What is it like at the supermarket ?

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The supermarket is the worst place I have to go to

- the faster I can get out of it the better
- if I can get out of it before the fluorescent lights have reduced me to a non-verbal jibbering wreck then I am lucky
- if I can get out of it before the rows of things DEMANDING that I look at them have managed to make me have so much vertigo I want to throw up, then its a good day

As far as I'm concerned, they are DESIGNED to f... you up, so you get disorientated and BUY MORE STUFF you never needed.

There are some aspects of supermarkets that I find exciting. There are so many delicious things there - far more than I can eat. That idea excites me. Fruits, cookies, ice cream, cheese...

What I don't like is the fact that I have decide what to buy. I can't buy everything I want. I have to choose. I find it very stressful because there are just too many choices there. I wish Woolworth's staff could assist me in deciding what to buy.

Another thing that stresses me out is deciding which queue to join. I often pick a bad queue, where one customer's item gives some error when it's scanned and everyone in that queue is stuck. Seeing other queues flow smoothly makes me angry. It's a big source of stress for me.

I just had that experience in Trader Joe's on Sunday. I usually never go into the supermarket with my husband...I wait in the car and work on puzzle books. However, I wanted a specific item and thought I would be ok with my coffee in one hand and my bag in the other. I was so wrong! I had a meltdown in the store from all the people needing to be EXACTLY where I was standing and they wouldn't move so that I could move out of the way! Literally five women apparently needed the exact brand of syrup at the exact moment I was standing there. I kept dodging carts and people and just couldn't find a place to stand peacefully. I just wanted to scream "BACK THE f**k OFF!! !!" but I didn't scream. I had a more subtle meltdown that included quiet crying and panic while trying to find my husband. I won't be going into the market again anytime soon!

Haha, watch the age of wal-mart or one of the other retail docs or marketplace shows and they will show you how they mess up the design of the store and floor plan on purpose as you say to make you walk aimlessly around picking stuff up as you go! Thats why I stick to small local stores were they don't have 1000's of double items or dumb retail design agents. Their ideas are lost on me becouse as an aspie I see through it and just avoid it. Good observation shubunkin!

i do feel incredibly anxious and it is bright and loud but i like the smells and walking around and shopping in general

When they're really noisy and/or crowded , yeah, I get stressed to the point of having panic attacks sometimes. Otherwise I'm okay though.

Other places give me worse sensory overload though.....like the corridors and halls at my uni when everyone's going from class to class.

It was pretty stressful the first couple of times I went, but not so much now. The grocery stores I go to aren't packed. There's usually only 1 or 2 people in an aisle at any given time. My diet is VERY strict (Celiac), so my food is confined to small areas, I don't have that much of a selection and I'm pretty much immune to impulse buying because chances are I'm allergic to the product they're trying to sell. When getting into the queue, there's usually self-check outs open and maybe 1 or 2 manned check-outs.

I can imagine it being stressful with more people, but since the recession, there's not that many shoppers anymore. I remember stores like Albertson's and Safeway being in packed when I was a kid, with aisles full of people, carts bumping into each other and people getting angry at each other. Now days, it's a surprise to even see 3 people in an aisle.

My supermarket is not open at those times.

I have to organise my shopping so that my son doesn't have to come with me. It's a lot easier now that he is at school most days but when he was younger (before dx) if he knew we were going to a supermarket or dept store, he used to insist on bringing his handheld 'leapfrog' gadget of the moment - presumably to distract him from all the noise, lights and chaos.
Even now - at six - if he has to come with me then he insists on sitting in the trolley (no east task pushing him around) and covers his ears - great fun for everyone

Just because it works for you, doesn't mean it has to work for everyone else. Plus maybe there isn't one open at that time, I didn't know any were open that late anywhere in the world. The latest they ever stay open here is 9pm.

In the UK, the big stores in busy locations tend to be open 24hrs except Sunday. But the times I've tried going during the night are just as stressful because that's when they restock the shelves so there isn't much room to move about and things are blocked off.