I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple things. I could already see it. The holiday crunch has started. The mothers and grandmothers struggling to think of everything on the lists that they forgot and left at home, the families toting excited children with magic sparkling in their eyes, husbands and single men dodging through crowds because they just want to get what they need and get home. Then something caught my attention. It was a young man obviously disgusted with all the holiday craziness, shaking his head and muttering to himself. I recognized it from experience. My son and PTSD. Looking at it all now from his perspective, it must look like everyone has gone crazy taking pills from a Hallmark Store.

I definitely used to chase that happy dream of creating the perfect holiday season for everyone. Sometimes I wish I still bought into it, but I’ve lost too many. We all have. There’s too many people hurting going into these holidays and I want them to know, it’s okay to do the holidays differently this year if it feels needed.

Those who have experienced trauma have a unique perspective. From my experience, they are more in touch with their hearts and feelings than the average person because they have to be in order to manage and get through the day. Oh yes, there are varying degrees of that, of course, but show me someone who has survived trauma, and I will show you someone who has courageously stared down darkness from deep inside and is a survivor!

I may be saying it in a really clumsy way, but I just want to express that whatever peace and contentment you can find during these holidays, whatever that means for you, I salute you. If you are missing loved ones and just can’t seem to get on track, visit this post Doing Grief Differently by my friend, Sara Kujawa.

If you are in charge of family get togethers and are a little anxious because someone is attending with anxiety, PTSD or depression, or any of those other labels, my sincere suggestion is to avoid creating anxiety over it and just accept them for however they are and wherever they’re at in life. Just love them. Let them know you are just glad they are part of the family.

Here is a previous blogpost from a few years ago with some tips and tools for surviving the holidays.

My friend, who I’m just going to call E wrote this beautiful message and with permission I’m going to share here because I think it needs to be heard and taken to heart. (Thank you my friend<3)

The road we walk is shaped not only by the future we seek and the present we stand in, but by the lives that have touched us along the way.

Many of those lives do not make it to the destiny they were seeking, and so it falls to us; those still living, to keep breathing and keep fighting no matter what. To never let the memory of those who came before us die in vain.

We fight with a purpose that shall never surrender, that will never accept defeat. For we fight, not for glory, or for victory, but for the sake of those we love. To protect them and their futures. To safeguard them here and now.

Our purpose will never be swayed, it is written on the hearts of every man woman and child. We are one humanity and one world, and it is a World worth protecting.

Do not forget those who fall along the way, but rather, burn all the brighter on their behalf.

— E