Why The Holidays Are Difficult For People With BPD

While the holidays are typically seen as a time for joy and happiness, they can be a difficult period for many people. This is especially true for people with mental health problems like borderline personality disorder (BPD).

As a reminder, the nine symptoms of BPD are:

Managing these symptoms is challenging at the best of times, but the holidays often bring about new problems. Those added challenges are like the straw that broke the camel’s back. You keep adding burdens and eventually, something will give. It’s common for people with BPD to relapse into some of their worst habits over the holiday period and then struggle to pull themselves out of the hole.

In this article, we’ll look at just why the holidays are such a difficult time of the year for many people with BPD as well as some actions you can take to make the holidays a little easier for yourself.

How The Holidays Can Be Hazardous To Borderline Personality Disorder

The holiday period is a time when the weight of expectations is heavy, often crushingly so. You’re expected to spend a great deal of time with your friends and family, and that in itself can be a major cause of many of the problems that the holidays bring for people with BPD.

You Might Also Like:

As we’ve written in the past, many people with BPD have suffered through a traumatic childhood or otherwise don’t necessarily have the best relationship with members of their family. Despite this, you’re still expected to attend Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner and act like a happy family. In the worst of cases, you might even be expected to spend time with someone who actively abused you and pretend it never happened. This can make every family get-together an incredibly traumatic experience.

So, what’s the alternative? You put your foot down and decide not to spend time with your family during the holidays. Suddenly, you’re painted as the “black sheep” of the family, the one who’s put a black mark on a family occasion. Soon you can find yourself feeling isolated from your family and completely alone. This then triggers that familiar fear of abandonment and rejection that plagues so many of us with BPD.

This toxic family dynamic is a large part of why the holidays can be so stressful for people with BPD. However, not everyone with BPD has childhood trauma or a toxic family to contend with. In some cases, it can simply be the struggle that comes with anxiety, particularly social anxiety, that can be the major challenge during the holidays. The pressure of get-togethers with friends and family, work parties, and various meet-ups can take a massive toll on someone with BPD.

The festive period puts a tremendous strain on your routine. The level of disruption this causes can have a big negative impact on those with BPD, even those who’ve recovered. As someone who’s considered recovered from BPD, I keep a fairly strict routine in most facets of my life as I’ve found that to be very beneficial for me. I’m at my best when I can eat, sleep, work, and engage in my hobbies at certain times and in quite particular ways.

But a lot of this all goes by the wayside during the holidays, no matter how considerate people in your life may be. You have to make long road trips to see people, eat at different hours, eat different kinds of food, stay awake later than normal, wake up at an unusual time, don’t have the opportunity to exercise, and more. It can all play havoc on your BPD brain.

There’s also the economic pressure of the holidays to consider. Even in these tough financial times, there is the pressure to buy gifts, travel to see various people, and go to restaurants and bars during the holiday season. Many people with BPD struggle financially and the holidays add to the pressure. Even if you tell your friends and family that you can’t afford to partake in gift exchanges and go out, then you still have that unfair sense of guilt and shame for not being able to participate.

You can be a good person with a kind heart and still say no.

Talking of restaurants, all the food and drink that flows around the holidays can be another major source of stress for people with BPD. Eating disorders and substance abuse disorders are common co-morbidities with BPD, and the temptation to binge eat or have “just one drink” is never greater than over the festive period. One slip-up can lead to a spiral and the feeling like months or maybe even years of good progress has all come undone.

Social media can also be a curse around the holidays. Comparison is the thief of joy and seeing other people’s (idealized) celebrations of the festive season can bring about feelings of jealousy that are hard to quash. “Everyone is having a great time except for me” can be a negative thought pattern that’s hard to shake.

How To Make The Holidays A Little Easier When You Have BPD

No matter what you do, the holidays will never be perfect. Depending on your current situation, the upcoming holiday might not even be good. Knowing and accepting that isn’t easy but it does set a realistic expectation that can help you survive the holidays without the feeling of disappointment. Hopefully, future holidays can be better, but sometimes you need to set your sights on getting through the current period and surviving.

Consider the holidays and what they mean for you. What are the parts of the holidays that you enjoy and what are the parts you don’t like? Are there ways you can focus more on the parts you enjoy and forget about the parts you don’t like? For example, you might enjoy socializing with friends around the holidays but not so much your family. If that’s the case, consider what you can do to spend more time with your friends and less time with your family. There is no law saying you have to celebrate the holidays the way everyone else does. Some people even choose to ignore the holidays as best they can and live their lives as normal. That’s perfectly valid too.

I would recommend at least trying to make the time enjoyable for yourself. Whether that’s spending most of the winter curled up in front of a fire, watching your favorite movies, or plowing through your book pile, there are smaller things you can do to enjoy the holidays that don’t involve an excess of socializing or spending large amounts of money.

Depending on your current living dynamic, it might not always be possible to avoid triggers altogether. You may still live with your family or find yourself unable to avoid certain triggers for a variety of reasons. In those situations, it’s best to consider how you can limit your exposure. Can you find a good excuse or two to avoid people whose company you don’t want to be in?

It’s even better if, rather than excuses, you can practice setting healthy boundaries with people. Learning to say no to overwhelming situations can strengthen relationships and make the holidays go a lot more smoothly. Of course, it takes a receptive friend or family member to respect your boundaries and not everyone responds well to boundaries. This is when it’s best to find ways to limit interactions that could lead to conflict or distress.

Scheduling downtime for yourself throughout the holidays is often vital for people with BPD. We do tend to get easily overwhelmed so downtime is especially important for us. Whether you can schedule one day a week to spend emotionally recharging or even just an hour here and there, make time for yourself. Don’t try to find time, MAKE THE TIME. That means scheduling downtime in the same way you would a meeting with a friend. Write it down and stick to it!

What you do in this downtime is up to you but some useful techniques and practices include meditating, practicing your DBT skills, journaling, getting exercise, or even just taking a nap to get the rest you need.

Having a strong support network can also go a long way to making the holidays more bearable when you’re struggling. Don’t be afraid to lean on trusted friends or family members for emotional backup when you need it. Likewise, therapy can provide a great deal of support during difficult periods like the holidays.

How to make the holidays easier when you have BPD.

Final Thoughts

While the holidays can bring a great deal of joy to many people, they can be a difficult time of year for others, especially those with borderline personality disorder or other mental health issues.

The potential for past trauma to resurface always looms during the holidays and the weight of expectations can become crushing when you have BPD. While it seems like everyone else is having a great time, you can often feel isolated and alone.

Remember, while it might seem like everyone else is having a great time, that’s not always the case. There are plenty of people just going through the motions or having a particularly bad festive period, for a number of reasons. Social media often paints a rosy picture of what everyone is doing over the holidays, yet the internal reality is often much different from the externalized idealization.

Make time for yourself and don’t feel like you owe everyone in your life a chunk of your time just because it’s the holidays. Stretching yourself too thin and snapping is a real risk and one that’s best avoided.

The holidays don’t need to be a disaster. Whether you just want to survive the holidays or thrive through them, there is a path you can take. By emphasizing the parts of the holidays you enjoy and de-emphasizing the parts you don’t like, you can make the holidays into what you want them to be.

Sources, Resources, and Further Reading