Staying the night at other people's houses.

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How do you feel about staying the night at other people's houses? It's always been something I've really disliked. As a child I remember I didn't like the fact that I didn't know how things were done at other people's houses and I also disliked the fact that other people often woke up much later than I did, which made me really uncomfortable and worried about getting out of bed if I for example slept at a friend's place (I'm serious, I even worried about getting out of bed to go to the toilet). I was worried about doing things the wrong way, accidentally waking people up etc and I therefore forced myself to stay in bed (even though I was awake, anxious and restless), sometimes for hours, until the friend or whatever woke up. I avoided sleeping anywhere but at home.

It's pretty much still like that for me. I really don't like staying the night at other people's houses. I dislike the fact that I don't know the rules, that I can't perform my normal routines, that I'm sleeping in someone else's bed, that things look and feel and smell different etc.

Right now I'm visiting someone in another city and I have to stay the night. I don't like it. I don't even really want to be here but I have to. Feeling a bit agitated and I'm not sure what the rules are. I don't like not knowing how things work around here. I'll clearly survive and perhaps I'm making too big a deal out of this but I miss my bed. I miss my room. I miss my neatly organized bathroom cabinet. I miss my books. I miss being by myself. I miss my routines. I miss things being the way they should be.

It totally depends on whose house it its. First I have to like the people and be comfortable with them. Then it has to be CLEAN. And third but not least, it has to be QUIET. If I have those three things I am okay. We moved a ton as a kid because of my dad's job so I am used to changing environments and not really bothered by new environments . I do have routines which I am rigid about but that is not one of them. But my husband and I have a tiny RV so we have our accommodations wherever we go which is awesome.

I usually hate staying the night at another person's house. There are some exceptions, but I try to avoid it and prefer staying a few hours instead. I can survive a few hours alright before I start getting drained and exhausted of the social interaction, but having to spend the night is painful. I don't feel comfortable and all the different arrangements of their home make me anxious. I have the anxiety of having to sit at the dinner table with them and their family and having to make mental notes of eye contact and smiles and worry/feel guilty if I am boring them, doing the proper socially acceptable gestures, etc. There's also the fact that I am embarrassed and uncomfortable to do some of my more 'odd' stims in front of others and I start to panic and say I need to use the bathroom just so I may pace for a few moments.

It is truly draining, and I feel completely fake. The forced smiles and awkward tones of voice are all things that I have to force and remind myself to put on so I don't come across as rude. It's not that I hate the people or anything, it's the fact that it's a reminder of how terrible I can be when it comes to social interaction to the point where I need to remind myself to do 'basic' things such as eye contact and the fact that having company for more than an hour or two drains me. It makes me upset that I have to work so hard at this when so many others have it easy.

You aren't alone. Hope everything goes okay.

I also got moved around a lot when I was a kid but unlike skibum I absolutely hated it. I would run away all the time. One time I can remember sleeping all night on a railway embankment and I just used to sleep rough all the time. I was terrified of staying at other peoples houses and having to fit in with their rules and their families.

I still hate it even now, although I don't have the same problems as I did when I was a child.

I never stay at other peoples houses.

I was actually going to start a thread of my own about it but you beat me to it. I don't like staying the night at other people's houses either. I just don't rest or sleep very well in a different place, even if it is a familiar place. It just feels wrong. The environment, the smells and textures are all wrong. I miss sleeping in my own bed with my cats. I like being ensconced in my bedroom with my stuff.

It has taken me years to get my own bed just right. I sleep on a memory foam mattress with 4 layers of padding on top. If I sleep on the wrong kind of mattress, it makes my back hurt. I don't really sleep just take 20 minute naps all night between tossing and turning. I have never liked sleeping in the same bed with another person.

I hate sleeping on sheets that have been washed in regular detergent. I only use plant-based detergent. Regular detergent is made from animal fat and/or petroleum...gross!! !! !! !! !! I hate anything scented with a nasty chemical smell...scented detergent, air fresheners, cleaners. Just being in a another person's house, much less sleeping there, is likely to irritate my lungs.

I can't do it. I get homesick so badly that I literally start sobbing. I can't even go to those sleepaway camps or summer camps anymore because my homesickness is literally so severe. I used to be able to spend the night at my ex-best friends house all the time when I was younger, and at the time never had any problem with it at all either. However, I think as I got older though... my anxiety somehow became worse and worse. Now, I can't even be at a person's house during the day without one of or both of my parents being with me.

I do think with my autism worsening as well, it's been hard for me to deal with changes in my routine or my environment. I have to have my laptop right in front of me when I'm sleeping, so my laptop is on 24/7 because my routine strictly becomes a problem if it's not right there in front of my bed. Even at hotels, I have a portable desk I put my laptop on, and I'll actually sleep with my laptop on the opposite side of me sitting on the bed.

I hate staying at other people's houses too - like other posters, I feel uncomfortable not knowing the rules, and I can't handle the long period of socialising or the feeling that I'm not really free to do as I wish.

I'm fine staying at hotels; it's the personal nature of staying at someone else's place I dislike.

Hope you get through your visit OK, rebbieh.

As long as there's a comfortable, private place to sleep, as well as food, drink, and Internet access, usually I'm good with it. It's when there's a lack of these things, that I take issue with it. The worst is when there's no internet access, and the spot I'm given to sleep is a ratty old couch, or when I'm stuck in the same room with other people. Not being able to use the bathroom or grab a glass of water in the middle of the night is a pain in the ass as well.

Just thinking about it now, my best friend's place is probably one of the worst places to sleep over at, especially when his parents are home.

I don't like sleeping over at other homes. If necessary to stay over night away from home, I prefer a hotel or motel, so my routines won't conflict with those of the people I am visiting. However, it has sometimes been necessary for me to stay overnight with relatives. When I moved up here, my new place needed some work before I could move in, so I stayed with my father and step mom. I also stayed there once or twice when they were away, so I could take care of their extremely old dog while they were away. The dog has now passed away. I also stayed there after treatment for a female bleeding problem, and again several months later, after cancer surgery. The bleeding problem turned out to be a blessing, as the biopsy showed I had cancer, so I had early intervention, which saved my life. This kind of cancer often has little or no symptoms until it's too late.

Because I was recovering from surgery, it wasn't safe for me to stay home alone, or to climb the steps into my place. My parent's place just has one step to get into the front door, and the kitchen and guest bedroom are on that level, so it made sense for me to stay there for a while. It would have been too expensive to stay at a motel for that long a time, and I was on a narcotic pain med for a while, so I really needed someone around to keep an eye on me for a while. I still prefer not sleeping over, though, and I also don't want people sleeping over at my place. There tends to be conflict when I am in prolonged contact with others, as our different ways of doing stuff causes mutual annoyance. I also have IBS, which keeps me in the bathroom a lot, and I only have one bathroom, so sorry, but no sleep over guests here, please.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone.

I just woke up. Survived the night and slept pretty well. However, I think not knowing how things work here in the mornings is what I hate the most. I mean, I'd like to, for example, take a shower but I don't know when it's ok to do that since people are asleep. Things like that. Also, I'm dreading another day of socialising. Seriously, the only reason I'm here is because I want to make another person happy. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike them. They're nice people. It's just difficult being around people all the time. They have a dog though and I think I love her. I met her for the first time yesterday but she really seems to like me and yesterday I honestly wished I could just be alone with the dog. I care more about her than socialising with the people here. Is that weird? I've always wanted a dog and I know that if I had one, it would be my best friend.

Anyway, I guess I'll just sit here in my temporary bedroom for a while. I feel so stressed out (because of being here and other things). I don't like waking up feeling like this.

well I used to go to sleepovers, and its ok as long as I don't really sleep, what would usually happen was that you stayed up most of the night with friends, and by the time I did sleep I was to exhausted to care about being somewhere else, but if I don't get really exhausted like that I hate it, I can never sleep and its really uncomfortable, I remember once I went to a friends who had a loud ticking clock it was literally making my cry, I almost threw it out of the window, did not sleep at all, was amazingly grumpy the next day.

having said that, I can't handle more than one night of friends, by the next morning I am desperate to leave, I am really quite unhappy if I have to stay passed morning.

unexpected rules did not bother me, only because there were not any, the adults left us to it, so we were just doing whatever we wanted, within reason of course.

I don't mind. It's uncomfortable, sometimes very uncomfortable (sleeping on a small sofa), but the only thing that feels better than my bed is going back to my bed after not having it for a day or two. I don't care about waking people up. Once I was at a house where lots of people were staying and some of the geniuses put their airbed right in front of the toilet door which I wanted to use regularly all night. I woke them up every couple of hours lol. Should have thought out their bed placement a bit better no?

When I was a kid I used to try to stay up past the other kids because I was so worried about them doing things to me like writing on my face with markers. I did this to the point of staying up all night if I had to. And I was always up before them. I was never comfortable around parents either because I knew they thought I was weird. Most parents just put up with me so by the time I was in my teens I either acted like what I thought all of the other kids thought I should act like or basically hid in the corner. I often regretted both. I eventually quit going to parties all together unless I was really good friends with the kid or there was alcohol available (when I was older). At the age of 32 I still don't go to parties...

There was one party that I went to as a kid that was supposed to be a sleep over and I ended up leaving after 2 hours because I spent the whole time in the kids bedroom playing Nintendo instead of playing in the living room with the other kids because I was so intimidated and uncomfortable. His mom felt so bad that she let me borrow one of the video games.

Whet comes to sleeping in a bed that's not mine....I usually end up wetting the bed. So I always wear pullups. And I always wake up feeling very disorientated and have anxiety.

I'm okay with staying at other people's houses, as long as they're places I feel safe in, like my grandparents' houses, my aunt's condo, and my mom and stepdad's house. I have to feel completely safe and at ease there in order for the stay to be a success however - this means getting to have alone time, knowing expectations, and having all my coping items with me (i.e., Plushies, MP3 player, Cars blanket, fuzzy socks, my Calico Critters and Susie, my die cast car, etc). Once I was staying at a friend's house (well, not exactly a "friend," more like a girl who rather possessively latched onto me and liked to boss me around) and she insisted that instead of bringing Dory, my favorite stuffed dolphin, to sleep with (I can't sleep without her or my other favorite plushies nearby), I bring a stuffed Zebra she gave me once, and I finally realized about an hour into the sleepover we were having, "I can't do this another night" (this "friend" decided this was to be our Friday night routine) and started crying - I learned early on in childhood that crying was a surefire way to alert everyone around me to how terribly, terribly wrong things were - I told my friend's mom I was missing home and my father was called to come get me. I recall feeling a vague sense of guilt, yet incredible relief once I was back in my bed with all my plushie friends, where I belonged.

Many years later, when I was 20, I stayed with a young woman's house in Brazil, while I was studying abroad in college. She and her mother were incredibly nice and accommodating (one of the first things my hostess told me was, "You don't have to say "sorry" all the time") and I learned the routine pretty quickly - I'd wake up at 8 AM, meet my friend in the kitchen, we'd have breakfast with rolls, butter and chocolate cereal, she'd drive me to the university I was taking study-abroad classes in, etc. I was also allowed to have my coping items - my Cars blanket, fuzzy socks, plushies, etc - that was a big part that made it go so well.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, make sure you bring some comforts from home with you, and if the routines aren't readily apparent, it doesn't hurt to ask, "So, how does X or Y usually work?" or something like that.