Anybody else drowning in forced socialization with family?

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Currently on a "holiday" with boyfriend's family, half live the other side of the country so we've met half way. Eight people in one house, all very loud, coughing everywhere, snot rags everywhere. Three oldies getting up through the night.

I'm so over stimulated I can feel my brain over working to process everything like I can feel the heat like a computer doing too much.

We leave tomorrow but I'm just done.

We went to their house last year which was three billion times worse but I still feel like I can't enjoy the new year again because I'm just so stressed.

I have a sensory processing disorder with my autism and obvs the social element is so hard, I'm f*****g drowning.

Lucky for me, not at the moment, but I somehow got sucked into a duty visit from Hell recently (Xmas and all that), and I came away from that feeling like I'd not have been able to stand another hour of it. Bang goes my control of my environment, and everybody's sublimating themselves into these rituals. Meat and other unhealthy food all over the place, seems designed to make me feel embarrassed at being a health-conscious vegetarian. Then there's gift exchange - on a good day I can just about hide my true feelings if somebody gives me something I don't want, but without any warning they had to turn it into a game where everybody watches me while I open the box. It's very hard for me to fake a smile at the best of times. Then a couple of them start filming it and talking about putting it on Facebook(!) Of course that just added to my embarrassment. I was doing my best to hide behind the wrapping paper.

Why did they have to make it all so intense? I'm fine with a laid-back get-together. They know I'm autistic but they don't understand the condition and I doubt they'll ever take the trouble to find out, so they ignore it and I suffer in silence. I suppose I could have set them straight at the time, but they seemed so into it that I couldn't bring myself to rain on their parade. Fact is, I don't relate to rituals very much at all. To me they're at best a waste of time and at worst they involve great suffering for no good reason at all except that those who dig rituals don't feel let down. They must have picked up that I didn't seem to enjoy it. They'll probably never understand why. Next time, there'll be some adjustments or I'm not bloody going.

Not at the moment but I can relate - in fact one of the big things that helps me to remain sure that I am autistic is how blessed the relief is when I use eaebuds and music to drown out the social babble when I’m in such situations.

Tough Diamond - I relate so much to what you say about pointless rituals and gift exchanges; this has stressed me my entire life and happily for the first time ever, at Xmas 2018, I sent *no* Xmas cards. I managed to give myself permission to do this having talked it through it with my wife and daughters, and again it was a blessed relief. Never again - and my parents will now be getting a hamper at Xmas and flowers for birthdays; I’m done with the stressing over what to get them.

That would happen to my mother, though she is too old to be diagnosed. In think two days is as much as she could take.

Well done for taking control of the situation. I think it's all too easy for people to imagine that these rituals are set in stone and that they'll be hated forever if they dare to opt out, but it's not always the case. I think it helps to discuss the reasons for it and to show caring in alternative ways, as you have done, rather than just withdraw without a word. I hope I'll be able to practise what I've just preached next time I'm due to be pulled into a stressful ritual.