23/12/2024
Christmas is such a trigger for so many survivors of domestic and family violence. If you’re not okay today, and it’s hard to find anyone who understands, don’t worry. Many of us out here understand.
My own short version of this particular aspect of my story is that over the course of my relationship with an abusive alcoholic who was in denial of his problem, I began to feel unsafe as occasions such as Christmas approached. He viewed certain times of the year as an opportunity to get very, very drunk, drag me to drinking parties with his friends, and he also expected me to attend these things with my older daughter and our infant daughter in tow. It was totally inappropriate and did not feel safe or “festive” at all. I knew that even if he was happy and jovial in the lead up to Christmas, he would become more and more drunk as the day wore on, and with the evening, abuse was inevitable.
It didn’t stop when I finally was able to escape him and the relationship.
He did not financially support us following the breakup, nor had he let me keep my own money or spend our money on NEEDS during or after the relationship. I had paid off all his credit card debts, and he had stolen my wages and Centrelink money to buy alcohol, ci******es and to gamble. He had abused me for spending money on food, or for insisting we pay our bills before any money should go to alcohol.
After the breakup, we were at risk of homelessness for many years, and I had to depend on charity food hampers and Christmas hampers to have any Santa presents for my daughters. The hampers were always loaded with inedible, rotten and plain disgusting food. It was “help” but also it was worse than nothing. Especially at Christmas time. Being a beggar every Christmas and being made to FEEL like my daughters and I were subhuman and just like we were “less” by those charities and by family who expected gifts and did not understand the stress of Christmas… it just traumatised me to the point that I still get overcome with anxiety each and every year as the pressure to spend exorbitantly ramps up from October onwards. There’s no escaping it in a culture that DEMANDS we participate, especially when we have kids who can’t be expected to understand why Santa has so much to give other children for being “good”, but has so little for them, which surely must mean they’re not “good”.
It’s just too much.
It’s December 23, and I sit here today feeling like I just want it to be over with. My older daughter still struggles with it to this day. We still never really feel understood by society or the rest of the family, and still feel pressure to participate even though our family has now come a little way in starting to comprehend what DV survivors go through at this time of year even when the actual “survival” phase of escaping DV has passed.
Our minds and bodies still regress into that survival mode each and every year, even with all the therapy in the world, and even though we now have so much more control over how we spend the “festive” season.
If you’re having a hard time today, just know that because of the sheer high community prevalence of the domestic violence crisis, it’s sad but there are SO MANY of us right there in your very own postcode who are also having feelings about Christmas and the new year that only DV survivors really understand. People who haven’t really been through it and have lived in relative comfort and peace are somewhat trying to make more of an effort to “get it”, but the daily experience of this whole Christmas thing still feels so lonely for those of us who have tried and tried to explain how to be better to people who just have so much to learn and probably won’t ever really get it.
But all the same, you know that even if your family and friends don’t really get it and probably never will, survivors just like you are all out here somewhere, experiencing it in a very similar way. You are not alone.
If you needed permission to just stop plastering the “correct” Christmas smile on as if everything is fine and dandy when it is BLOODY NOT, and if you just need to get through this Christmas any way you need to, THIS is your permission.
Your feelings are valid.
You have trauma behind those feelings that are from horrors in your past that you never, EVER deserved.
It’s okay to just focus on getting through it, saving whatever energy and smiles you have for your kids to have some sort of Christmas. Bu**er everyone else and their expectations. Bu**er what the rest of the world thinks Christmas is supposed to look like. Bu**er the people who think you owe them or their kids presents with the $30 you had left for food after you miraculously covered the rent. And if you needed Christmas hampers to get Santa presents for your children, that is not your fault, and it doesn’t make you less of a person. Abusers robbed us of everything. It is THEIR shame to bear. Not yours.
Christmas will come and go. It is just one day and there is zero reason to starve or risk homelessness because OTHER PEOPLE who will NEVER understand DV poverty expect presents. Where are they when you can’t pay rent next fortnight? Will they show up with your rent money? Nope.
Your food and shelter and the food and shelter for your kids is what is most important.
Be well. Do what you have to do to survive Christmas. Put your basic needs first. People who expect you to go without for their own privileged ideas of Christmas are not your people.
Be still. Be free.
Walk on the grass, breathe the summer breeze, think of the birds and insects, who know nothing of this “Christmas” nonsense but get plenty to eat and like their lives just fine.
From my heart to yours,
R
