Establishing Healthy Expectations for Yourself, Other People and Circumstances

Mary’s Story
My mother’s house was always the place family went for holidays. She decorated, cooked meals from scratch, housed out of town family members, bought and wrapped gifts for all dinner guests and entertained during dinner parties. When she went into the nursing home I took on these responsibilities for the family without even thinking about it. I just did what I’d always seen her do. Plus, I now had to care for her. But I don’t have my mother’s energy or organizational skills. While things turned out ok, and by that I mean nothing burned down, I got very little sleep, ended up forgetting to pay the bills and felt disappointed in myself for not holding things together the way my mother always had. The next year I stressed about the holidays and dreaded them even before they got started.

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Welcome to Your Online Autism Holiday Survival Guide

survivalguide1The holidays can be an especially challenging time for folks on the autism spectrum. Depending on your religion and location, the excitement can last from October through December, without much of a break along the way. Many of us are solitary, silence-loving introverts, and being thrust into the sometimes frenzied, social pace of the holidays isn’t easy. Not only are our routines disrupted, but we’re also bombarded with sights and sounds and smells and sensations that overwhelm our sensitive natures. The constant stream of demands and expectations from others, pressures to “perform” well socially, and add extra activities to our normal routine can be exhausting.

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