🎄How to Survive a Neuromixed* Christmas🎄
How to balance both Neurodivergent and Neurotypical needs at Christmas. (Hint: No surprises please *hums Radiohead tune*.)
* Neuromixed in this context refers to Autistics/Neurodivergents spending Christmas with Neurotypicals, God love ‘em.
It’s Chriiiiiiiiistmaaaaaaaaaas! (I am getting in with this one early so we all have time to prepare for the sensory onslaught festivities!)
The season of out-of-tune carol singing (*covers ears*), twinkling Christmas lights (*covers eyes*), and more new smells and foods in one day than we autistics could ever hope to avoid the rest of the year is upon us! Boo! Yay!
Yes, I know, I sound more like The Grinch than Santa, but I identify with him better. And I would definitely be happier in his minimal outfit during a festive hot flush than all the garb Santa wears.
Neuroaffirming festivities need rules
I am here to provide a safe space for my neurokin to come together with their loved ones, and also to despair at the prospect of yet another year’s festivities. I know, I know - it should be FUN! But if there is one thing this pathological demand avoidance/pervasive drive for autonomy (PDA) autistic doesn’t appreciate, it is being told where, when and how to have fun.
So please, Neurotypicals, if you insist in enjoying this sensorially overloading barrage of glitter (*shudders*), parties (*hides*) and surprises (*please reread subtitle above*), then don’t bother telling me to just smile and have fun. Unless someone is willing to sit with me and have a one-on-one deep conversation (on a topic of my choosing, and with a five minute time limit unless I declare otherwise), it isn’t my idea of fun, so please do not try to engage me in protracted small talk.
I am more flexible than you might think though! If you excuse me whilst I dish up my safe foods and let me eat them without you judging me, I would love for you to dish up your trauma on a metaphorical plate, then we can dissect and analyse it together. Come on, meet me halfway!
Enthusiastic partygoers might be all dressed up in costumes with somewhere to go, but I have been wearing this mask for decades and, during the holiday season, I want to just be alone and unmasked.
A year is a pretty long time. By the time Christmas rolls around again at the end of every year, I have had to repeat the “Hello, I’m fine thanks, how are you?” and “Hello, this is Sam Galloway, do you have anyone available to wash and straighten my hair today please?” social scripts up my sleeves and been belching them out all year.
Now you think I want surprise visitors and and to engage random topics of conversation? Au contraire!
To my dear Neurokin: ride it out - it will be over soon, honestly.
We have all been here before and survived it, right? Let’s not let this Christmas be the one that pushes us over the edge!
Here are my tips for surviving celebrating the Christmas chaos together:
Don’t let the Neurotypicals have all the fun! Multiple-day-long board games, bingeworthy documentary box sets, and rocking in foetal position following an extensive meltdown from sensory overload are all options available to you.
No surprises. Autistic kids should pick their own gifts and not be told to “wait and see”. If they don’t believe in Santa, don’t try to trick them - seriously, autistic people see through lies and once they lose trust in you, it can be irreperable.
How do I say this without sounding like a dick? Don’t buy me anything becasue I won’t buy you anything. Not because I don’t love you, but because shopping makes me feel sick, thinking up present ideas and having the executive functioning to order, hide, wrap them etc. is just too much to bear. But I do love you. Let’s let that be gift enough, okay? 💕
Forget Christmas card lists. Send a text. See my previous point. I will not go to the post office for anyone. Especially at Christmas. Nope.
Watch your favourite boxsets/Netflix series. Lean into those shows you can already recite verbatim. They are life-preserving. Sharing is not caring. Let the Neurotypicals watch new TV shows and movies on the sofa while you retreat into a
cavebedroom and regulate.Get out. Alone. Run, while you can. Just go! There is just something about the magic of Christmas that brings out the biggest meltdowns in me. They only seem to happen when I am with other people. Perhaps this year I will follow my own advice and get away while I feel a meltdown building up and instead go for a
runwalkcoffee, andmeditatecry inthe mallmy car.Safe foods. Chicken nuggets. Chips. Chocolate. Oh does everyone else want to try something different this year? Go ahead, but I will stick to my usual routine and food choices thanks while the world
burnscelebrates around me. Autistics: Stock up on yours and your kids’ safe foods. If you run out, or the neurotypicals eat them all,asktext them and request them to kindly go to replace them. Ain’t no way you and I want to go to the supermarket at Christmas!Take your meds. Seriously. If you are going away, or you have family staying, if anything out of the ordinary at all is planned, set reminders in your phone and keep your meds in your car’s glove compartment, your handbag, or your pocket. Whilst you are at it, carry your sunglasses, noise cancelling headphones and a snack at all times. You never know when you might need to initiate a shutdown in order to divert a meltdown. You know you would rather they judge you as a moody bitch than a melodramatic crazy bitch. Unless they don’t judge you? I hope they don’t judge you xx
Sensory regulation - noise cancelling headphones, turn the Christmas lights off, open the windows, sit in a quiet part of the house, rocking chairs, playground swings, fidget spinners, toy trains, an iPad, weighted blankets, snacks, ice cubes, electric cooling fans, electric heated lap pads etc. You are co-regulating your kids while everything around them is busy dysregulating them, therefore you need more bandwidth and support than ever! Whatever you need, have it on hand. You are never too old to request and require reasonable accommodations.
Hang out with your pets, you know they talk more sense than anyone else! Sing to them, we both know you will anyway! They are sooo regulating. Walk them, brush them, stroke them. Pretend they are sick and take them to the emergency vet if you really need a break. Nobody needs to know. I’m not going to tell. 😉
Stick to your usual schedule if at all possible. (I’ve said it once before but it bears repeating.)
Take breaks from people and chores. (I’ve also said this once before but it bears repeating.)
Sleep and rest. Daytime, night time. Any time. It is all so over stimulating, so close your eyes and give yourself a proper break at every given opportunity. (Autistic perimenopausal people with hormonal insomniac tendencies who cosleep with their nine year old sleep-resistant hyperactive son should pay particular attention to this tip.**)
Yoga nidras are a fantastic perimenopausal tool, providing a good reason to lie down and still feel like you are doing something worthwhile (hussle, peeps). I find them easier than just trying to meditate or do mindful breathwork. Kate Codrington is a fantastic menopause author and podcaster, and has a webpage filled with free yoga nidras and other helpful resources. Her 12 minute long ‘Christmas Star Yoga Nidra’ recording is lush, as are all the others, and you can find them all here. ✨
** Author’s note to self.
Please share in the comments how you surivive this season as an autistic/neurodivergent adult.
What recommendations do you have for autistic peopling and parenting in the holidays?
I would appreciate your advice, fellow experts! 💕 ✍🏽
Resources:
I was going to gather some Christmas survival guides to share here, but the UK’s National Autistic Society (NAS) have already done the job! They have a fantastic list of websites and resources right here!
This full article on How to Survive Christmas – A Guide for Autistic Adults and Parents of Autistic Children blogpost by Professor Tony Attwood and Dr Michelle Garnett is worth a read, but here is the summary:
Podcast episodes
Great podcast episode with two autistic adult presenters discussing food, sensory issues and, for the sake of sharing with you here and now, “We finish with tips for how to do Christmas in a helpful way for the autistic person in your life.”
Five fantastic tips from this AuDHD YouTuber on coping autistically through Christmas!
Really recommend this podcast show and accompanying book. This episode includes Kristy Forbes, the Aussie PDA autistic neurodiversity advisor and educator! *fan girl flaps and swoons!*
Community chat thread
Please join my fantastic Auti Peri community and I here in the chat thread if you need to vent spread joy during the festive season or, indeed, at any time!
Thanks for reading!
Wishing You and Yours a Very MERRY AUTI PERI CHRISTMAS!! 🎄💕
"Hang out with your pets, you know they talk more sense than anyone else!" Ha!! Thanks for the laughs! My Christmas has shrunk so much over the years, so *escaping* is easier now 😉 But- I remember the early years, and it was not pretty. I've written about that time-out this week...
Thank you for this! Last Christmas I (didn’t give you my heart, but instead) was feeling this sense of regret that we weren’t spending it with my family in Germany. For clarity - we’ve never spent it there since we had kids 7 years ago, so it’s not that we weren’t following traditions, but I got this sense that my parents are getting older and that I want my kids to experience a German Christmas at least once. So I promised to myself we’ll spend it there this year. Now what has been happening over the past 12 months is this great unraveling of both myself and my son as ND humans, we are both likely AuDHD. And while I’m on one hand absolutely dreading the extra drama and demands that spending it abroad with my family will bring (neither my husband nor my kids speak German so I’ll spend a fair amount of it translating back and forth), and as my family back home neither know or would understand what these ND things might mean, I feel this strange sense of wanting to “come home” and heal some of the wounds badly band-aided in my own childhood and adolescence. Is Christmas a great time to reveal that I think I’m AuDHD (and most likely also perimenopausal, but again they wouldn’t understand that either)? Probably not. And yet there’s a part of me looking forward to it. It might all be an almighty car crash but I’m sure it’ll be one we can each talk to our friends at length about for sheer entertainment. 🫣