and empathic rather than furious and judgmental. I am certain that you have tried many times to reach your “troubled” loved one, and I am sure there is likely a back story that is full of trauma and betrayed trust. Maybe bridges are already burned and you see your relative now and forever as a “lost cause.”

I would like to pose 2 questions to families with children who are estranged, that might at least keep the door half-open for redemption and reconnection:

1) When you first looked your child in the eyes, what did you see? That small child is still there, under all the layers of labels and symptoms, waiting to be held and tended to with tenderness.

2) When you first held your child in your arms, what did you say? Did you promise that you will always love them unconditionally? That promise is still yours to keep. Trauma, at the end of the day, can make rather than break your family unit.

I urge all of us to do better this holiday season, asking for forgiveness and also to be forgiving. To make amends and heal our family is the very definition of the American dream and the spirit of the holiday season. It is never late to try to reconnect, we do it for them, but also we do it for our own sake.

Dr Reda is a psychiatrist in Colorado. He is the author of The Wounded Healer: The Pain and Joy of Caregiving.