When You are Estranged for the Holidays: 3 Strategies for Coping

The holiday season is filled with lights, gifts, and smiles. Music tells us to have "happy holidays" and a "very merry Christmas," while cartoon specials show caricatures of "Grinches." Yet, this time of festivities is a million things to a million people.

Some will be gathering around trees with their kids and grandkids—while others will be spending their first holiday, or maybe one of too many, without a child or parent. Some will share in feasts, while others may be left cold, hungry, and without a designated place to sleep.

Loss

Estrangement is a growing source of pain during the holidays. Although siblings are often our first and longest relationships in life, a recent study found that 28% of siblings reported an episode of estrangement (Hank and Steinbach, 2023), a higher percentage than ever before.

The loss of family through estrangement is a particularly tricky kind of grief. When it comes to gatherings, some may avoid them for fear of running into their family member or, to the contrary, palpably feel that absence. Once beloved holiday traditions might be interrupted by the estrangement and the breakdown of family (Barnwell, 2024). Similarly, painful experiences from past gatherings may be remembered during this time of year.

For many, winter can also be a harbinger of depression. Even if circumstances are bright, a person deep in depression might feel intense sadness. Still, they may worry about affecting others' good times. It's tempting to beat themselves up for what they think they "shouldn't" feel, only intensifying their pain. This practice of telling ourselves that we should not feel something has been called "self-invalidation." A study of college students found that the practice not only did not remove negative emotions but was linked with emotional dysregulation, depression, and anxiety (Mohammadkhani et al., 2024).

Whatever your circumstances are, if you don't feel joyful, being surrounded by a message that you ought to be happy is bound to make you feel worse.

Strategies for Coping

What follows are three strategies for getting through.

1. Give It Space to Run

Sectioning negative emotions off is like trying to keep a bouncing puppy inside a cage. The longer we keep them there, the more they howl, scrape at the edges and try to escape. Our emotions need space to run. In the words of psychoanalyst Carl Jung, "What you resist not only persists but will grow in size." Rather than sending away your sorrows. See if you can permit yourself to feel and to provide what comes of that space to exist. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this strategy is known as 'holding lightly' or accepting what we are feeling without judgment or pushing it away (Luoma et al., 2007).

2. Be Kind to Yourself

Not feeling the 'holiday spirit' in the way your backdrop tells you that you should do not make you any less than anyone else. It doesn't make you a failure. If you don't feel like celebrating, that doesn't make you an ungrateful Grinch. The dark side of gratitude and positivity can be a message that only the good things should be noticed. That's not the case. Allow yourself to feel the good and the bad. Give yourself kindness. In Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, giving ourselves the right to our experiences is termed 'self-validation' (Linehan, 2015). As you might guess, by holding the space of the opposite of self-invalidation, this skill can help us cope.

3. Connect

Sometimes, people who feel low hide what they are feeling for the sake of others. Yet, you may be surprised that sharing your feelings can spark warmth. Empathy is not feeling sorry for people. It's realizing that we are all walking a path of joy, mystery, hurt, love, and dreams that ultimately end. Connection comes from looking beyond ourselves and being open. Being honest with others about what you are experiencing is a gift.

In Closing

Not everyone feels happy during the holidays, and that's okay. You don't have to try to make yourself feel something you don't or hide your sadness. Be kind to yourself and see if there are others you can connect with. You matter, regardless of what you are feeling.