How do you deal with family estrangement during Christmas?

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clustrb.1

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Has anyone else here dealt with family estrangement and if so, how do you get past the feelings of depression from feeling like your family just doesn’t care about you this Christmas season?
 
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Yes. Focusing on your “other” family, the Holy Family, helps. Also, praying and a good Christian counselor are helpful. 😊
 
Of course I don’t know all about your situation, but I imagine that some members of your family do care about you and think about you.
 
I have no way of knowing. None of them really reach out to me.
 
So far my solution has involved frozen pizza and cookies, and talking to all the people I know who are currently regretting spending time with their families.

Oh look, you’ve gained weight!
We’re all disappointed you didn’t marry a better person (said in front of said person and his wife).
Haven’t you found a real job yet?
You’re going to vote for , right?

All I have to deal with is a cat trying to steal my dinner.

I know that sounds flippant but it really isn’t. Holidays alone are hard. Sometimes the best way to deal with depression that’s set off by a specific event like that is to just try to enjoy yourself as best you can. The holidays will pass.
 
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I’m sorry that you’re dealing with this. 😦

I think that the best thing that you can do is to surround yourself with some activities that normally try and make you feel better, and that feel comforting to you. 🙂

My husband and I both come from dysfunctional families, so as we have gotten older and our families have become smaller, we prefer to just spend the holidays together with just the two of us, anymore.

I was also getting tired of drunken outbursts and fights by other family members and didn’t want to be a part of that, either.

Anyway, we decided to have our own holiday celebrations by making them as peaceful and as special for us as we wanted them to be.

For example, we would either go out to dinner, or I would cook for us.

Sometimes we’d spend the holidays with friends.

Other times we’d do other things together that we enjoy, like watching Christmas movies together, and going out and looking at Christmas lights in our area.

Sometimes I’ll bake Christmas cookies.

It just depends on what we feel like doing. 🙂
 
Everyone’s situation is different. Christmas is over now. If your family ignored you, your only real obligation was to go to church. Do you have friends there?

If you’re interested in exploring why your family doesn’t contact you, the estrangement, etc. I’d wait until the holiday season was over, then try and contact them. If you are close to any member, you might ask them to help arrange a meeting with your family, to try and talk things over. But wait until after New year’s. Let everyone ‘wind down’.

I wish you the best. And, of course, God Bless!
 
It seems like you’ve maintain your peace about things. I’m still working on it. Literally no one in my family reached out to me specifically to say Merry Christmas. But yet I see on Facebook all their posts where they are together and smiling. It just sucks. I moved away from home a long time ago, true, but my family just acts like if I don’t reach out to them or come see them, then oh well. If I reach out, they are kind but that’s about it. It feels artificial and one-sided, I dunno.
 
I’ve come to accept it over the years, but it still hurts.

I think that it’s human nature to want to belong somewhere, most especially to our families. It hurts when they shut us out or ignore us in some way.

It especially hurts at the holidays, and it hurts even more so when we’re aware that others that we know–friends, acquaintances–are having gatherings with their own families–and we’re not.

I try to think about the good things and good memories though, as there are some that I’ve had over time with my extended family members. By that I mean other family members who weren’t immediate family members, like my Great-Grandmothers, for example.

I was so happy to see them and to spend time with them.

I was also very happy to spend time with friends that I loved and cared about. My friends have always been very special to me, because I didn’t feel like my family was really there for me over the years.

I would say that if you can think of someone in your life who has been there for you in a positive way–even one person–like a friend, to think of that person during the holidays.

That’s what I do, and that always helps to make me feel better during the holiday season, too.

God bless you, and know that you’re not alone. 🙂
 
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Your reply was very heartfelt and I appreciate it very much. Thank you. God Bless.
 
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