How do you handle holidays?

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Joined: 20 Oct 2012
Age: 38
Gender: Female
Posts: 111

02 Nov 2012, 7:25 am

Currently, Christmas is my favorite holiday. It wasn't always because I hate spending so much time with my family; however, my husband and I have two little girls (5 and 3), and it is hard not to get excited when they are. And holidays with family have gotten so much easier since my cousins and I all started having kids; I don't have to deal with the adult interaction as much. I can play with all the kids and not worry so much. Kids love me, and I like the escape from the rest of the commotion.

Muzey
Blue Jay

Joined: 6 Apr 2012
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 86
Location: Ohio

25 Nov 2012, 8:10 pm

So how has the holidays gone so far this year? Thanksgiving was nice.. I got to bring a friend to my mothers thanksgiving.

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Hopetobe
Pileated woodpecker

Joined: 8 Sep 2012
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25 Nov 2012, 8:12 pm

Definitely Christmas :heart:

BlueMax
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25 Nov 2012, 9:09 pm

I haven't really celebrated a single holiday since I separated... I've given gifts, but I haven't felt happy about the day itself.

Solvejg
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25 Nov 2012, 9:18 pm

None. Nobody remembers my birthday. Christmas i sit at home by myself and even as a child christmas sucked. My parents would make food that i refused to eat due to sensory issues but that doesn't matter because i was a bit dumpy and i needed to lose weight to be cute and skinny like my sister. They had no idea what i liked and never bothered to care so i would be given what they thought i should like because of my sister. There wasn't anything decent on tv either (there was only 3 channels) and so i had to sit there bored all day while i had nothing to do and watch other people stuff their faces with food. I live in a country that doesn't celebrate halloween or thanksgiving so I have no idea if i should like them. Other holidays sucked like easter because my birthday i was never allowed cake due to it being lent.

this christmas may be exciting because i have another aspie mate who lives alone and has no friends in my city and so we will probably get drunk together. woo hoo.

Cash__
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29 Nov 2012, 11:45 pm

I don't like any holidays. They remind me of how inept I am socially.

TonyHoyle
Snowy Owl

Joined: 1 Sep 2012
Age: 55
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02 Dec 2012, 6:37 pm

I kinda hate it.. since losing most contact with my parents it's just me and my wife over Christmas, so the only thing that makes it different to any other day is there's nothing on TV and all the shops are closed.

On top of that, work closes for a week so I can't even go in (I'd even do it unpaid.. anything to get out of the house!).

Then there's new years, where 'everyone' gets party invites. Except the wierdo that nobody really likes, of course. I spent years staying up feeling depressed until I gave up on it.

Birthdays are a funny one. Mine is on an annual holiday that I'd often be around friends.. they never seem to get it right.. either they completely forget it, or they make a big show of having cake etc. which just makes me feel totally guilty as I don't do the same for anyone elses birthday, so I feel bad afterwards. A quick 'happy birthday' would be fine, but it seems to be one extreme or the other.

HairlessAlbinoCat
Sea Gull

Joined: 25 Aug 2011
Age: 35
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Posts: 204

25 Dec 2012, 11:35 am

Samual wrote:

The only holiday i can really think of that i celebrate is Christmas and i dont handle it very well. I get anxious around Christmas because its a social gathering when everyone is expected to be happy and cheerful.
My main worry about Christmas is the gift giving. The anticipation when everyone is sat around the living room passing out presents is very hard for me. I dont want to sound rude but its not even worth going through for the gifts themselves. I worry that i'll get something i dont want and then have to act like im happy. I cant act like im happy, i dont know where the limit is. Am i acting happy enough? Am i acting too happy? Surely everyone can see the uncomfort in my face.
Then theres the Christmas dinner, sitting around a table on chairs with little back support. I always end up having to lie down upstairs for an hour to try and stop my back from hurting so much.
I also find space to be a problem around Christmas time. There are usually inflated numbers of people at our gathering location, so im not very sure about where to sit, etc. Sometimes I'll even sit on the stairs. When i need to get away i'll take a walk in the garden, but then i worry that people are thinking "Why the f**k is he in the garden, the ungrateful bastard".
When i want to go home i have the stress of upsetting people for leaving too early. Especially with my mother, i feel like im some ret*d who cant cope with being around people so i have to go. I dont want to upset my family by leaving but it upsets me to be there. I dont want my family to have to cope with my weird ways. I dont want to not be there when they're having fun, in fact its really hard going home and being alone knowing that i should be back there with them. I just cant cope with all the focus on/around me.

Birthdays used to be really horrible for me but last year i found a great way to improve them. I found that if i buy gifts for others on my birthday, i have a reason to see them other than to pick up presents. If i give out gifts too, its a nice little thing i can focus on instead of worrying about receiving them. Funnily enough this doesnt seem to work for Christmas.

A good trick i've found when at social gatherings is to stay standing. Dont linger too long in any one room/group, so when you leave people wont be too bothered. Just float around and blend into the background of moving people.

Im getting my brother a huge cat climbing frame for Christmas this year, by the way. Im not sure what anyone else wants, though.

This might as well have been written by me, only that we don't exchange gifts so its not the same but the rest wow what you said about standing in parties, I even have a system in which I stay long enough in one place seeming occupied then I go somewhere else and do the same, it is a lot of work but if I do it right people won't notice that I have not blended at all... although in the last holiday party from my uncle to whom I could just not say no because like you I did not want to hurt him and I tried to do the system but it just proofed too uncomfortable for me to be around that many people so I went to sit in the stairs and they found me, later I returned to the stairs but I didn't want to appear awkward just sitting there so I went to the second floor where no one was and sat on a couch until the party was over, that way people would not get uncomfortable by me being so uncomfortable, basically I just took my self out of the equation.

Foxxtale
Toucan
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25 Dec 2012, 11:46 am

Halloween - the only time of year I don't get strange looks for how I dress... PLUS, there's candy.

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HairlessAlbinoCat
Sea Gull

Joined: 25 Aug 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 204

25 Dec 2012, 11:52 am

episette wrote:

I hate Christmas for many reason not the least of which is I am an atheist. My birthday is December 21st and as a child it was always forgotten. I don't like to shop and I don't have money to buy the socially expected gifts so I feel like an outcast. I'm obviously an aspie so I don't like crowds of people and the noise of the holiday either, so Id be very happy if the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years weren't on my calender.

I feel the same about Easter.

I like to cook for others at Thanksgiving but the holiday means very little to me and I prefer not to take part in the big meal. If the weather is nice I go for a short bike ride after the food is on the table, just to get away from people.

I'm not very patriotic so the 4th of July doesn't mean anything to me.

New Years is kind of meaningless because it is arbitrary and I don't drink or watch football.

I'm not a pagan but I do observe a few of the holidays that Fnord mentioned, in my own way.

I also like to cook for other people like that, I wished it was that easy and just take off in a bike ride as they eat. Although over time, things from the difficulty of them, that difficulty that is just not a problem at all for NTs. Well... it has made me want to avoid those things like cooking for other, gift giving and such that basically were my only way to socialise. Now a days I just keep to my self expecting the worse and hoping for the best. Oh and I also feel the same way about holidays.
I know is off topic but I am glad I found you WP guys

Last edited by HairlessAlbinoCat on 25 Dec 2012, 12:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

HairlessAlbinoCat
Sea Gull

Joined: 25 Aug 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 204

25 Dec 2012, 12:27 pm

TonyHoyle wrote:

That last paragraph is exactly why I have been gravitating away from my aunt whom I really really like because she has this certain understanding about me, but she has some financial issues and she and her two sons can barely eat properly and they still manage to invite me to eat whenever they invited me to their house. I mean to eat food that they could be eating, this one time we all ate a tiny equally-sized piece because I was there and even though I live just three blocks away she did not ask me to go eat at my house even though there is plenty of food over here, she still shared to later go to bed hungry her self and her son while I went to my house and satiated the rest of my hunger. I am sorry but that is too much, I just could not bare the fact that I can neither help them nor reciprocate because I am some 23 y/o "f**ktard" that still lives with his parents doesn't even have a job and can barely finish high-school for reasons that aren't even academical.

Murderface
Snowy Owl

Joined: 30 Dec 2012
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 154
Location: Park co Colorado

31 Dec 2012, 8:57 pm

I kinda hate them all. Crowding around the table is not a thing I look forward to. My parents won't accept me for what I am they do love me. I hate shopping all the stupid people that I have to deal with . Not that I have money with 4 blown discs any way. It all seems rather pointless to me. Parties I don't like because of all the people and when I do go when I get to drinking I get brutaly honest. I seem to have the tact of a sledgehammer. It still amazes me that I got married.

Kelspook
Sea Gull

Joined: 6 Jun 2011
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 222
Location: Scotland

21 Jan 2013, 3:21 pm

Halloween is my favourite one, though this Christmas was the best in a long time- since I got diagnosed my family have been pretty understanding and have read up on the condition. So now I go off by myself and watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special in the early evening when it airs on the BBC, and the rellies don't mind. Gives me my decompression time, and stops me getting totally overwhelmed. I'm knackered if they ever stop doing that Christmas special though....

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