How to Survive Mother’s Day When You Have a Toxic Family Situation

If your family situation is not the healthiest, don’t stress yourself out even more by hoping Mother’s Day will be different. Could it be? Sure. Will it be? Probably not.

Accept that your parents, siblings, and whoever else is involved will likely act however they normally do- which means if they are normally chaotic and challenging to be around, they probably will be that way this weekend. 

Acceptance allows you to focus your energy on things that are actually within your control- like how you want to respond when someone says something inappropriate or hurtful.

Next, recognize you have choices

Look, your choices might all suck. But, even when that’s the case, it’s important to remind yourself that you do have choices. 

When you’re a kid growing up in a chaotic environment, you don’t have options. You’re completely dependent on the adults around you. It’s not like you can just get up one day and move into your own apartment. 

When you’re an adult dealing with that same chaotic family dynamic, it’s easy to still feel like you don’t have any autonomy over your decisions. But, as an adult, that’s no longer true. 

You get to choose what you do this weekend. See your family, call them, avoid them altogether- whatever you do, make sure to remind yourself that it’s your decision to make. 

And, if all of your choices suck, choose the one that sucks the least.

Remember, your only goal is to survive the day

Sure, bigger picture, I think you should definitely go deeper and peel back the layers of your family dynamic. You deserve to reflect on how it’s impacted you so you can create an emotionally healthy and happy life for yourself. 

Today is NOT that day. 

Do not challenge yourself to do anything other than survive this weekend. Do not try to repair relationships, be the most enlightened version of yourself, or hold yourself to unrealistically high expectations. 

Simply be honest with yourself about your emotional and physical capacity and how you want to exert it. Have a plan for what you’re going to do if shit hits the fan. A plan that you actually feel good about instead of trying to figure it out in the heat of the moment. You can get back to healing tomorrow.