By Roger Hughes | EMDR Therapist & Trauma-Informed Coach
24th December 2025
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Charles Dickens didn’t write A Christmas Carol as a cosy fireside yarn. He wrote it as a psychological case study… with ghosts. At the centre of it all is one man with a shut-down nervous system and a lifetime of unprocessed loss. If Dickens had access to fMRI scanners, you can bet there’d have been a graph, a glowing brain scan and at least one ghost holding a clipboard like a particularly judgmental clinical supervisor. Here’s the twist: Scrooge isn’t evil. He’s defended. Not heartless, just armoured. Not “just grumpy”, he’s organised his whole life around never feeling that original pain again. Human Resources might call him “not a team player.” A therapist would say, “Tell me more about how long you had to stay in that meeting.” Dickens knew something that modern neuroscience now politely confirms: if you don’t process what happened to you, it doesn’t vanish. It transforms. It becomes symptoms, reactions, shut-downs, and a tone of voice you don’t even like. It becomes your Ghost of Christmas Past, and Christmas is when it loves to visit. Of course it does. Everyone’s trapped in the same house, wearing paper crowns and pretending this is fun.
The Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t just a Victorian character. It’s real. It shows up every December, uninvited. Not with rattling chains, but as silence around the table, an old ache in your chest, or that sudden urge to go numb or “just keep the peace.” It doesn’t wear chains. It wears childhood memories, first griefs, and unmet needs. For many people, Christmas isn’t a holiday. It’s an annual exam your nervous system never revised for, and nobody told you what was on the paper. Some people deck halls; others quietly brace for impact. Certain smells, songs, or voices pull the trigger on implicit memory, not because you’re weak or dramatic, but because your body remembers what your mind tried to file away. Trauma doesn’t knock. It strolls in through the back door, heads to the kitchen, and helps itself to the leftovers.
This time of year exposes old circuitry: people-pleasing on autopilot, emotional shutdown disguised as “I’m just tired,” over-functioning that looks capable but feels like drowning, vanishing acts where you’re physically present but mentally clocked out. What looks like “being difficult” is sometimes a fight response that never had anywhere else to go. What looks like “not coping with Christmas” is often your nervous system quietly screaming: we’ve been here before, and it didn’t go well. From the outside, it might look like “moody” or “awkward.” From the inside, it’s more like “mayday” than “Merry Christmas.”
Add gender conditioning into the mix, and the patterns sharpen. Men often disappear into themselves: phone, TV, washing up, “taking the bins out”, anything to avoid the emotional minefield. Women are trained to carry the room, smooth over tension, and keep everyone happy… often at the expense of their own comfort. The Ghost doesn’t care how old you are now, it just tracks where the blueprint lives. Your birth certificate may say “adult,” but your nervous system is delighted to reduce you to age nine in about three seconds flat.
If you’ve read the first two pieces, “Christmas Isn’t a Holiday, It’s a Nervous System Test” and “Relief-Seeking vs Regulation: Why Christmas Wears You Out”, then you’re already familiar with how Christmas stacks pressure: money, expectations, unspoken family rules, and grief in a paper hat. You saw how most of us chase relief scrolling, snacking, drinking, saying yes to avoid conflict, instead of choosing regulation.
Part Three is where the Ghost steps forward, and we ask: where did all this begin, and how do we stop repeating it?
The holidays are a playground of triggers for the autonomic nervous system. None of this goes through logic first. Your system scans for safety cues: tone of voice, facial expression, body posture, noise levels, and emotional climate. If it senses a threat, real or remembered, it acts. No email first, no polite knock. Just action. It might speed up into a fight. It might bolt into flight. It might go flat and freeze. Or it might do what trauma researchers call fawn, relentlessly helpful, agreeable, self-erasing. And then, to make it even more festive, you feel guilty about the thing your nervous system did to keep you safe. Merry Christmas: here’s your threat response with a side of shame. Your body doesn’t tag memories with “don’t worry, that was 35 years ago, we’re fine now.” If the smell, the sound, or the emotional tension matches an old template, it reacts as if it’s happening now. The timeline collapses. You’re at this year’s table with last decade’s heart rate. You’re not overreacting. You’re over-remembering.
Christmas awakens long-standing family roles: the fixer, the clown, the invisible one, the responsible one, the crisis magnet. These roles formed around attachment wounds and unspoken rules: don’t upset Dad; don’t burden Mum; don’t be a problem. Christmas calls the cast to the stage. The fixer burns out in the kitchen. The clown cracks jokes that land 40% of the time. The invisible one “just nips out for some air” and never quite comes back. The responsible one keeps everyone from literal and metaphorical fires. None of this is random, it’s nervous system logic.
Men are taught vulnerability is a liability (“Don’t cry; handle it”), so they dissociate, get snappy, or hyper-focus on logistics, e.g., being the hero of the gravy. Women often absorb everyone else’s emotions, over-function, apologise unnecessarily, and manage the room’s emotional weather while collapsing inside. From the outside, it looks like he doesn’t care, and she’s overreacting. Inside, it’s two nervous systems doing their best not to fall apart.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) gives us a way to see why Christmas makes us feel out of character. You have parts: the hurt child, the protector, and the core Self that can actually handle life. But in December, the protectors grab the reins. The 10-year-old who learned not to speak up is now steering the conversation. The peacekeeping child is running the holiday logistics while your adult self whispers, “I just wanted a quiet cuppa and a nap.” You’re not losing your mind; a younger part of you is driving the sleigh.
If the Ghost of Christmas Past wore a costume, it would be one saggy cardigan, one lukewarm mug of tea, and a faint smell of overcooked sprouts and unresolved resentment. It shows up right on time, stands in the doorway, and says: “You again? You knew this would end in awkwardness.”
You automatically sit in the same chair you did as a teenager. Someone starts an argument about gravy, Wi-Fi, or whose turn it is to do the dishes, but it’s never actually about those things. The post-lunch walk becomes a temporary prison break. From the outside: “fresh air.” Inside: “signal boost: EXIT.” You’re not mad. You’re traumatised. You’re not lazy, you’re exhausted from the same emotional war every December with tinsel on the battlefield.
Ghosts don’t disappear because you ignore them. They vanish when you integrate what they’re showing you. Therapies like EMDR don’t delete memories, they help your nervous system finish what it couldn’t finish at the time. If, as a child, you had no power to leave the room, set a boundary, or ask for comfort, that memory can stay stuck in emergency mode. EMDR allows your brain to re-file the experience with the adult you present, with insight, safety, and choice. The aim isn’t to make you love Christmas. It’s to let your body believe you have choices now. Less: “I must survive this script.” More: “I decide what I will and won’t do this year.”
In everyday terms, regulation looks like naming what’s happening: “My heart’s racing; my body thinks I’m back there.” It looks like giving yourself micro-exits: stepping outside, breathing, grounding. It looks like sensation work: feeling feet on the floor, holding something cold, bringing yourself back here, now. And it looks like smaller truth-moves: “I’m going to head off early.” “I’m not discussing that.” “No, thanks.” These aren’t dramatic rebellions. They’re acts of nervous system loyalty. You’re not rejecting your family, you’re refusing to abandon yourself again for one afternoon. From the outside, it might not look heroic. Internally? That’s like finally putting on your oxygen mask before helping anyone else.
You’re not falling apart this Christmas. You’re responding accurately to old threats that your body has learned to recognise. If this time of year feels heavier than “it should,” believe that weight. Don’t cover it with guilt and glitter. The Ghost of Christmas Past doesn’t show up because you’re failing. It shows up because there is something in you that wants to be seen, heard, and finished properly.
The first article is the test. The second is the pattern. This one names the ghost. And the real gift this year isn’t presents. Its presence. A presence that says: “I know what this has cost me.” I know where some of this started. I’m not willing to repeat it on autopilot anymore. The ghost only has power while you pretend it’s not there. The moment you say: I see you. I know why you’re here. I’m not twelve anymore. I get to choose what happens next, something shifts. The loop loosens. The room feels different, even if nobody else has changed. The turkey might still be dry, but you’re not.
You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re right where your nervous system needs you to be to start doing this differently. Maybe this is the year you don’t perform Christmas. You feel it. You don’t fix everyone. You stay with yourself. You don’t just keep the peace, you keep your peace because ghosts can’t follow you into regulation.
Maybe this year, the ghost doesn’t get the last word. Maybe your body does. Maybe you do. Beneath the rituals, performances, and social scripts of Christmas, most of us carry something older. Not just memory, but meaning. Not just stress, but story. And if the season feels harder than it looks on the surface, there’s usually a reason. Often a lifetime’s worth.
You’re not weak for feeling it. You’re not broken for bracing against it. You’re just human, with a nervous system shaped by what it’s had to survive.
Over the last three posts, we’ve talked about how Christmas sharpens the emotional edges: scarcity, nervous-system shutdown, the pull toward relief instead of regulation. We’ve looked at what happens when we sit down at a table full of ghosts, memories, patterns, and versions of ourselves we thought we’d outgrown. And we’ve named the weight of expectations that so many of us silently carry through the holidays.
But if there’s a moral to this series, it’s this: you’re allowed to stop betraying yourself for the sake of tradition. You don’t owe anyone a performance. You don’t owe the past a repetition. And you’re not required to recreate someone else’s version of connection at the cost of your own stability. You are allowed to rewrite the script. Even quietly. Even alone.
That might mean saying no to a dinner you’ve always attended, or pulling back from dynamics that leave you drained. It might mean leaving early, switching your phone off, choosing a walk over a gathering. It might mean letting yourself feel what you feel, without needing to tidy it up for other people’s comfort. It might mean doing less. Resting more. Breaking the cycle.
And yes, it might be noticed. Some people might not understand. That’s okay. You’re not here to be understood by everyone; you’re here to be congruent with yourself. Especially now.
If this season stirs things up, you’re not alone. If old wounds reopen, it doesn’t mean you’ve gone backwards. It means you’re ready to heal more deeply. That’s what this time of year can do, bring things to the surface that are asking to be met, not managed.
So this Christmas, whatever you experience, whether it’s glittering or quiet, joyful or dull, know this: you don’t have to conform to anyone else’s version of peace. You only need to honour your own.
That might be the real spirit of Christmas: not performance, but presence. Not fixing, but feeling. Not sparkle, but steadiness. And sometimes, not giving more, but finally giving back to yourself.
You’ve made it through the year. You’re allowed to exhale now. From my nervous system to yours, warm wishes for however you need to spend these next few days. No pressure. No perfection. Just truth, rest, and whatever gentleness you can find.
Merry Christmas.
References
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Internal Family Systems Model – Wikipedia
What You Need to Know About Internal Family Systems Therapy | Psychology Today United Kingdom
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing – Wikipedia
Post-traumatic stress disorder – Wikipedia
What is Polyvagal Theory? | Polyvagal Institute
Polyvagal-Informed EMDR Therapy – EMDR International Association
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