 'Tis the season for holiday gatherings....and maybe increased stress, too? The holiday season can feel like a stressful time for many managing food allergy and allergic conditions. The safe food preparation and planning. The logistics of ensuring your child doesn't eat foods that aren't safe. The potentially not-so-supportive and stressful conversations with family members who just don't get it? My hope is that all of you have incredibly supportive and understanding families, who are willing to make safe adjustments to recipes and navigate inclusion without skipping a beat! But the reality is that even in supportive families, there still may be tough conversations about the management of food allergies and allergic conditions. Therefore, here are practical tips for navigating (3) tense allergy-related discussions at (or while preparing for) holiday family gatherings:  "Can't you (or your child) just have a little bite? I'm sure it will be fine!" Especially true for older generations, your family members may not be well-versed in IgE-mediated food allergies and allergic conditions if they don't live with them. And while comments like this can be frustrating, it's helpful to remember that in most cases, the comment comes from a place of love. Use these practical approaches to navigate this scenario in a workable way:
 "I recently read about (insert treatment or trial) and that it can cure allergies! Why aren't you doing that?" With so many clickbait headlines circulating online, your well-intentioned family members may ask if you know the latest food allergy news they recently read about. Again, this is most likely coming from a place of love, but it's easy to experience this as judgement on how you're managing your allergy. Additionally, the information they share may not be accurate or understood accurately. Use these practical approaches to navigate this scenario in a workable way:
 Your family, your in-laws, or partner's family just don't get allergies, which causes friction - and the possibility of not attending This may be one of the more likely scenarios people navigate during holiday gatherings. Whatever the specifics are in your situation, it can be frustrating and exhausting to deal with this, especially if this is the experience for every holiday gathering. As referenced in this FAC blog post on this topic, here are practical approaches to navigate this scenario in a workable way:
 Final Thoughts.... Remember that whatever the stressful conversation topics may be, you have choices. You don't have to discuss things you don't want to. You don't have to justify your allergy management protocols. You can choose to kindly, but firmly change topics! Prepare some canned responses before the family gathering, and try your best to stay connected to the reason for the holiday season over the next couple of months! want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails! And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
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[This is one of those articles that may stir up feelings of anxiety. But remember - anxiety isn't the bad guy (even though it makes us feel uncomfortable) - and it can actually push us towards meaningful change. So harness any anxious feelings you may feel as you read this, and focus on exploring why they're there and how the information presented may help you create a more workable approach to anxiety]. Scrolling through allergy social media accounts, you may have come across posts with the following kinds of messages:
 [Image Source: AmberMB on Pixabay] Do these messages raise your anxiety levels? Do they flip on the pressure to be perfect? Or make you want to curl up in a ball and hide (so you don't have to deal with the possibilities of making mistakes)? These are normal emotional responses to those kind of statements. While messages with these themes mean well - encouraging people to exercise caution and take food allergies seriously - the reality is that they may do more harm than good. Let's explore (3) reasons why these fear-based messages may not be the best approach to relaying the seriousness of food allergies, particularly within the food allergy community itself. 1. They Can Lead To Excessive Anxiety & WorryIncreased anxiety has already been noted, but let's expand on the potential "allergy anxiety domino effect" that fear-based allergy messaging may give way to. Excessive anxiety and worry can lead to avoidance of experiences in order to seek safety. Avoidance of experiences can then lead to even more anxiety due to a lack of confidence in one's ability to manage their allergy without avoiding things. This then reinforces the narrative that life with food allergies is too scary to navigate. And, you guessed it - that tends to translate to even more avoidance. Experiencing some anxiety can actually be useful, often motivating us towards action and change. However, when it becomes excessive, our stress levels rise and our confidence in our ability to manage situations decreases. This is when we tend to feel scared, stuck, and without any control or impact on situations and their outcomes. Therefore, when messages use extreme language and themes, they're likely overshooting their target, leading readers to feel less empowered and more trapped by allergy fears. 2. They Can Lead To Setting Unrealistic ExpectationsSimply put, no one is perfect! That means that mistakes WILL happen. I know that's a scary thought when managing life-threatening food allergies, but it's a thought that is better addressed than avoided. With that said, not every mistake leads to a reaction or anaphylaxis, and that's an important thing to remind yourself. When messages lead us to believe that every mistake ends in catastrophe, our brain interprets that as a threat - we must keep ourselves and/or our child from having an allergic reaction at all costs (including costs to our own well-being). This then triggers a feeling of panic and fight/flight/freeze response. And understandably, that primes us to seek safety by creating an unrealistic safety bubble for fear of making mistakes. That's why fear-based messaging does more harm than good. When we're in fight/flight/freeze mode, our focus is safety, not learning to live with food allergies. If we stay in that mode, we will expect ourselves (and others) to be perfect, never making a mistake - telling ourselves that this an achievable goal. And if a reaction does happen, we may then deal with intense guilt that is fed by this unachievable goal. Yes, our overall goal is to prevent reactions, but it's unhelpful to believe that this is achieved through perfection. It's more useful to accept that there will likely be mistakes - maybe even made by ourselves - and focus on learning how to navigate reactions, should they happen. 3. They Can Lead To Overparenting BehaviorsWhile parenting a food allergic child does require additional stressors that non-allergy parents don't deal with, it's still possible to overparent an allergic child. Overparenting is paved with good intentions, but can result in a child experiencing increased anxiety, inadequate life skills, and a lack of resilience. There's data exploring how maternal distress is an identified risk factor for psychosocial difficulties in youth with food allergy, and restrictive parenting practices can lead to poorer health-related quality of life in this population. And even with allergic children, parents' goals are still to work themselves out of a job. This means that allergy parents should focus on helping themselves grow through each stage of an allergic child's development in order to raise a self-sufficient allergic young adult. Connecting this with the first two points, fear-based messaging tends to lead to the exact opposite by opening the door to excessive anxiety, which then sets the stage for avoidance of experiences, aiming for unrealistic perfection, and overparenting children in order to achieve safety - none of which is helpful. So then how can people express the seriousness of food allergies with less fear-based messaging? Below are (2) helpful tips for developing messages that evoke action and empowerment rather than paralyzing worry and fear: Focus The Message on Building Confidence:
Strike a Balance Within The Message:
Tips For Navigating Fear-Based Messages:If you haven't already, you'll likely come across fear-based allergy messaging online, because, let's face it - food allergies can feel scary! But don't let these kinds of narratives have the power to make you feel inadequate about how you're navigating life with allergies. Here are helpful reminders as you come across fear-based messaging:
[It's important to note that if you and/or your child has experienced an allergic reaction, it may feel harder to disengage from these fear-based messages. Monitor how you're coping after reactions, and if you find it hard to regain daily functioning, discuss this with your allergist and consider reaching out for therapeutic support]. Remember, support is there if you need it! Don't forget to check out the Food Allergy Counselor Directory, the Exploring Food Allergy Families podcast, the Food Allergy Behavioral Health Resource section, and the allergy-specific therapeutic worksheets. And if you're an allergy-informed therapy provider, then visit the Provider page! Don't be shy - reach out and say hi! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this post and other FAC content.  This content was originally shared via The Food Allergy Counselor Corner weekly email series. If you'd like more allergy life, mindset, and stress/anxiety management tips such as this, be sure to sign up to get them sent right to your inbox! And the new Allergy Counseling Zone emails will be starting in August, which are especially helpful for therapy providers and behavioral healthcare clinicians. Do any of these statements resonate with you? Or maybe they remind you of similar thoughts you've had before: "This wasn't how I expected parenting to be!" "I miss how life was before this diagnosis!" "If I could just stop being sad about these allergies, I would be fine!" The statements above signal that someone may be experiencing grief, or an intense emotional experience triggered by loss. While we typically associate grief with the loss of a loved one, the reality is that grief can show up after experiencing a variety of types of losses, including when the reality isn't what we expected or hoped for. When it comes to life with food allergies and/or allergic conditions, these are common losses that can give way to feelings of grief:
Sometimes the grief we feel after receiving an allergy diagnosis can feel like we're trapped in quicksand - the more we try to break free and leave it behind, the deeper we sink. And that grief can intensify and take hold again if we experience an allergic reaction or flare ups of our allergic conditions. We're then left to wonder how (and if) we can get our grief to go away, and if we'll ever be able to break free from the grief cycle. Here's where I'm going to introduce an alternative approach for navigating grief besides the familiar Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief.  Image source: WhatsYourGrief.com The "Growing Around Grief" model, developed Dr. Lois Tonkin is based on acceptance and growth. It challenges the common thought that grief needs to shrink with time and go away in order for us to move forward. Instead, the Growing Around Grief model tells us that:
Instead, we can honor this very normal response to a life-impacting change, hold it kindly, giving it the space it needs, and remind ourselves that we can learn to have a full, meaningful life even with grief still present. And how do we get ourselves there? We start by just putting one foot in front of the other each day. Literally - one step at a time - that's movement! Here's another illustration of this model. You can see that as time moves on, the grief size stays the same, but the space around it (the flower pot, which represents life) grows.  Image source: Cruse.org.uk Applied to allergy life, it might look like this:  Image credit: The Food Allergy Counselor, Inc. What if you DON'T experience grief after receiving a food allergy or allergic disease diagnosis? That's okay, too! The allergy diagnosis isn't a one-size-fits all experience, nor is the entire allergy journey. Some may not initially feel grief, and instead, feel relieved to have a diagnosis that explains what they've been dealing with. Others may feel grief hit them like a ton of bricks at the time of diagnosis. Some may experience grief at other points in life, such as when there are additional life changes. And there are some who navigate this journey without grief! When it comes to emotions, being open to and respecting all of your feelings is helpful. There's no right or wrong way to move through the emotions we may feel when dealing with allergies, so don't put rules or timelines on yours either! The key takeaways on the topic of allergy-related grief:
Remember, support is out there if you need it! Don't forget to check out the Food Allergy Counselor Directory, the Exploring Food Allergy Families podcast, the Food Allergy Behavioral Health Resource section, and the allergy-specific therapeutic worksheets. And if you're an allergy-informed therapy provider, then visit the Provider page! Don't be shy - reach out and say hi! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this post and other FAC content. |
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