Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else really struggle with Christmas or find it too overwhelming?
I love Christmas day with my family but I get very nervous about it in advance and can't stand the pressure of a day where I feel we all have to be happy. Also, I can't stand the build up. I hate all the endless Christmas songs in shops and the fact that everyone tells me I have to look forward to Christmas and it has to be this big amazing thing. I don't understand why, I mean it happens every year its not a novelty. I have always struggled with anything people tell me I have to enjoy, I automatically feel so much pressure then that I cant enjoy it and I can't cope. Christmas is that times 100, society and everyone telling me I have to enjoy it and be happy, i cant cope with the pressure.
Also I hate the greed of Christmas, everyone just out for what they can get. I hate the crowds and the people barging past you in shops to get more for themselves. I dont understand the point of giving cards to people you hardly speak to all year or giving presents that people dont really want just for the sake of it.
I really hate the commercialism and the endless adverts telling you you cant enjoy yourself unless you spend loads of money you dont have on stuff you dont need just to make these companies richer
I really struggle with the sensory overload of all the noise and decorations in shops and the fact that you cant escape it, whereever you go its just Christmas stuff everywhere in your face and it is such an overload for me.
Also, I cant tell anyone any of this or they just make me feel like a grinch. It feels like your not allowed to say you dont enjoy it
Im a Christian so i love the meaning of Christmas ( I realise that might not be the case for everyone) and I love spending time with my family but thats about it.
I always have a complete breakdown just before Christmas every year, regular as clockwork
Sorry if I sound like a party pooper but I just wondered if anyone else out there felt like me? Is this an autistic thing or is it just me
Hi Billy, yes I completely agree with you. Christmas is so stressful - forced jollity and overspending. The shops are crowded (although I do all of mine online which helps), everyone is under so much pressure for it to be the best and don't get me started again on the gift buying pallaver! I am constantly in a state of anxiety because I keep thinking someone (from my husband's family) will unexpectedly visit - if I hear a car outside I actually run upstairs to hide. I love spending time with my husband and my children and I'll be honest I love the music too but gosh the rest of it is awful! I also feel the same about new years eve - yuk all that hugging and kissing of people other than your immediate family - eurghhhhh.
As both an Autist & a Christian, Christmas is an unusually emotionally time for me.
On the one hand the basic christmas story even if you (as I used to) see it as a myth, is extremely uplifting, and it's a nice idea all that peace and goodwill to all men, so I would not be without it, BUT it was (or may as well have been!) given to Satan to "test". Satan, after a couple of false starts, created his greatest tool, THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY, and set it to the job of subverting Christmas. Suddenly giving presents and all that unrelated guff, was jammed down the publics craw by "the hidden persuaders" using mass psychology, all paid for by the present makers themselves as they compete for "market share". This makes the run up to Christmas horrible and stressful even for the normies, but 'specially for US!!
THIS is why I am here! It has taken me 40YEARS to find a way of enjoying Christmas, and I can share it with you and it will work work for you as it has worked for the thousands of others who do this every year.
REBEL. Break the hidden persauders conditioning by ignoring all you think you know about Christmas and concentrate on the essential mantra of "Peace and Goodwill to all men at Christmas". You focus on doing as much as you can to make this special time of year, full of peace and goodwill. If you can organise presents and chriistmas cards and want to then do that, but there's nothing in Christianity that says you need to. The best present you can give someone is happiness. The first couple of years breaking the condition feels really weird, and I won't lie, since the advertisers have been using your deepest subconcious fears to manipulate you, there will be alot of anxiety at first.
Not doing what you have been conditioned to do for all of your lives so far, feels like you are "doing things wrong", but when, eventually, you end up enjoying the few visitors who will come to your door, (once they realise you aren't "the same as them" you will lose a few!) and you get to enjoy your own company and thsoe who like the way you do Christmas, and eat whatever YOU selected to eat, do whatever YOU choose to do, etc.
Not doing all that crap does leave more mental room to be nice to each other, we find...Yes, I like to give and receive presents, and my list has four names on it so far. I can manage four presents well enough, and the recipients know they will either be humourous or interesting rubbish, and occasionally when I can manage it or am in the right place at the right time with the right amount of money something a bit better.
I believe I've done enough now to free anyone who takes the time to read my horrible prose, from having a horrible Christmas ever again (barring unusual and unforseeable occurences) When you try rebelling and it works, and you ahev a nice time, don't thank me, I didn't create Christmas, but I have learned how not to mess it up! Don't reject the basic message, it was carefully designed to be applicable for everyone, Christians and non-christians alike. And that's a nice thing, however you roll.
I've been doing it that way since I can remember. Apart from presents though, I don't buy presents; oh - or do cards. It is about the message, not the dogma, the message.