Happy Thanksgiving! Whether you're with loved ones or not, whether that makes you happy or sad, I hope you have a nice day off from your usual routine. And Happy Thursday to my non-US readers.
In honor of the family time that usually happens at Thanksgiving, today's post is about dealing with difficult family visits. We live about 2,000 miles from either of our families, so going to visit them is a big deal that doesn't happen more than once a year. Twenty years ago, when I was in my early thirties and not getting along with my dad at all, visits to family would cause such major stress that it would take me a month or more to recover when we returned home.
The therapist I was seeing at the time gave me some great advice. I had a tendency to worry and anxiet-ize everything before we even got there. I would be so stressed by the time we arrived that every interaction was fraught with the potential for disaster. I was like a walking open wound, waiting to receive more pain. How could I not have gotten hurt?
My therapist told me, as we prepared for one such trip: you need a plan.
*Blink*
A plan?
Yes. You need a plan. A strategy.
*Blink*
You mean I can choose how I'm going to handle this? I don't have to walk in feeling defenseless and defeated before anything has even happened? Yes. How could I have missed something so obvious?
So here are her three steps for creating a strategy for difficult family visits.
- Figure out what are the worst stress points and plan how you will respond. What are you going to say if your dad says he wants to take you out for breakfast? (which was my dad's standard way of getting me alone and making me insane.) Can you just say no? Would it be better if it was lunch, or afternoon coffee? would it work to suggest other people come along?
- What is one thing that you can do each day to maintain your sense of self? You could go for a walk, make yourself an afternoon cup of tea and have some time alone, take the car and go out by yourself even if it's just to get groceries, etc.
- Setting the bar low, what is one thing or maybe a few things that could make the trip feel like a success? Have some enjoyable interactions with a non-stressful relative, spend some time outdoors every day, connect with friends who live in their town, go to bed early so you can retreat to a private space, whatever. (This is not the time to define success as "Confronting my dad on his bullshit and standing my ground when he attacks back." Go for something easy.)
And she was right. Having a plan made all the difference. Even when I didn't follow through (my plan to make a cup of tea and sit by myself every afternoon never happened even one single time), it helped me realize I could choose how I was going to respond, rather than being at the mercy of my fears. It helped me to respond from my adult self rather than from my wounded child self.
(I won't say that having a plan gave me a feeling of control, because when are we ever in control? but that's a little bit what this is, taking control, in the best sense of the word "control.")
It wasn't one hundred percent successful. Up until the very last time I spoke to my dad, it made me nervous and defensive to deal with him. But it was the beginning of me growing up and dealing with the situation from a position of strength instead of weakness.
This wasn't what I was going to blog about today--I actually did have a Thanksgiving-ish plan and something relevant to say, believe it or not--but when I was writing the first paragraph about families, it occurred to me this might be a better topic for today. So now I can post today's post later. Clever.
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