The Anxiety Sufferer's Guide to Holiday Gatherings

The holidays can be an absolutely magical time of year. However, it can also be a very stressful time of the year, especially if you already suffer from anxiety. Let me say, I love holidays and I love the idea of holiday gatherings. I really do love the holiday season, but sometimes my anxiety can take over and make holiday gatherings insufferable.

Let's face it, even if you don't experience anxiety throughout the rest of the year, the holidays can be stressful. Gift buying, travel plans, logistics of get-togethers, small talk...the list goes on.

Holiday family gatherings are a huge stress point. You're getting ready. Did I wrap all the presents? Did I forget anyone? What should I wear? Did I wear this last year? Will it be hot or cold in the house? How long does it take to get there? What time should I leave? Should I arrive early? Who all will be there this year?

You arrive and find yourself making small talk with your irritating lovely family members. Maybe it's your uncle who is just socially unacceptable, your grandmother who is the ultimate scrooge, your sibling who's short fuse could cause an explosion at any moment, or maybe it's your sweet aunt who is overly concerned with the details of your life.

Finally, dinner is ready. Do you fix your plate first or do you wait until others start? Who do you sit beside? For my family, we have to strategically place people at the dinner table to relieve individual stressors. What will the topics of discussion be at the table? Will someone get upset?

You make it through dinner, with or without a hitch; it's over. Now it's time to exchange presents. Who passes out presents? Who opens first or does everyone open at once? Is anyone paying attention? Did I spend enough or too much? Does he/she like my present? Wait, what did my face look like when I opened that gift?

You pulled through the present exchanges. More small talk? When do I leave? Do I leave first or wait until someone else leaves? Do I want to take leftovers?

Now you're home. Did I leave too early? Did he/she really like my gift? Was I smiling when I opened sweet aunt's odd gift?

Does any of this sound familiar? Most, if not all, of these go through my head before, during, and after every holiday gathering. I constantly feel like I'm on the verge of an anxiety attack.

Here's some ways to deal with some of the holiday gathering stressors:

Stay busy. If waiting around and mingling is a concern for you, keep yourself busy. Ask your host if you can help with something. Or maybe you can get some quality time in with the little ones of the family.

The small talk. Whether in moments of waiting, at the table, or whenever; all small talk cannot always be avoided. Think of some ways to compliment family members and ways to respond to compliments. Also, think about how you can respond to those prying questions ahead of time so that you don't have to have a mini panic attack in your head when they're asked.

Dinner and leftovers. If this is an issue for you, think about how you can handle it. If your host doesn't have a seating arrangement, then before dinner, decide who you can sit beside. Do you want leftovers? Maybe you know you won't eat them, but you can't make yourself tell your well-meaning host "no thanks." It's ok to take a small helping of leftovers you may not eat to avoid a stressful inner debate.

The gifts. Thankfully, my family has now set a dollar limit on how much we spend on each other (just the adults), so the stress of whether I spent the same, more, or less is not a concern anymore. Discuss with your family about setting a per person spending limit. We have the kids pass out the gifts from under the tree. And we either go from youngest to oldest; take turns youngest, oldest, next youngest, next oldest; or pass out and open one gift at a time. It's best to discuss it with you family and decide beforehand if possible.

Support. Do you have a significant other or close family member who understands you? Or maybe you can bring a friend? Have a support system in place to help calm your nerves. If you don't have someone that can be there with you, arrange with friend or other family member to be able to text or call them when you need a break. 

Don't wait. You know what it feels like when you're on the verge of an anxiety attack. You also know signs that your anxiety is setting in. (Although sometimes, it hits too quickly to realize it beforehand.) Ahead of time, think about strategies you use on a regular basis to calm yourself. As soon as you feel your anxiety building, put them to use. Take deep breaths, close your eyes, walk outside or to another room, visualize your "happy place," or whatever helps you.

Look for the positive. Even if you have a lot of holiday stressors, there is something that you enjoy about your family get-togethers. Keep reminding yourself that it's coming. Or when you've made it through a particularly stressful situation, reward yourself. Maybe that means a mental praise of yourself, a goofy grin, or an extra piece of pie; just do it.

Plan ahead. One of the biggest ways to help make those holiday get-togethers less stressful is to plan ahead as much as possible. In stead of waiting until the day of to plan your outfit and travel times, do it the day or even the week before the event. If you're afraid to wear the same outfit as last year, then look back at last year's pictures before planning your outfit. Or treat yourself to a new snazzy outfit. Most all of the other stressor topics above can be helped with some pre-planning as well.

Now, that's not to say that you need to try to plan every single small detail of the event to avoid all of your stressors. Just focus on your major stress points and plan those details. For the rest, just think over the possibilities to help calm yourself as needed.

And when it's over, instead of stressing about what you think went wrong, just focus on all of the good parts. You made it through it. Now, take a deep breath and relax.

What holiday stressors do you have?

How do you deal?

I'm a person, not a label.

I've never been one to like the labels that society puts on people. Maybe it's because society chooses to put so many on my life. I've also never been one to bare my thoughts and feelings for all to hear/see. But I've recently had to come to terms with adding more societal labels to my collection. Maybe it's just all the drama going on in my life and in the world, but I'm just tired of just being a set of labels.

I've dealt with labels my entire life; truly, we all do. Let's face it, I was the fifteen year old who had a baby out of wedlock. I was a single mother, a slut, a whore; the list goes on. In reality, I was just a naive girl with a really interesting and twisted fate. The looks, the whispers; it's something I learned to deal with and pretended they didn't get to me. I've come a long way from those days, and I proved all of those people wrong the day I walked across the stage at my college graduation.

Now, I'm married to the love of my life, who happens to be a woman just as I am.Therefore society says I'm a lesbian. Better yet, we're told we break away from the "stereotypical lesbian." What does even that mean? What's a "stereotypical" lesbian? What you mean because we don't have short hair and wear masculine clothes? Have these people met many lesbians? So now we must have yet another label: feminine or "fem". On the flip-side, what these same people supposedly call "stereotypical lesbians" are given even more labels: butch or dyke. I hate when someone looks at me, after finding out I'm married to a woman, and says, "Oh, I didn't know, you don't look like a lesbian." Or wait for it..."Who's the guy in your relationship?" Umm...do you know the dictionary definition of a lesbian? Yes? No? Let me enlighten you, we're both women.

Everyday society places labels upon us based on our beliefs, our feelings, our attitude, our choices, and things completely out of our control.

Society has added that I am ADHD, I have anxiety, and I'm depressed. Let's add more: I'm a failure, attention seeking, worthless...where do the labels end? It's time we quit looking at the labels and begin looking at the person.

Thankfully, our little man does not see labels. See our little man has a very diverse group of friends both in gender and ethnicity; he has ever since he started daycare at three. Maybe we could all learn a little from our children. We aren't born with these prejudices; it's learned.

Last year, like me, our little man was diagnosed with ADHD. We struggled with his diagnosis and the thought of putting him on medication for a while. Thankfully, we did and he has benefited greatly from it. We were also told that he hits closely to being diagnosed with Asperger's because he hit 6/15 markers on the Autism scale. And he has a speech impairment due to improper articulation. Now...you might think that this child I'm describing is a hyper, loner child who does poorly in school. That's not the case though. We don't use his "disabilities" as an excuse. No he makes straight A's in school. He made a perfect score on the state math test last year and did very well in the other subject areas. He is currently being tested for the gifted program at school. This same child dances and acts. (Whoa, the labels that can come from those alone.) He has friends. Yes, he is socially awkward at times. Yes, he has moments of high activity and lack of focus. But he's still a child. He's a ten year old boy. He's our son. None of those other labels matter at the end of the day.

One of the biggest fights we have to conquer first is being more than our labels. Don't let the labels that society places on you define or change who you know yourself as.

My challenge for you: Start seeing the person instead of the label. 

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

We're hoping you'll be seeing a lot more from us this year! We hope that 2014 was as great of a year for you as it was for us! We are starting 2015 off with a BANG on Friday with our wedding, and we can't wait to see what else the year has in store for us! We hope that everyone has a marvelous New Years and that you make the most of 2015!

Share your goals and resolutions for this year with us in the comments below!