HOW do you Cope with/DO/Survive Vacations?

As the title says…

My girlfriend (neurotypical but, lovely all the same…) wants to go on vacation and weirdly, it doesn’t make her go all funny in her tummy and build up with intense anxiety at the idea of a 3 and a half hour car journey. Weird right! She’s been wanting to go away for a while and I foolishly gave in and now in a week’s time we’re off to Devon. But now the anxiety is increasing and I know it’s going to be a tiresome anxious filled week ahead.

The ridiculous thing is I DO enjoy vacations…..When I get there. Anxiety takes the edge off things leading up to the event but when I finally get there it all floats away and I enjoy the time away.

My main anxious thought is needing to wee all the time. Anxiety affects me like that, unfortunately, though better that end than t’other TBF! I’m just painfully aware I’m going to be on the road for 3 or so hours on easter weekend so know the motorway will be heaving…. That said, I have at least convinced Lisa for us to set off at 8:00 a.m. so we should beat most of the heavy traffic.

Enough of my woeful ramblings though, how do you prepare and survive these awful things!?! The anxiety is crippling me already and yet it’s only traveling 130 miles. I need to chill out, prepare as best I can and pray to Allah’s cat that I’ll survive the ordeal.

Parents
  • Apart from planned breaks, I look up places to visit whilst we are away, so I roughly know where we will go. I also look up possible places to eat and where toilets might be located.

    That way I can also count down the number of days till we come home and sometimes find towards the middle I begin to enjoy it more.

Reply
  • Apart from planned breaks, I look up places to visit whilst we are away, so I roughly know where we will go. I also look up possible places to eat and where toilets might be located.

    That way I can also count down the number of days till we come home and sometimes find towards the middle I begin to enjoy it more.

Children
  • Food is a big problem for when going away, I have so many allergies and intollerances, it's a nightmare, I don't even eat out or have takeaways at home, luckily I enjoy cooking and am good at it.

    I love galleries and museums, but they're always so crowded, I've come to the conclusion I prefer watching stuff about them on tv, you get to see the stuff better and have expert insight into the objects. I can do without seeing a Graeco-Roman temple again, once you've seen one it feels like youv'e seen them all, I went to the Temple of Apollo in Didym and the most interesting thing were all the wild tortoises. It was a bit freaky at first, wondering if I really did see a rock scuttling off, and then I realised it was a tortoise and there were hundreds of them!