There’s a certain ache that wakes up in me every holiday season, an ache that doesn’t belong to the woman I am today, but to the little girl I once was.
She comes back quietly at first.
In the edges of my thoughts.
In the heaviness in my chest.
In the way my body tenses when I hear Christmas music or see houses strung with lights.
And before I even realize what’s happening, I’m no longer the present version of myself.
I’m the little girl who felt abandoned.
The outsider in a foster home that wasn’t mine.
The child who watched other families laugh while wondering if her own mother had food, warmth, or someone, anyone, to sit beside her.
The girl who knew poverty not as an idea, but as a daily reality.
The girl who learned to survive instead of celebrate.
The Holidays Didn’t Just Hurt, They Split Me
There was always a split growing up.
My life in foster care… and my life before it.
Two different worlds, neither of which felt fully mine.
I remember spending every holiday worrying about my mom.
Not about gifts.
Not about dinner.
Not about magic or excitement or memories.
But about her.
Was she warm?
Was she eating?
Was she alone somewhere with a heart full of pain while I sat in someone else’s home pretending to be okay?
I was eight years old carrying the emotional weight of an adult woman.
And that worry imprinted itself so deeply into my nervous system that even now, decades later, it resurfaces the moment the season changes.
The Role I Never Chose, But Couldn’t Escape
In the middle of all this, I also became my brother’s caretaker.
Not by choice.
Not because I was ready.
But because there was no one else.
I was the strong one.
The quiet one.
The child who didn’t ask for anything out of fear of being too much, needing too much, or drawing too much attention.
And even as an adult, before I had my own children, I still felt responsible for my brother, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. That old wound of responsibility lived in me like muscle memory.
I never got to just be a child.
So now, when the holidays roll around, my body remembers the girl who had to be strong instead of soft.
When Childhood Wounds Echo Through Adulthood
Here is the truth trauma survivors often don’t realize:
Your body remembers the holidays differently than your mind does.
This is why, as an adult, I feel:
a mental exhaustion that drains me physically emotions that swing without warning a chaotic mind that feels too loud a heaviness in my spirit a strange longing mixed with sadness the urge to withdraw, rest, or hide
This isn’t a lack of gratitude.
It’s not moodiness.
It’s not being “bad at holidays.”
It’s my childhood speaking.
It’s the part of me that remembers abandonment.
The part that remembers being the outsider.
The part that remembers being hungry, not just for food, but for love.
The part that remembers emotional responsibility far too early.
When these wounds resurface, it isn’t weakness.
It’s familiarity.
It’s your body trying to protect you using the only strategies it knew back then.
Trauma Speaks Through Roles
Trauma survivors often fall back into the childhood roles they once held:
• The caretaker
You worry about everyone else before yourself.
• The strong quiet one
You hide your pain because that’s what kept you safe.
• The one who doesn’t ask for anything
Because needs were ignored, punished, or impossible to meet.
• The outsider
Feeling present but not belonging.
• The kid in survival mode
Always bracing for something to go wrong.
These roles aren’t flaws.
They’re armor.
Armor you put on when you were too young to know you were allowed to rest.
Armor your body still carries into adulthood without asking your permission.
Why Childhood Wounds Resurface
Holidays awaken childhood wounds for three reasons:
1. Emotional Memory
Your brain links the season to the emotional world you grew up in.
2. Sensory Triggers
Lights, smells, songs, they pull you into old emotional states.
3. Role Activation
Being around family or holiday expectations reactivates the versions of you that once kept you safe.
This isn’t regression.
This is trauma memory.
How I Care for My Inner Child Now
The biggest shift in my life wasn’t stopping the triggers, it was learning how to comfort the child inside me who feels them.
Here’s what helps me:
• Prayer
My saving grace. The moment I speak to God, the weight softens.
• Creating new traditions with my children
It heals something deep when I give them what I once longed for.
• Giving myself space to feel
I allow the wave to rise, wash over me, and pass instead of fighting it.
• Resting when I need to
Even if it means convincing my toddler to have quiet time with me.
• Letting my adult self lead
The child in me is allowed to feel. But the woman I am now gets to gently guide her back to safety.
Reflection
What childhood role do I still carry into adulthood? How did the holidays feel for me growing up? Which inner child emotions resurface every December? How is my adult self different from the child who lived through those memories? What is one new tradition I can create to bring healing to that younger version of me?
A Prayer for the Child in Me
God, You see the little kid inside me, the one who remembers the holidays with fear, sadness, longing, and responsibility they should have never carried. Hold them close. Whisper peace to the memories that still sting. Remind them they are no longer abandoned, unseen, or responsible for the weight of others. Help my grown heart lead with gentleness. Help me create warmth where there was once worry. Help me rest in Your love, knowing You rewrite stories and revive broken places. Be near to every wounded part of me this season.
Amen.