Relationships and Holidays

It's that time of year again. What are you doing to make sure that your holidays are enjoyable?

Doc David

Transcript

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Hey friends, let's talk about holidays and relationships.

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You are listening to drinking. Your answers to life relationships and daily living.

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Hey friends, it's Doc David here. I'm doing two things today. We'll see how successful I am at it. I'm recording a podcast, and I'm also recording a video while I do the podcast to put up on I don't know, Instagram stories or potentially YouTube. I think the challenge is on YouTube is just kind of boring because it's just me talking, but perhaps the podcast is boring as well. But anyways, I haven't I haven't potted for a while. Excuse me. And if you if you don't know what I look like, you can go on YouTube and see that I'm just being lazy. I have kind of a beard going on now. And someone asked, Oh, are you doing that for no shave November? And I said to them, No, I'm just actually kind of lazy. Um, I went off hunting with some um relatives and I came back and then I just was lazy about shaving. So, so no, it's it's not a statement, it's just I guess it's a statement of laziness more than anything. Um well, hey, welcome. I haven't potted for a while and um have interacted with a couple people that actually listen to my podcast, so shout out to those people, you know who you are. And so I wanted to um talk about something that I think a lot of people um struggle with during the holiday seasons. It's a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, and then after that, it's about a month until Christmas. And so one of the things that inevitably a lot of people struggle with are how to do relationships during the holiday seasons. Um and relationships are difficult because this is the time I mean, relationships during holidays are difficult because this is the time that all those people that you never see uh come together all in one place, and then you're supposed to be fake, happy, kind, all of those things that you don't have to be throughout the years with the most difficult people in the world. Um, for example, for myself, so I grew up in a large family. My mom has um 11 siblings, and so the um holidays were pretty busy. Um I would go I would be split between uh one set of grandparents and the other set of grandparents. And one of my uncles, I mean, um I'm not gonna name names, and he doesn't listen to my podcast, so he'll never know, right? One of my uncles was inevitably just a mean, rude, angry guy. Um and and growing up, I never really understood why, but now as a therapist looking back, I can see why he was a drunk essentially. Um, and so what I found out later on in life after I was married, after talking to my my parents, is that essentially and and kind of learning the ways of adult the adult life, um essentially his specific uncle would have a pre-party at his house, um and there'd be drinking going on and stuff, and then he'd show up at the the full party at my grandparents uh intoxicated, and it was just rude, rude to my parents. Um, nothing was ever ever good. And I I often have wanted to talk to his children and and see what their life was like, and I think um they probably didn't have a great upbringing because of his uh toxic behavior, narcissistic behavior that was fueled a lot by alcohol, I believe. Um and I and I had told myself that um as I got older, and it's probably more um after I got married, that if I ever ran into this uncle and he was acting like that, I was gonna confront him on it. Um it's never happened, right? I've never been at another party with him where he's been a jerk like that, and so I haven't had that opportunity, thankfully, I guess, because it would have created waves in the family, right? And and based on the kind of the function or dysfunction of this family, um, I would have been seen as the bad guy because I called out this person's bad behavior. It was just people accepted it, and I look back on that and think, man, why did they accept that kind of behavior? But I hadn't thought about that for a while until I started thinking about talking to doing this podcast on relationships and holiday season. And then this last week I did a webinar for the state of Washington where we just talked about seasonal affective disorder and uh relationships in the holidays. And so I wanted to come on here and talk a little bit briefly about that. Um one of the things I think you need to be really honest about with yourself is are there things that trigger you um when holidays come up and you recognize that you're gonna be around a lot of people? And I think there's three things that um can trigger you. People obviously can trigger you, um places can trigger trigger you, and things can trigger you. Uh people can trigger you, trigger you obviously, like I talked about with with my uncle. Um you won't often you don't see people, and the holidays brings people out of the woodwork, people that you never interact with, people that have different um belief systems than you, or people that were maybe rude to you or to other relatives. Those people show up and we're supposed to be forgiving of them and tolerant of them for the two or three hours that we interact. Um places can be a trigger, so uh possibly you grew up in a really um religious home, and so you had to go to church, or you were forced to go to church, or you're forced to go to interact with cousins that you hated interacting with, and so you had to go to an uncle or aunt's house. Um any number of these places may be the place that you have to go back to to celebrate uh a holiday. Um and thirdly, it would be things. Things are gonna be, I guess, topics, right? Topics political is gonna come up, COVID's gonna come up, vaccines are gonna be all the rage to talk about. And and so these are things that um these three kinds of things, topics, things, people, or places are the things that people uh try to avoid throughout the rest of the year, but now again, holidays are those kind of unique times where everyone goes to a location to interact with family generally. Um and it's been interesting as I've talked with clients over the last couple weeks about this. I have one client in particular who basically says, if anything goes wrong at these family events, I say peace out, and then I will leave. Uh I was like, wow, that's pretty bold. Like great that you have that ability, that strength of character to do that, but a lot of people don't. And um, or a lot of people are willing to kind of tolerate things. And so if you the the first thing you need to do is recognize if you have these triggers that go on for you, that the rest of the year you don't have to interact with these kind of triggers because you don't have to interact with people, places, or things like you do around Christmas and Thanksgiving times. Um, so it's acknowledging that. And if you're if you have a partner, if you have other family members that you're close to, it I think it'd be useful to have conversations to kind of flesh out what the problem is that you maybe have with the holidays. Um and so a solution to that. Um, you know, a lot of times people's solutions are just to not participate in whatever event that they see as kind of bringing a challenge to them. That's an option. Um, I think the problem is when you just simply don't participate, you miss out on interacting with a lot of people that are actually pleasant, that actually maybe want to see you and interact with you. Um so that's a that's obviously an option that you can that you can use, but again, I think you miss out. And then if you have kids of your own, and then you include your the kids of your own on missing out on something that you see as an issue, but for your kids may not be an issue, that poses a problem in itself as well. And so what I tell people to do, and this is super hard, I acknowledge that from the beginning, that this what I suggest is really difficult, is there's two things that you do is you have acceptance and then you have boundaries. Now, acceptance of not of the obnoxious behavior or of the not of the obnoxious person, acceptance that you have this trigger and that you can you are a strong person and you can for three hours suspend your emotions around whatever this trigger is. Um so and I and I'm and I want to be clear that if someone's done something to you that's illegal or um criminal or um has abused you in some way, physically, sexually assaulted you or whatever, I'm not saying to go and and tolerate that. I'm talking about the the like my uncle, just kind of a toxic person. Um or people that you don't align with politically. Those are the kind of things that I'm suggesting you tolerate. Um because I think that again, in a gathering of 20 people, and that there's two people there that you just can't handle them uh politically, their political beliefs are so outrageous or or whatever it is. I think that you have the ability to control your emotions for three hours to enjoy time with other people. Um I firmly I am a firm believer of that. Um man, my screen just went dark. Come on, come back up screen. Hello, screen. Um, I'm a firm believer of that, and and so that's one. I think acceptance of of that, even for a short period of time, is great. And that's where it'd be helpful if you have a partner or a family member that you're kind of connected with. You could have a conversation with them and say, hey, don't leave my side, or I want to make sure that um we have eye contact with each other so we can roll our eyes at the same time when so-and-so says whatever they're gonna say. And the second thing I think um that you have is boundaries. Um boundary, whether or not, I mean, they could be any number of things, they could be internal boundaries that you set for yourself, they could be boundaries that you set with your partner, or they could be boundaries you tell the party host. Um so something that you set with your partner, say, hey, I would like to leave at, you know, I look up at the clock like we're at the party, but I would like to leave at six. And so your partner says, Yes, let's leave at six. And so you make that boundary to leave at six. Even maybe if things are going well, it you could even have another boundary, like if things are going well, let's just stay longer. But let's kind of leave it up to me, if you're the one with the problem, on when we should leave. Um, another boundary you can set for yourself internally is that I am not going to discuss conversations around topic X. Um, even if someone does bring up that topic. See, see, that's where some emotional control comes in. And so if someone brings up that topic, um, you don't have to engage in it. You can leave, you can go to another room, you can strike up another conversation out of earshot of whatever topic's going on. If that's not possible and you're in a smaller family, you can let the host know, perhaps a mom or dad or an aunt or uncle is like, hey, I'm so excited to come here. Can we really like and use past history as an example? Hey, it seems like every year we get up, there's too much alcohol, and then conversations go poorly, or these things kind of happen. Is there a way to limit alcohol this year? Is there a way to limit conversations around this topic? And and if that person thinks, yeah, that's a good idea, let's limit conversations or let's limit the alcohol, then great. If they decide not to, then that's a boundary you just put up for yourself. The moment things kind of start getting out of hand, that's the moment that we will determine to leave. Um, now again, think about it honestly. These holiday events, um the max amount of time maybe is gonna be four hours. And can't you just for four hours control yourself to the point where um you can tolerate people, excuse me. Um, and again, hear me clearly. I'm not saying that you need to go in and be best buddies with people that you think are normally toxic. Um, if you have a family full of toxic people where and there's gonna be a small gathering of those toxic people, by all means don't go. But I'm talking about like these larger gatherings where there's gonna be maybe 12 or 15 people and one or two people are toxic. If that's the case, you can tolerate that enough to be able to go and connect with other people that um you have no issue with. Um, or another option is you can have a party of your own and only invite the people that you want to invite. Now, some of you may say, well, that's rude, that's the holidays. Well, it's life is about choices, and so I think um if you make that choice, there are sure there's possibly consequences to it, but you get to be in charge of your own life. And so if that's another option that you and your partner or whoever you're planning a party with can do, then do that. If that's gonna bring peace to you, then do that. But ultimately, I think a great way to approach holidays is to have acceptance and to have boundaries around things. Um, I hope you have a great holiday, whatever kind of holiday you celebrate. Um, I hope it's an enjoyable one. If you recognize like holidays are a challenge for you, um, reach out to me. I we can email, I can find you someone to have a conversation with. Because holidays are supposed to be those times where we remember things that we remember positive things about people. And if you come from a family where there's not a lot of positive, perhaps now's the time to find other people that aren't blood relatives to seek a relationship with, right? And that could be co-workers, it could be people that enjoy the same things that you do from at a gym, hiking, boating, whatever it is. Um that's that's an opportunity to start a new kind of family with people. Um I appreciate you guys listening. I know uh I don't hear from a lot of you. I do I have heard from some people, but I appreciate those of you who listen, and I really hope that you have a great holiday season. I may be back with a podcast in another couple weeks. I have no idea. I'm kind of hit and miss, like I always complain about being hit and miss and life's busy, etc. etc. Life's busy for everyone, just not for me. And so um, if you have any topics that you are interested in, feel free to email them to me, headshrinkink at gmail.com. Um, and I will be looking out for topics to talk about off into the future. Hey, have a great uh week. If you like this, go over to my Instagram, Dr. David Simonson, and put a like or go to my YouTube. Um, it's all on my webpage, docdavid.net. That's where you will find me. Hey, have a great holiday season.