The holidays: some dread them, some love them. Regardless of your feelings towards them, they’re almost here! Here’s some tips on how to be prepared.
It's the middle of November… if you’re in the United States, Thanksgiving is on the horizon. The holiday where you can finally get together with family, distant family, not-so-appreciated family, or even just friends.
Your house, or someone’s house, will be full of them. Distant cousins, uncles and aunts, grandparents that you’ve almost forgotten about. They’ll all be there, milling around. Whether it’s your duty to host, to cook, or to simply attend, there WILL be hiccups in your plan.
What will you do when it becomes too much?
The holidays are just packed. Here’s a guide on how not to get overwhelmed.
Table of Contents
Decide if you want to participate
Have a plan ready
Do the minimum first
When the holiday comes and the plans are in motion...
Locate hiding spots
Hang out with the dogs, cats, and other animals
Take frequent breaks
Hang out in the car for a bit
Leave early if you can
Set a time limit
Don't be afraid to speak up for yourself if you need to leave
Have an excuse ready
Have something to stim with
Have allies
Know what bothers you and avoid it as best as you can
Final thoughts
Decide if you want to participate
Perhaps the first question to ask as the holidays approach is this: Do you want to celebrate at all? Some years it may simply be too much, which is good to recognize.
Think: can you handle a big gathering this year?
Do you think you can enjoy your family?
Is it too much to do the holiday thing at all?
Have an honest check-in with yourself about this. This is step 1. If you can’t figure it out in your head, consider talking to someone you trust about it, or journaling about it on a piece of paper. Sometimes getting something down on paper is massively helpful.
I'm a big fan of listing pros and cons to make decisions, personally.
If you decide you can’t this year, respect that. It's important to protect yourself from burnout and overstimulation.
Just let your close family members and friends know that you’re very busy this year with (work, school, other projects) or, simply, that you’re Autistic and overwhelmed this time around.
If you decide that you do want to celebrate, let’s get into what you might want to consider doing.
Have a plan ready
As soon as possible before the actual holiday, you'll need to start preparing yourself for the plan ahead.
First off, who's hosting?
If it's you, you may want to confront what that workload looks like. How many people are you hosting for? What food might they eat?
If it's not you, it might be a good idea to clarify what's expected of you. Will you be bringing a dish, or are you a known terrible chef? Are you just expected to show up?
These are all good questions to ask. For Thanksgiving, I like to clarify in early November what the plan is this year.
If you're hosting and beginning to feel overwhelmed, ask for help! Suggest a potluck format! Thanksgiving isn't worth entering Autistic burnout over.
If others are hosting, offer to help, but don’t overwhelm yourself or allow them to overwhelm you. Before having this conversation it may be a good idea to decide what your exact boundaries are. Can you help with the setup? Take-down? Cooking? It's a good idea to enter that conversation prepared.
Do the minimum first
Depending on what holidays you celebrate, your approaches here may differ.
It could be as simple as preparing for a drive to your hometown.
It could be taking a turkey out of the freezer at the right time for Thanksgiving.
Regardless, identify the minimum and finish that first.
You don't want to overwhelm yourself by searching for "the best gifts" for Christmas. Try buying a simple, straightforward gift or two first. This way Christmas is "done," however you can always add on more gifts later!
Additionally, try buying said gifts throughout the year instead of waiting for the winter season. It will save you SO much stress.
Don’t wait until the last minute for the preparations you need to make, for whichever holiday you celebrate!
When the holiday comes and plans are in motion…
The holiday has arrived! How do you cope?
If you’re gathering at someone else’s house or an event venue, consider arriving early or exactly on-time.
Early has the benefit of being far less stressful. Then you'll have the option of being able to help the host. Though, they may be annoyed by your presence before they expected anyone to be there. Which brings up another good option:
Arrive exactly on-time. Even if you’re early, you can relax in your car for a moment before you walk in. This is a lot less stressful than arriving late.
However, in the alternate scenario where you’re hosting, you should begin preparing FAR earlier than you think you should!
You WILL run out of time if you don’t. You WILL still be cooking while guests arrive and settle in. You may even still be struggling with the beginnings of getting all the dishes together while everyone else is waiting, hungry.
Start early. Thank yourself later. You’ll be able to relax with your guests instead of sweating over the stove.
But how do you manage the actual event– everyone getting together in one place?
Locate hiding spots
This sounds childish, even silly, but I promise it will save your life if you're beginning to feel overwhelmed.
Consider slipping into a room without anyone noticing.
If it's your house, step into your bedroom and lay down on the bed for a moment. People should leave you alone unless you've been gone for long enough that they're beginning to wonder where you are.
If it's not your house, but someone you know rather well such as close family or a close friend, consider slipping into a room anyway. You can enjoy a moment away from the crowd before you step back out again.
If it's neither your house nor someone you know well, there's always the bathroom. Feel free to use it for 10 to 15 minutes-- that's pretty standard and acceptable. People may look at you odd, but that's far better than having a public shutdown.
There's also outdoors. Feel free to say that you need some fresh air, and step out onto the porch, into the garden, or on the front lawn. People may follow you and think it's an invitation, but if you do it multiple times they will stop and think that you smoke.
There's also the option of "going for a walk" around the block or neighborhood for 10-20 minutes or so.
Feel free to not announce it as well. You're an adult-- you go where you please, within the boundaries of acceptability.
Hang out with the dogs, cats, or other animals
It's often a joke among introverts that they spend more time with the pets at parties than with the actual people there. It's known "introvert" behavior to do this, however you can absolutely co-opt it for your Autistic needs.
Why is it common? It's much more fun to hang out with the dog than to just sit on your phone in a corner, getting verbally poked by family or friends every once in awhile. Pets will usually be happy to receive attention, to a limit.
Locate an animal, befriend it, but be careful of not overwhelming it. If it walks away from you, growls, hisses, or otherwise acts out at you, it's time to leave it be.
However this is a good home base to return to if you're unsure what to do.
Take frequent breaks
Allow yourself to pursue what you need. It's not unheard of for someone to need to take a walk at a gathering. It's a little strange, but it's not crazy.
Wander around the house or building, front yard or back yard. Take a walk down the street. Examine the lawn and the flowers. It will help calm you down a lot faster than you think, just to be away from the crowd.
I usually hang out in the garden and enjoy any porch chairs or lawn chairs that have been set out.
Anything goes as long as it's somewhere different, away from the gathering, even just momentarily.
Hang out in the car for a bit
If you drove yourself, the car is always an option. It's a home away from home, a place you can always turn to if you become direly overwhelmed.
There's several options for you to say to retreat to your car:
Say you need to take a phone call
Say you need to go to your car to "get something"
Say nothing, and just let yourself out.
Once you're out, there's so many options for recovery! You can just sit in the driver's seat awhile. You can pretend to be on a phone call. You can recline the driver's seat below the window and hide that way.
You can even lay across the backseat, given that you're small like me!
If you have tinted windows in the backseats, this is a fantastic place to sit and hide for a little while.
However, consider how you would react if one of your group disappeared for a long time. Atfer about 20-30 minutes or so, people will likely come looking for you. Try to limit your time away, out of view of everyone, to about 10 minutes maximum to avoid there being any questions. However, if you're overstimulated and overwhelmed, take all the time you need and just brush off any questions.
Just be prepared for the fact that people might look at you strange if you're a closeted Autistic. If you're out as Autistic, you can simply tell them what's going on.
Leave early if you can
It’s a good idea to ALWAYS drive yourself, or have your own transportation e.g. public transportation, away from family gatherings.
Do not rely on someone else to drive you if you can avoid it. You will be stuck until they want to go, you cannot hang out in their car, and thus have no safe place to retreat to if needed to prevent overstimulation or shutdown.
Having the option to leave whenever you want is critical.
This may be a good reason to secure a rental car if you are visiting family by air travel. You could also establish a trusted family member to drive you who understands your limits. We'll discuss "recruiting allies" later, however setting a time limit is also recommended.
Set a time limit
One thing that could be helpful for you to do, in the interest of making a plan beforehand, is to set a time limit.
Decide you’ll be there 2 hours of the (at least for my family) 5+ hour total get-together.
Tell the hosts in advance that you’ll be there 3 hours maximum. You have the option of either telling them that you'll probably get overwhelmed at around that point, or that you have other plans you NEED to attend to.
You can always stay later or leave earlier, but be realistic with yourself about how long you can typically take these things before you start crumbling.
Don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself if you need to leave
This is a crucial skill for everyone who's Autistic: work on developing your ability to self-advocate.
Recognize your needs, and then communicate them. If they aren't respected, then bypass the person who is blocking you.
For example: recognize that you're approaching overstimulation, realize that you need to leave soon to prevent it from becoming shutdown, then tell the host that you're leaving. If the host insists that you stay, either insist, develop a plan to leave subtly, or just walk out the door!
In the end, you're responsible for making sure your needs are met. It's difficult to advocate for yourself during overstimulation however, which is why it may be a good idea to make a plan in advance.
Have an excuse ready
It's always a good idea, as an Autistic who is masked or not publically "out," to have an excuse ready.
I usually say that I get headaches It's not untrue, I do, but sometimes not at the times I tell people I have one.
Maybe it's known that you work a bad job, and you can say that your boss is bothering you to come in even though it's a holiday.
Maybe you get headaches, stomachaches, whatever bout of spontaneous illness or chronic pain, frequently.
Come up with something well in advance of the get-together. Be prepared to have even more excuses if someone offers solutions, e.g. headache pain pills.
It's much easier to just be honest, but sometimes there are people who aren't quite accepting of our diagnosis.
Have something to stim with
I think it's always a good idea to have something on hand to prevent overstimulation and shutdowns. Myself, I always wear a necklace that's fun to twirl between my fingers.
It can just be a piece of jewelry that's fun to touch, like mine, or it can be something in a pocket, like a worry rock or stim toy.
As long as it's something you can nervously touch and fiddle with, you're fine!
It WILL help stave off the threatening overstimulation that WILL come if you stay in the loud, boisterous, socially demanding environment that a family or friend gathering often is.
If you're out as an Autistic, stim out in the open if you'd like! Who cares? If you're not, something in your pocket or a piece of jewelry may be best. It's commonly accepted that many people fiddle with things, such as their hair.
Have allies
As one of our last pieces of advice, consider identifying people that you know you can rely on to listen to you and advocate for you.
Also, people you're comfortable hanging out with for most of the gathering.
This usually includes:
Close family members
Close friends
Anyone who knows your diagnosis and your needs too
Consider talking with the former two about your diagnosis and your needs, so they will be able to back you up if worst comes to worst and you begin publically shutdowning or meltdowning.
This is important, because there will likely be friends of the family, extended family, or friends of friends at the gathering. There might be a whole host of strangers.
You need to know where your reliable home base is that you can retreat to at any time.
Know what bothers you and avoid it as best as you can
Lastly, in the same vein of self-awareness and self-knowledge, consider trying to figure out what bothers you most about the holidays.
Can't stand Christmas lights blinking? Ask the host to turn off the blinking, or consider sitting somewhere where you can't see them.
It's important that you take care of yourself and your needs as much as you're able. Again, if that means not celebrating at all, then that's what you need.
Final thoughts
Getting through (or enjoying) the holidays while Autistic can be a challenge! I hope this article presented some solutions and tips that may be helpful for you for this winter season!
Got any more suggestions? Let us know in the comments!
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