From Pain to Sane During The Holidays
The holiday season has arrived as it does every year. The season is one that is recognized for family celebrations and children opening presents with food and laughter. In some houses there will be a silence that will remind of us of the term parental alienation. These homes will be reminded of memories past and the old traditions that brought smiles and warm fuzzy emotions that are affiliated with Christmas.
During these weeks the pain threshold is increased to unlimited reminders of the time you don’t have with your children. While we are hiding from the holidays we are constantly prompted by the visions of lights, commercials, and children in our midst. We have friends and family that understand to a limit and we feel alone in a whirlwind of tears that we alone cry. It is painful to be a non custodial parent and while it is healthy to grieve there needs to come a time when we say life goes on. There is nothing selfish in this thought process.
Below are some helpful suggestions that might make your holiday season more manageable and easier to cope with. It will be an easier process if you plan ahead and know this is a task that needs your assistance to help others.
- Open your home to other non custodial parents
- Don’t be home alone spend it with family and friends if possible
- Spend some time at a homeless shelter and help serve their needs
- Help under privileged children
- Put together an outing with others so no one is an “orphan” for the holidays.
- Take a vacation with a friend
- Plan a new project
These are not easy transitions to acquire and will take time. You will still have emotions of sadness but they will not be over cumbering to you. Sometimes we isolate ourselves in our own misery and we make it harder to climb out of the trenches of our pain. We must remember in divorce children also have mixed emotions about the holidays.
On Thanksgiving night Parental Alienation Hurts and Get Your Justice Live will have our annual Holiday Support Call. Many of us come together to share memories, tears, and yes even a few laughs in the process. The call is takes place from 8pm EST: To call in live during the show dial 724-898-1660
Join us via the computer FREE LIVE CHAT STARTS AT 8PM EST http://budurl.com/liveshowtimechat
I hope to see some of you there to know you’re not alone this holiday.
If I may I’d just like to say (and this could be just my personal foible) I found it just too painful to spend Christmas with friends – or even helping to serve meals in a shelter. Selfish as that sounds, going home afterwards to nobody was so sad – I felt worse. That’s why I ended up never taking Christmas Holidays at work.
I really needed my family and if I had my time over I would buy a ticket and fly there to where my brothers and sister live instead of staying around this town thinking about my children having Christmas together with their father. I spent many Christmases just asleep, in bed with the blinds drawn – because nothing helped the pain.
I have to say this is the most painful feeling in the world when you see your spouse not being able to spend the holidays with his child. This has been going on for 2 years now. The BM moved out of state and will not tell my dh where she is. She blames me and uses me as an excuse on all the time, She will even go to the extreme of lying and accusing me of sexual child abuse.
I hate this state of Oklahoma, I hate our judge that we have on our legal case. Hes so blind to the fact that this isn’t healthy for our “blended family” . Honestly I really don’t care if she treats me like this. Its nothing new and i’m used to it. I just wish my dh could spend the holidays with his child.