If Lunar New Year Fills You With Dread About Seeing Your Family, Read This
Every Lunar New Year, I see the same thing happen with the Asian American adults I work with. For some, Lunar New Year means food, red envelopes, and time off work. For you, it might bring a familiar knot in your stomach long before the holiday actually arrives.
It might start with a simple text: “you coming over this year?” Not really a question. More of an assumption. A quiet understanding that you’ll be there, no discussion needed.
Your body starts reacting before you’ve even had a chance to decide how you feel about it.
It’s not because you’re dramatic or ungrateful. It’s because your body remembers how this time of year has gone for you.
If this resonates, keep reading.
You might already recognize some of this:
your stomach drops when you think about going home
you feel tense or on edge before anything has even happened
a single text from family sets your body off
you start rehearsing answers in your head
you feel guilty for dreading it — and guilty for even thinking about not going
part of you just wants to get it over with
If you’re nodding along, you’re not imagining this. The confusion, the heaviness, the guilt — there’s a reason it shows up this time of year.
I work with Asian American adults who are stressed, burnt out, and carrying a lot more than they let on. Without fail, this exact dread shows up every Lunar New Year. After seeing it play out year after year, here’s what I’ve come to understand about why this holiday hits the way it does.
This Dread Isn’t Really About Lunar New Year
I see this pattern every year — not just during Lunar New Year, but anytime you step back into old family roles.
This dread usually isn’t about the holiday itself. It’s about what your body learned to do in your family.
It often has more to do with:
unspoken family rules about keeping the peace
pressure to perform the “good child” role
fear of disappointing or embarrassing your family
old power dynamics where you didn’t have much choice
emotional consequences you learned to anticipate
When Lunar New Year comes around, those lessons get activated automatically.
You don’t choose to feel on edge around family gatherings. Over time, your body learns that these moments come with rules: stay quiet, don’t push back, don’t embarrass anyone, and above all, don’t make things worse. The goal becomes simple: make it through without making things worse.
So when Lunar New Year comes around, your body doesn’t ask questions. It just prepares.
That’s why people often say, “I feel like I’m 12 again.”
Because part of you really does feel that young — the part that learned how to stay safe emotionally when you didn’t have much choice.
What Survival Looks Like as an Adult
These survival responses don’t fade with time. They just change shape.
Over time, these patterns don’t disappear. They get turned inward.
You might notice survival mode showing up like this:
shutting down or going numb during family time
retreating to your room or mentally checking out
throwing yourself into work or staying busy to avoid contact
snapping or getting irritable in ways that don’t feel like you
feeling intense guilt no matter what you choose — going or not going
replaying conversations long after they’re over
feeling exhausted before, during, and after family gatherings
Year after year, this cumulative stress takes a toll. Anxiety creeps in. Depression follows. Exhaustion starts to feel normal.
Eventually, your mind starts looking for an explanation — and without a clear framework, it usually turns inward:
Maybe I’m bad at family.
Maybe I’m too sensitive.
Maybe I’m a bad child.
Maybe my culture is the problem.
Maybe I’m the problem.
Over time, this can turn into internalized shame and, for some, internalized racism — something I often hear clients describe as turning their frustration inward and questioning their worth, culture, or identity instead of the system they were navigating. This isn’t about rejecting culture. It’s about a nervous system that learned pain in that environment without ever having space to make sense of it.
This Is a Learned Survival Response
Once you start seeing this pattern clearly, another question usually follows: what does this say about me?
Here’s the part that matters: this didn’t come out of nowhere.
Your reactions were learned in a specific environment, with specific rules, expectations, and consequences. They helped you cope once.
But survival strategies aren’t meant to be in charge forever.
What worked when you were younger — staying quiet, shrinking, performing, enduring — often becomes the very thing that keeps you stuck now.
And no amount of advice about gratitude, boundaries, or ignoring it works if your nervous system is still preparing for danger.
What Actually Helps
Why insight alone usually isn’t enough
This is where most well‑meaning advice tends to miss the mark.
Understanding the pattern matters. But knowing this intellectually doesn’t automatically change how your body reacts — especially around family.
What actually helps is a mix of very practical shifts and deeper, slower work. Things like:
slowing your body down first, not trying to think your way out of the reaction
noticing the early signs of survival mode (tight chest, racing thoughts, urge to shut down)
pausing the reflex to blame yourself for having the reaction at all
preparing for family contact intentionally, rather than white‑knuckling it or avoiding it entirely
letting mixed feelings exist at the same time — care, anger, guilt, exhaustion — without forcing clarity
learning what actually belongs to you now, versus what you learned to carry as a child
This work isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about understanding why your reactions make sense — and slowly building more room to respond differently.
And it’s also why you might feel stuck after years of reading advice online. Venting can help you feel less alone — but it doesn’t always help you change the pattern.
At a certain point, knowing what helps isn’t the same as being able to do it consistently, especially when old family dynamics are involved. That’s usually where extra support starts to matter.
When Therapy Can Actually Help
What actually helps on your own can take you part of the way. Therapy becomes useful when you notice you keep hitting the same limits — even when you understand the pattern.
When this pattern repeats year after year, therapy becomes less about coping with Lunar New Year and more about undoing the survival responses that keep getting reactivated.
For many Asian American adults, therapy becomes the first place they can talk about these experiences without being labeled ungrateful, dramatic, or disrespectful.
You might consider therapy if:
this dread shows up every year, not just occasionally
family interactions hijack your mood for days or weeks afterward
you replay conversations long after they’re over
guilt or self‑blame feels automatic, even when you’ve done nothing wrong
you keep telling yourself to “just deal with it,” but nothing actually changes
you’re tired of cycling between avoidance and obligation
This work isn’t about:
hating your family
rejecting your culture
It’s about:
understanding what you learned in that system
deciding what you no longer want to carry
The goal isn’t to suddenly feel close or to cut people off entirely.
It’s to help your nervous system recognize that you’re no longer trapped — and that your life doesn’t have to stay organized around survival.
You Don’t Have to Keep Doing This Alone
If this resonates, it’s probably because you’ve been carrying this quietly for a long time.
If Lunar New Year brings up anxiety, anger, guilt, or exhaustion every year, that’s a signal — not a failure.
It’s pointing to something deeper that deserves attention, not more self-criticism.
Working with an Asian American therapist who understands family systems, cultural pressure, anxiety, trauma, and survival patterns can help you untangle this — not by blaming your parents or rejecting your culture, but by helping your nervous system learn something new.
Over time, therapy can help you:
feel less activated and on edge in your body before family gatherings
notice guilt and self‑blame without getting swallowed by it
stay present instead of shutting down or snapping in the moment
respond with more choice, rather than running on old reflexes
feel clearer about what’s actually yours to carry — and what isn’t
If you’re ready to stop letting these patterns quietly shape your life, you don’t have to figure it out on your own.
If you’re an adult feeling stuck in family‑triggered anxiety, burnout, or survival patterns and you’re looking for an Asian American therapist who works with these dynamics, you can schedule a free 15‑minute consultation to see if working together makes sense.
If you’re wondering who’s behind this perspective, here’s a bit about me.
About the Author: Alex Ly, LMFT
Alex Ly is an Asian American therapist and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) based in the Bay Area, offering therapy for Asian American adults who feel stuck in survival mode — especially around family, culture, and identity.
In his work, Alex specializes in helping clients navigate anxiety, burnout, chronic self‑blame, and family‑triggered emotional shutdown. Many of the people he works with are high‑functioning, responsible, and outwardly “doing fine,” but internally feel tense, disconnected, or exhausted from constantly holding it together.
Alex’s approach to therapy is depth‑oriented and trauma‑informed, focusing on how early family dynamics, cultural expectations, and learned survival strategies continue to shape adult relationships and emotional life. Rather than offering quick fixes, his work helps clients slow down, understand their patterns, and build more capacity for choice, self‑trust, and emotional presence over time.
Alex provides private‑pay therapy for Asian American adults and professionals, with options for online therapy in California and in‑person sessions in Fremont, CA. He frequently works with clients seeking an Asian therapist who understands intergenerational family pressure, cultural guilt, anxiety, and the long‑term impact of growing up having to endure rather than express.
