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Does being around family drains you emotionally?

Do you feel overwhelmed when being around your people you love and know well?

  • After a few minutes, yes.

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • After a few hours

    Votes: 14 66.7%
  • After days and days together

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • Never. I can spend each day of my life with them with no problem.

    Votes: 1 4.8%

  • Total voters
    21
Not sure how to answer this for myself. I have 2 kids & am essentially a single parent (their mother is useless IMHO). So by necessity I HAVE to be around them all day, unless they visit their friends or go to an activity or something. There have been plenty of times where I need to send them off somewhere because I just need some alone time. So yes, after a few hours I need some alone time. I sometimes feel guilty about this, since all they want to do is be around their father.
 
A few hours is about all I can take of anyone. Once spent 30 hours in a car with my mother /therapy
 
I can relate at least a bit, I think, but it's complicated....

Just being around people might be not-draining (might even be helpful for preserving energy, in some circumstances where they are acting as a sort of buffer between me and the world or infusing my existance with the sustenance of joy and comfort in other ways).....It's more the direct interaction that's draining; And with the direct interaction, it depends on what type of interaction it is, in what context.

Playing a game of cards with people I love and know well (or doing some other activity that requires minimal verbal interaction or no verbal interaction), not having to talk to anyone or follow anything but the game, in a low-key sensory environment is not super draining -- might not be draining at all.

Being in the same room with people I know and love well, in a low-key sensory environment with no expectation of direct interaction, each doing our own thing, them not being loud or doing anything that is overwhelming to my sensory system, that would not be draining at all.

Having a quiet conversation in a quiet/low-key environment, back and forth, with one person I know well and love, eventually that will wear me out -- I might be delighted and enjoy the conversation, but at some point it would exhaust me. I can't say how long it would take, because I've never timed it, and I really don't have any sense of time; If the conversation is shorter, I might not feel tired or overwhelmed by the processing demands. (Another factor is the nature of the conversation....things like subject matter, intensity, communication style of the other person.)

A group conversation with loved/familiar people in a quiet environment is always overwhelming and draining to some degree, no matter who the people are or whether I'm expected to speak or just to listen. (If I don't try to follow along and am just sort of there then it isn't draining.....sitting still doing nothing is extremely draining because it's very hard to do, but that is its own thing.)

Any attempt to interact with any number of loved/familiar people in an environment with too many sounds, smells, movement, bright lights, etc (or while I am distracted by tactile discomfort)...well, I'm already overwhelmed so the demands of interaction just add to that. Verbal interaction is more exhausting than nonverbal interaction, and the stress and drain on inner resources increases with each additional person as well as with the number and severity of sensory stressors.
 
No, on the contrary I function better with my Family around.

Whenever I went places with my family, while I was still living with them, to places like their friends' houses, I felt safer because they did the talking and no one noticed me. But being with my family is exhausting if they keep talking to me for too long.
 
my wife knows i can last for about 2 hours in group events, after that i have to go
family or not
conversation doesn't come naturally, so having to talk to people is exhausting as i have to calculate your interactions with these people
 
Mine depends on the family members, some very, my mother when she was alive sometimes not often.
 
Family gatherings host a classic set of ingredients for dysfunctional behaviors. There are stories about what is going on in everyone's life, and it is usually a lot more surface information than depth. It's taxing to listen to the details about someone's new kitchen, or how well Johnny is doing in his math class, or all of the beautiful flowers that someone saw on vacation in Hawaii. I love my siblings and all the extended cousins, etc., but the holiday events are overwhelming with seemingly useless information that gets crammed into a 5 hour event by 20 or 30 people. These are the events where I wish I could be at the kids table again - the kinder, simpler world. I can't follow a large group conversation for very long, so I end up walking away. I feel I am being rude, but the conversation is either extremely boring or too large of a topic to get through reasonably. I need the one-on-one for social interaction to be sane in a crowd.
 
We usually have holiday dinners at my aunt & uncle's. Over this Easter my uncle scolded me for not interacting more with the extended family, telling me to get off the couch & intermingle with people. Which didn't make me feel good. I totally agree with the previous post on many of the details. Plus talking about sports almost non-stop is utterly uninteresting for me. So I just sat there. I don't think he understands...
 
I'm similar to Oilie and Peter Morrison. I'm going back about 15 years now when i first met my partner and her brother got married meaning we had to go. It was full on for about 6 hours meeting people i'd never met and trying to act normal and follow etiquette. I literally couldn't get out of bed for a week afterwards as it took that much out of me.

No way could i do anything like that now and nor would i. I refuse pretty much all family social gatherings and now risk looking like an anti social freak to them but that's how it is. I could go but i'd have multiple panic attacks and not be able to keep up the charade for long before they twig that something is up. (They don't know about my autism or my M E yet).

Most of my issues are trying to mask and fit in. If i went to a family gathering and everyone knew i had autism and therefore have an excuse to disappear for periods without looking a bit odd then it would be a big help but i'm still trying to come to a decision about revealing my difficulties to people.

I've not yet come to terms with them myself yet.

Basically masking has cost me my future and my health. I managed to do it successfully for about 20 years since i left school and worked mainstream and had NT friends etc and eventually it caught up with me and i broke down, burned out and now suffer multiple health issues such as anxiety / panic / and M E / CFS / Fibro etc.

If i'd have known i was different back then it would have made a difference but i only got diagnosed a few years ago at 40 after managing to mask and blag my way through life without detection as autistic.

I have a partner but i prefer to spend lots of time alone which she understands. My 9 year old NT kid though isn't that wise yet and currently i'm trying to pass the school 6 weeks holidays looking after a 9 year old nearly every day on my own which takes some doing. I don't like my kid spending hours and hours in front of a screen so i go out and we do things mainly but that usually involves busy places and lots of people which is a total nightmare.

Never mind sailing round the world alone in a dinghy. If you can take your kid to any theme park or water park in the UK during summer holidays and come out mentally in tact afterwards then that beats solo voyages around the world for endurance and bravery IMO. :D
 
It is very hard to be anywhere because of my sensory issues. So I generally just do not go to things like parties or family reunions. I can't even do Christmas other than a pop in for about 1 hour.

If it is just one person, I can last a little longer. But even then, about three hours seems to be a limit and then I have to refresh and get away.

It's even hard for me to be in one place that long without a move. In Uni , I would move to another study room. At a gym, if I am not done my workout, I will go to another branch after than time. If I am traveling, I stop and engage my mind in something else.

Three hours just seems to be a time when the brain screams "DOWNTIME!"
 
TOTALLY.

I have kids whom I love more than anything (as far as I can love), I would literally die for then and nearly did.

But even then, I only last a few hours! Then mummy has to have her quiet time. And as for extended family like in laws, gah, 2 hours tops. It's not then it's me. Well maybe it's a little bit them...
 
TOTALLY.

I have kids whom I love more than anything (as far as I can love), I would literally die for then and nearly did.

But even then, I only last a few hours! Then mummy has to have her quiet time. And as for extended family like in laws, gah, 2 hours tops. It's not then it's me. Well maybe it's a little bit them...

You nearly died for your kids?
You don't have to answer if you don't want to.
 
It depends on the person and the situation. There are some people in my family who wear me down after a few minutes, with others I can keep going for a while, but eventually will need some alone time to rest.

One to one conversations, mentally exhausting because of the intensity and concentration, and I'm done after about an hour. The problems is when people expect you to be continuously talking. Ok if we are doing something that doesn't need us to be talking all the time. My job involves a lot of interaction, I have coping mechanisms - I get the student to do an exercise on his or her own, because it's better for them to concentrate and it gives me a break from the constant interaction. I couldn't do the job otherwise.

Group conversations: I am not able to join in. I have a slight auditory delay which means that I don't have time to listen, think of a reply and respond before someone else speaks. So I sit there and don't say anything. If the conversation is interesting I listen and might try to say something, but most times I'm ignored or someone else talks over the top of me, so mostly I don't bother. I get extremely bored, frustrated, restless, pointless, invisible - after a couple of hours I can't stand any more, I feel trapped and need to get up and move around, I get increasingly desperate to go home.

The thing with relatives is that other than their being my relatives, I have nothing in common with them, so what do I talk about? The conversation is usually shallow and banal, small talk, very boring and a huge strain on my resources. I get tired very quickly. I do a lot better with socialising based around an activity, rather than sitting and talking, such as a board game or an excursion, but family gatherings rarely involve that kind of activity.
 
A few hours is about all I can take of anyone. Once spent 30 hours in a car with my mother /therapy

Ha. I've quit jobs after being forced to go on a day long outing. Likewise, I've broken up with boyfriends after spending the whole day together.

Yuck.
 
Ha. I've quit jobs after being forced to go on a day long outing. Likewise, I've broken up with boyfriends after spending the whole day together.

Yuck.

You have issues.

Sorry, but quitting a job because they made you go out for the day? How about no?
 
Option 2. I enjoy my family but after that much time together it's good to get home and spend time by myself.
 
Them going off on me unexpectedly can mess me up bad. One time made me unexpectedly suicidal. Certain family members who can’t control what they say can really upset me. Since I know they are like that i feel obligated to visit but fear the visit. But now they have died except one that Inwent no contact with. People I deeply love and get along with I could be with for days and days.
 
I live with my immediate family (my parents & my brother). Sometimes, it can be a bit challenging with different personalities, etc. I love my family dearly though very much. I just got used to living alone for a number of years and when I had to move back in due to financial hardship, it can be emotionally overwhelming at times. I've changed as a person. The fact that I'm a 47 woman has a lot to do with it as well.
 

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