How to Heal CPTSD Over the Holidays
The holidays often bring me an alternating mix of joy and sadness. Part of me wants to create the most wonderful Christmas for my family and another part wants to curl up in a corner, quiet and full of grief. Thanks to my trauma healing journey, I now anticipate and appreciate both. And I've learned how to lead both parts without dismissing either experience.
I want to share what that's like, so if this is something you face too, you can do the same.
Healing Relational Trauma and CPTSD
Holidays can be a profoundly healing time, for those of us with complex trauma (CPTSD), especially relational trauma from childhood. Each special occasion can be an opportunity to rewrite old experiences and create new moments of magic.
To do this, we counterbalance traumatic memories with stronger positive experiences. Pervasive loneliness transforms into the joy of being seen and safe at the same time. Past experiences of neglect shift gently into consistent experiences of care. And the hangover of bracing for something bad that’s always about to happen alchemizes into the spaciousness and calm of connection and belonging.
When we understand the process, we can purposefully resolve painful past experiences and create new neural pathways that cue wellbeing, with its cascade of positive sensations, feelings, and thoughts.
But this doesn't happen automatically.
Even after years of trauma resolution work, it's still a choice that requires effort.
Maturity means accepting that it will always take commitment to care for our inner needs. We must become willing to be the wise adult caregiver to ourselves that we require. To do this, we must learn how to anchor our conscious awareness in the present moment and orient from there.
If we don't cultivate this inner maturity and learn how to care for our trauma flashbacks, the holidays can easily become challenging and even re-traumatizing.
Wanting to make everything nice might lead to perfectionism, a familiar rigidity and control that sneaks in to try and force outcomes.
Sudden moments of loneliness and even despair might take us by surprise, as we look for a present-moment cause (and maybe mistakenly blame our partners), unaware that emotional flashbacks are normal and to be expected this time of year — and that they offer us valuable pathways towards healing.
The Holiday "Gift" of Flashbacks from Complex Trauma (CPTSD)
If not tended to consistently and with care, CPTSD or complex trauma flashbacks can derail holidays and relationships, causing immense damage and pain, perpetuating the cycle of trauma.
Most of us misunderstand complex trauma flashbacks and have little confidence we can handle them. Let’s change that, so you're not surprised by the emptiness sneaking in while singing Christmas carols, or the jealousy wrapping itself around your heart while your children open Christmas presents.
Once understood, working with flashbacks can become as routine and non-threatening as remembering to check the door is locked before you leave the house.
Seen in this light, flashbacks are actually helpful lights on the dashboard that let you know something important needs looking into. Painful thoughts like, “No one loves me,” "There's something wrong with me," or "It's never safe," help us realize they’re happening.
The challenge is that complex trauma flashbacks don't have timestamps, so we easily mistake them for present-moment data about our current circumstances and relationships.
Especially if we're around family, this can quickly become confusing. We might try to address the past directly with the people we hold responsible for our pain. The truth is, now that we’re adults, other people will never adequately provide us with the unconditional love and understanding that’s required to transform a flashback into normal memory.
It's also no longer their responsibility.
It's ours.
So, what do we do?
How to Navigate Complex Trauma Flashbacks
Here are some steps to navigate holiday flashbacks from CPTSD so they resolve instead of amplify. These are adapted from Internal Family Systems (IFS), one of the most effective approaches to trauma resolution that I've experienced personally and that I use in my work as a trauma specialist.
1. Identify your flashback pattern.
Most people get stuck identifying a flashback because there are often several happening at the same time. This is normal, especially at the beginning of the healing journey. Instead of trying to address everything at once, focus on the experience that creates the most stress in your relationships, especially over the holidays.
How do these flashbacks show up for you, when they happen? Notice the physical sensations that arise. What do you notice and where do you notice it, in the body? What emotions come up? What painful thoughts or beliefs emerge?
2. Practice awareness of your experience.
Notice that your conscious awareness (or self, or whatever you'd like to call the “you” who is observing and witnessing) is having an experience of a flashback. The flashback isn't you; it's an experience you're having. This sliver of observational distance, when you realize you are not the experience, is essential. You’re differentiating yourself from the flashback. Separate, for a moment, from the experience so you can see and be with it instead of becoming it.
You might say to yourself, "I am experiencing a flashback,” or, "Part of me is feeling X, or thinking Y, or experiencing Z."
3. Center in care and calm.
Your feelings towards the flashback matter immensely. It's essential to take responsibility for how you approach the experience. Don't come at it from a part of you who feels frustrated, burdened, or resentful that the flashback is happening. If that approach resolved things, it would've worked already.
Instead, use trauma navigation skills like grounding, orienting, and containment to stay anchored in present-moment awareness. You can read more about those specific skills here and here.
Using tools to stay separate from the flashback allows you to center in wise adult awareness, instead of being flooded by your nervous system’s trauma response. If you can't manage to feel centered or calm towards the experience, getting curious about it is a good enough start.
4. Befriend the experience of the flashback.
Don't judge the flashback or try to make meaning about what's happening. In the moment, understanding its origins isn't important. Being with it and connecting to it with curiosity and care start to repattern into a "corrective experience."
Your willingness to befriend the flashback is what transforms your nervous system response into a caring, engaged presence that has the power to change your life.
Start here. Start small. Offer the flashback care, instead of judgement. Provide a safe haven of calm, instead of panic. This foundation of care creates a new nervous system state that heals the traumatic memory and allows it to complete so your body knows it’s over.
5. Connect with others you love.
Trauma thrives in isolation. Don't do this work alone. As soon as you've done the inner work of tending to and befriending the flashback, reach out for support and care. This U-turn from inner connection to outer connection communicates to your nervous system that you're now safe enough to allow the traumatic memory (or flashback) to complete. You are no longer trapped, like you were in the past. You have options now.
Show yourself that it's possible to feel the flashback and receive love, safety, and belonging from others who you love and who love you. This is where the holidays become a catalyst for creating more of the good stuff in your life.
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There is unlimited potential to experience the goodness and beauty of life, when you learn how to move the constraints of the past out of the way.
Without knowing how to navigate flashbacks to heal complex trauma, you might end up white knuckling the holidays. You might numb and dissociate, or justify poor behavior with past pain. Instead, I hope you'll use this to create something new and different for yourself.
If you do, you'll experience transformation inside and out. And if you want help with this, I have a few spots open to work 1:1 or with couples in the New Year. Is this the year you say "Yes" to healing?
Thank you for reading. And I'll see you in the New Year.
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Elie Losleben Calhoun supports individuals and couples internationally through trauma resolution and embodied healing. She brings extensive training in somatic approaches and a deep understanding of how the nervous system shapes our capacity for connection. To learn more about working together, you're welcome to reach out.