By: Danielle Dickchinski, L. Ac.
Every October, I get a burst of excitement and a glimmer of hope! Halloween and Christmas are my favorite holidays because of their energy of celebration, uplifting nature, and encouragement of play. Every year, I have some hope that I will be able to enjoy these times of cheer in authenticity. My hope encourages me. Maybe it will progress my energy to endure through the next few months. Maybe I will enjoy and desire to decorate, create new memories with my new family, rekindle some older traditions just for the hell of it, and get an outlet of creative expression to create some homemade gifts. The crisp, cold air sends a chill of alertness towards the changes coming.
Walking through the store after Halloween, gives me the external cue that the spirit of the holidays are underway. The lights seem brighter, the music is faster in tempo, the toys have multiplied, and all the sudden the pressure is on. From a materialistic perspective, the push for consumption is intense. The societal pressure to be merry, cheery, and bright creates an unrealistic expectation on the average person. As someone, who works with C-PTSD (Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder), my hope for the lightness is still overridden by the burden of grief.
The holidays make me remember. I remember that I am burdened by my past because any resemblance of family stirs up the truth that I am still having a hard time accepting. Hearing about other’s plans to spend time with their parents, siblings, grandparents, and cousins, sometimes gives me the green-eye of jealousy or the twinge of nausea from guilt. I remember how my father has been gone for over 3 years. I struggle with the normal grief of missing those weekly phone calls, the late night movies, or the random adventures I use to take with my father. I miss my best friend, my daddy, and the only person who truly understood my inner workings better than I could. At least, that is what he made me to believe.
My grief transitions into confusion, anger, resentment, and sadness as the revelation from 2 years ago shadows the very foundation of what I came to understand family to be about. The very person who I could call in the middle of the night after a night terror, was the person who caused the night terror itself. The season reminds me that the only good memories I have during the holiday were based upon a foundation of lies, deceit, and fraud. The brightness of the Christmas tree could be seen as I bid it goodnight only to have the weekly nightmares begin.
The guilt and shame I feel during the holidays are intense. I feel like a fraud: pretending I am okay when at times I am not. I am exhausted from the unrealistic expectations I place upon myself to keep the act up. My body goes through the rhythms of numbness, frustration, anxiety, joy, and sadness. I will my body to exhaustion trying to remain positive, uplifted, and strong. I am strong. There is no doubt. I overcame over a decade of incest, suicidal teenage years, and by the very definition am successful. I have a lot to be grateful for. I try to practice gratitude daily to rewire my brain into happiness. Anyone who would look at me, would not see what the trauma my father’s inner demon has inflicted. I push myself to achievement and production for distraction. I will myself to not let him win, to not have his power over me anymore. He is gone, physically; why can’t my emotional, spiritual, and psychological brain understand that HE CANNOT HURT ME ANYMORE? My night terrors re-emerge. Now, all I dream about is confronting him. My grief is screaming out “WHY?!”.
As my toddler becomes inspired from all the brightness the Christmas lights give through the darkness, I try to remain present in the here and now. I try to use his excitement as inspiration to just BE. To just enjoy the hot chocolate and Christmas lighting downtown. To just enjoy decorating our mini Rosemary tree that we will replant in the spring. To just enjoy the hope that he will have great “listening ears,” so he can get presents under the tree. To have hope that I can rebuild my family tree. I hope just BEING where I am during this holiday will be enough: in grief, in sadness, in joy, in stillness, in coldness, in warmth, in confusion, in clarity, in love, in light. May I bless myself the gift of love, compassion, and understanding. I have been through hell and back. I would not understand the lightness if it were not for my darkness. May my light give some hope.
Danielle Dickchinski, L. Ac., RMT, is a Licensed Acupuncturist, who specializes in Women’s Medicine and Trauma Support in Arizona. Most importantly, she is a survivor transforming her C-PTSD experience into thriving. She balances her passion for helping others with self-care, so she can be her best for herself, her family, and her community. She loves to paint, hike, kayak, write poetry, have “adventures with her family”, and loves to travel and teach.