Although the holidays can feel like a pleasurable time for joining with family and loved ones, this is certainly not true for everyone. For many people, the holidays aren’t associated with pleasant family memories or connection. Instead, the holiday season can feel painful, isolating, and stressful for people who were mistreated growing up and don’t have a family they can reach out to that will provide them with warmth, care, and safety. They may also feel separate and atypical as they see the holiday decorations, parties, gatherings, and smiling faces, and learn of people’s holiday plans.

If you identify with this, you’re definitely not alone. Research reveals that 25 percent of all children face abuse and/or neglect. We’re talking about one person out of every four—that’s a lot of people. Because clarity matters, what does abuse and neglect involve? Abuse includes physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse, and neglect involves physical neglect and emotional neglect.

In addition to having to endure a family member being abusive and/or neglectful, the pain from this kind of mistreatment often lives on as children grow into adults. For example, estimates suggest that abuse and neglect may lead to depression and anxiety for roughly 59 percent of all people around the world. An additional layer of pain is negative, stigmatizing, blaming, branding, othering communication. Where do these harmful (and very false) messages come from? They can come from varied sources, such as the abuser, people who rationalize maltreatment, other individuals in the survivor’s life (e.g., a........

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