Xmas shopping is horrible!

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I just arrived home from possibly the most overwhelming shopping experience I have ever had. I was forced to do xmas shopping, I had no choice. Anyway, here is a recap of what occured...

My neighbour and I drove into the mall car park, parked the car, exited the car and walked towards the mall. Once Inside of the mall, everything seemed twice as bright, twice as loud and was disorientating.
My neighbour decided that shopping in the most biggest, noiseist and unfarmilliar store would be best! [I don't know how she possibly came to that conclusion ] She got a trolley and we both walked towards the book section to chose a book for my mother for xmas. After 10 minutes of me standing there looking at books not knowing what to chose, my neighbour interveined and chose a book she thought that my mother would like. I was not in the mood for waiting around so I said ok, grabbed the book and moved on to the clothing section to chose a gift for my mothers partner.

All of the good tshirts had none in his size. He is a rather big man. I ended up walking around people for about 15 minutes trying to chose this tshirt for him. It was getting so noisey and was disorientated that I couldn't focus so my neighbour chose the shirt and we once again moved on to choose the next gift.

I went to the jewelerry section to look for some nice earings for my nana. My neighbour said that she was going somewhere but only I did not hear her because of all of the other noise and distractions. I chose a pair of earings, bought them and decided that my neighbour might be close by so started to look for her.

After about 10 minutes of walking around a store with increasing crowds, music, crying babies, flashing lights I had enough and sat in a dressing room in the store for 5 or so minutes to try and calm down. After that it took about another 5 minutes to find my neighbour.

We went to the checkout isle and people were behind me bumping their trollies into me and talking endlessly. By the time I had reached the checkout for my turn to pay for everything, I was slurring my speech and not making much sense, although I was trying to say things but words would not come out the way I intended them to come out. Anyway, I paid for my goods, and said to my neighbour..."I need to leave, now".
We left the mall by esculator in which I had to lean on the hand rail or I was sure I was going to either vomit or pass out, which luckely, neither happened.

Finally, back in the car I was at last, on my way home.

Next xmas...I think i will just shop online...

If Xmas shopping is horrible? A family reunion with over 400 Chinese and I am one of the few Caucasians there, so much talking, too much food to choose, so squashed up in a small area, about 1000 meters above Lake Wakatipu on a really steep mountain in the Skyline Restaurant and feeling so out of place is true hell!
I felt like I was going to throw up or pass out too. Neither happened, but I did get very angry and scared and I ran into the foyer to get away from everything. I thought I was going to die!

Try working in a mall during the holiday season. Now that's horrible.

Yikes, I'm sorry you went through that x_x Christmas shopping for aspies doesn't sound like much fun. I don't think I'd be too overwhelmed, but then again I haven't tried going to a mall this Christmas season XD;;

You should have shopped on Amazon. Malls in Holiday time can be scary places for Aspie. My mum did all her shopping (or most of it) on Amazon this year. You should do the same next year.

I do 99% of it on line. I hate shopping normally, but around Christmas it is horrible. I can't imagine that some people thrive on it. The sales, the bustle the chaos. Wow! thank god for the internet!

I hate shopping on busy days; so when I need to shop for Sinterklaas I take some days of and spend one of these days shopping. So I can use the rest of the day to 'recover'.

What a topic.

Everybody said it better than me. Right now where I live it is late afternoon on December 23. If all the stores are closing soon I have only one more day to shop, and I am only doing it for my kids.

yea xmas shopping is hell. I hate shopping sometimes cuz I start to get bad anxiety in big crowds, big crowds scare me & annoy me

That sounds like my christmas shopping experience last year. This year I got smart and just gave my mother some cash and told her to get something for my sister and niece and put my name on it, then I proceeded to make my mother a (mostly decorative) walking stick out of a small tree that we've been meaning to get rid of. Finished my shopping with no effort and had a nice little project to occupy me for most of the day.