Dec. 2--Being cooped up from the cold can cause heated arguments inside -- and seasonal stressors can fray festive nerves.
Law enforcement has traditionally responded to more domestic and assault calls during the holiday season. Time off from work, kids off from school, financial obligations for gifts and travel and too much family togetherness can cause stress that may mask an underlying increase in depression, alcohol and substance abuse, suicide and domestic violence.
"A lot of people have time off during the holidays. Maybe just having more time off with people who annoy us makes us irritable and more prone to domestic violence," said Dr. Shirley Taylor, a psychologist with Heartland Counseling Service.
There is a lot about the holidays that can bring on depression, Ms. Taylor said -- and stress is one thing.
Carol Cummings, an advocate with the Buchanan County Sheriff's Department assigned to assist victims of domestic abuse in Buchanan County, noticed a spike in domestic calls earlier this year. In May, after a flood to many homes in St. Joseph, she noted an increased number of calls to support victims.
"Everybody was under a lot of stress," said Ms. Cummings, who also is a supervisor with the St. Joseph Police Department. "I couldn't see anything else that affected it except for that."
She says domestic incidents spike at any high-stress time, like during tax season, natural disasters and the holidays -- which Kim Carroll, YWCA victim services director, said is a time that abusers use power control over their victims.
"Often the tactic is that they isolate them from their families," she said. "In my experience talking with victims, people sometimes will put up with things if it's not super, super bad -- to try not to ruin the holidays for their children."
In years past, the shelter saw a rush of victims move out immediately before Christmas -- often for their children's sake.
Alcohol and domestic violence are often partners to one another, Ms. Taylor said -- and compound holiday stress.
"Some people just turn to alcohol -- that is just their coping mechanism," she said. "I don't know if it increases over the holidays, but like they say, St. Patrick's Day is 'amateurs' day' for the holidays."
Ms. Carroll is quick to point out that alcohol or stress doesn't directly contribute to domestic violence.
"I think the decision to use violence in your relationship is a choice -- I hate to put it on drugs and alcohol or stress."
Expectations about holiday events, often based on unrealistic portrayals of healthy, affluent families from television and advertisements, also can fuel anxieties during the season, Ms. Taylor said.
"It is the disconnect between what we have idealized and what are realities ... the bigger the distance, the greater the stress," she said.
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