I Have PTSD. How Do I Keep From Getting Overwhelmed at Family Events?

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

To make a long story short, due to various issues (probably undiagnosed autism, definitely also PTSD/trauma), I find it extraordinarily stressful to be around large (> 2-3) groups of people for extended periods of time, especially for free-form social activities. My own extended family has largely come to accept how I am, and how me hanging out for social events means that I’ll be reading a book in the communal social area, or running a card/board game, or whatever…and that I’m going home way early. Because otherwise, I find myself having an involuntary stress/overstimulation meltdown, and those are deeply unpleasant. Anyway.

Now I am in a new-ish relationship (~1 year). I like my boyfriend’s family a lot, and they are generally chill and my speed, but I am still struggling to find ways to spend time with them where I am not pushed into the overloaded zone. I do my best to communicate what my limits and what I’ll be needing in advance, so that I can plan ahead accordingly…and then everything changes because of Life Chaos, and I’m left alone and without resources and don’t have any way to cope.

Example 1: We arranged to go meet at his parents’ house to celebrate Easter (we’re long distance, living 3 hours apart). A few days before that, however, his grandfather (who lives in a different city) got really sick, and then began dying, so naturally he went up to visit his grandparents and help. The plan was originally that we would still both come to his parents’ house for the weekend, that I would arrive Saturday afternoon (because of trains) and he bought train tickets to arrive Saturday evening. I would be alone with his parents plus possibly some other people in an unfamiliar-ish environment for a few hours. This was doable! And before I left my own place on Saturday morning, I confirmed with him that this was still what he wanted – if he wanted to stay with his grandparents longer, I would also be happy to come up and visit the group of them there instead (weirdly, medical disasters/someone dying count as a structured activity in my own head, and I don’t feel like a space alien trying to figure out human behavior when I’m there. Hugs when needed, stay out of way when not.)

Anyway, after a four-hour multi-train ride I made it to his parents’ house on late Saturday afternoon, only to learn that his grandma had been guilting my boyfriend to stay longer, and he was thinking of only coming up on Sunday morning. I started panicking, because if I had known this would have been the situation I would NOT have come on Saturday afternoon, and told him so, that this was too much time there alone, that I knew what my limits were and this was really, really pushing it. Also, given train schedules, I would only get to see him for 1-2 hours on Sunday before I’d need to catch the train back home myself. He was really frustrated and I could hear his grandma in the background giving him a hard time again, and he eventually hung up on me. So I was stuck there (no trains to see him were feasible at that point), and I was alone with his parents, who come from a different culture than me and do not speak English, and I only speak their language at an intermediate level, and this was deeply uncomfortable! Like, again, the problem is not them, they are lovely and kind and generally willing to work with me to the extent that language barriers will allow, but I had also taken two busses and three trains over the course of four hours to get there, and there is also a limit to what I am able to cope with before going into involuntary meltdown mode.

(Luckily, this time my boyfriend’s brother was also there, and he (a) speaks English and (b) noticed I was struggling, and he and his girlfriend got me set up with some remodeling projects I could help with, and my boyfriend did show up on Saturday night, and all was well-ish.)

Example 2: The next weekend, it was my boyfriend’s sister’s wedding. Weddings are very hard for me! They are loud, there are lots of people, they go on a long time, and people start guilting you if you disappear for too long. Still, things went pretty well at first, even though roughly ten million people were staying at his parents’ house along with us, because my boyfriend made sure that I could just hide out in our room until it was time for the actual ceremony, and even ran interference with relatives who were wanting to see me (which I had asked for). And then, during the actual wedding, I was able to escape to a garden area and keep some small children entertained, which ate up most of the unstructured time. By this weekend his parents were also catching on to me more, since he’d had a talk with them about what my limits were and what I was good with, and they’d managed to find some places during the wedding where I could go off to help with wedding logistics and basically be alone.

I was enjoying being social to the extent that I enjoy socializing. But by the end of the evening (~midnight), everything started to fall apart. I was starting to feel pretty ragged from all the excitement and really needed some time alone with my boyfriend to do something nice and decompress, whether that meant making some space for ourselves at the wedding venue or going home, and told him so…and eventually it came to a head because this could no longer be put off for me, he was really irritated at me for insisting on it. (I’d been asking him to join me for a side activity for several hours at this point, and he’d just kept pushing me off.) Also, around this time our ride home disappeared– he’d brought his car to the wedding instead of taking the train so that we could leave whenever we wanted, but his brother’s girlfriend was feeling sick, so the brother needed drive the car back to their parents’ house. I went with them, because I could hold out for maybe another half-hour at that point but not longer. I wanted my boyfriend to come back to the house with me, too, so we could have some time together there, but he wanted to stay and socialize, and we had a fight over it.

When we got back to the house, I had an epic overwhelm meltdown, mostly because of the most recent fight. I called my boyfriend and he said he’d be home to be with me in about an hour when another one of his friends would be leaving and heading in roughly that direction…but that friend was taking too long and didn’t have any space in his car anyway, and my boyfriend just took an Uber back. I was pretty fried at that point from the hour of meltdown, and couldn’t easily recover. The next morning, when I was explaining how I still felt extremely brittle and ragged and still just needed to spend some time just with him, his parents drove up with a car load of wedding items to be unloaded, and he ran off to help, instead of spending time with me in the way that we’d planned. At that point I was again fried and on the edge of another meltdown, and knew I wasn’t going to get my needs met there, so I took the next train back.

Anyway. It is really frustrating for me to come for family social events with people I like and that I generally would enjoy as long as they were kept to parameters, I would be able to enjoy them within…and then communicate what those parameters are…and then have the rug pulled out from under me. And I understand – family stuff is hard! I am sympathetic! Helping with your dying grandfather is good but stressful and unpredictable! Weddings have lots of moving parts! It’s important to be a good host! With all these things going on, he was also probably pretty fried, too! But just because those things are what they are also doesn’t also mean that I can flip a switch to “normal person” for a weekend, and just be the cool not-neurodivergent/C-PTSD girlfriend it would be more convenient for me to be.

And I feel like I am trying everything I can from my end (communicating expectations in advance, communicating how I’m doing at the time and what I need now and in the near future, going to as much therapy as time/money allows – it’s only through years of therapy and multiple therapists and even an inpatient hospital stay that I’m even *this* good with social events), and it’s not enough, and my boyfriend sometimes isn’t willing to step up and close the gap because his/other peoples’ family stuff takes precedence. And that hurts, because for me, it feels like an unwillingness to make disability accommodations. Yes, I am disabled. Because of my brain, there is plenty of shit in life that I just cannot do, and I would like to have the neurodivergence wheelchair ramps in place *sometimes* so that I can get to do *some things.*

Anyway, after those two events, I’m extremely reluctant to go up to visit the parents, or really participate in any large family events, because, again, I haven’t been getting what I need to stay stable. Any way to more forward? It would be really easy to say I’m not coming to family events any more, but…again…I DO like these people, A LOT, I do enjoy SOME group activities, within limits, and giving that all up would leave me really sad.

Alone in Weird Brain-town

OK, so once again I want to re-emphasize that Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor or any sort of medical or mental health professional. I’m a loudmouth with ADHD, an advice column and too much time on my hands.

Now with all that out of the way…

OOof. OK, this is a hard one in part because the only really helpful answer would involve either someone developing a version of Miraclo, except instead of giving you super powers for an hour, you got an hour of being completely neurotypical, or access to Star Trek’s transporter technology.

And to be honest, I don’t trust transporters; they just kill you and assemble an exact duplicate at the other end.

All of which is to say: it really sucks that there are no good answers, and this is a case where everyone has reason to feel frustrated. It’s hard as hell to live with the way CPTSD (whether or not it’s compounded by being on the autism spectrum) fucks with you and creates complications that make it so damn hard to try to just get through life through no fault of your own. You know damn good and well that you don’t want to exist like this and you’d probably move heaven and earth to not have to! And at the same time, it can be frustrating for people who are affected by it at a remove, like your boyfriend because… yeah, it creates a lot of obstacles that everyone needs to work around. And that can be really frustrating for someone who’s not used to it and doesn’t have the “I live with this every day” perspective you do!

And to be clear: that’s not to say that you’re to blame for his frustration or that he’s correct to be frustrated. It’s just an acknowledgement that this is how he feels and why. It sucks that we can’t easily stop feeling frustrated simply because we know that it’s not fair to the other person, or by acknowledging the other person is also frustrated by all these complications. That would make life a hell of a lot easier for everyone. So instead, we can just try to manage how we express those feelings, and how we deal with them.

And that inability to turn off the frustration can be especially aggravating, because a lot of the time, the person feeling that frustration also feels like an asshole because they feel that way. It’s the sort of thing that makes you question whether you’re a good person or not, because they know that it’s unfair to feel like that. A good person wouldn’t feel frustrated about this, right?

But as I’ve noted before: our brains don’t take things like morality and context into consideration with our emotions. Which means that part of the human experience is that there will be times when experiencing an entirely normal emotion makes you feel like the worst person in the world simply because of when or why you’re experiencing it.

So it’s a situation that kinda sucks for pretty much everyone and especially for you. So let’s talk about what you can do to help navigate things and make life a little less of a trial for you while you try to live it.

Right off the bat, it sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right. Being vocal about your limits and communicative when you are starting to get to those limits are all good things. But as you’ve noted, there’re times when communicating isn’t enough, especially when life tosses a monkey wrench into the works. This is when we move into “ok, how do we manage this new problem so shit doesn’t get worse?”

The biggest issue here is that it’s functionally impossible to come up with solutions that will cover every possibility you might run into, simply because the gods laugh at man’s plans. Even the most carefully plotted series of contingencies will inevitably have giant, gaping holes in them because life is chaos and life, uh, uh, finds a way. As you’ve seen, no plan survives contact with the enem^H^H^H on-the-ground circumstances intact, and things that you can’t possibly account for will crop up at what will likely be the worst possible time. Then you end up scrambling to try to come up with alternate plans, many of which get scrapped because they simply won’t work… which is quite unfair, if you ask me.

Feeling like a leaf on the wind, getting blown back and forth as plans keep getting changed and adapted is exhausting. Even when things eventually work out. But we don’t need to plan for every contingency; we just need the right plans that will do a decent job of covering the most likely of them. You don’t need to have a plan to fight overwhelm when the space armada returns and transforms a quarter of the population of Earth into carnivorous plants after all (most of us will just be mulch). But what to do when a family visit seems primed to blow your circuits? Yeah, those are ones to game out as best you can.

I think there’re a couple of key things that you can do. The first option, which I know won’t be your favorite, is to skip out on some family events where the odds of your hitting a meltdown are higher than average. This doesn’t mean that you refuse to go see his parents at all or avoid all family events; you just resolve to be a little more choosey about your availability – contingent on how likely that event is going to involve the sort of chaos that may lead to a meltdown for you.

A wedding, for example, is chaos personified; I’ve never seen a wedding that wasn’t at least 25% scrambling to solve problems or improvise solutions and that’s just with the bride and groom, never mind the guests.

(As an example: I once went to a wedding where the entire wedding party, down to the ring-bearer, got hellacious food poisoning. In fact, there were a couple of folks who felt it hit while they were in the middle of their reading for the ceremony…)

As much as you may hate to miss out or feel guilty for not going, you might have to have a tendency to get “sick” around wedding season and send a nice gift and sweet card in lieu of your presence. Especially if it’s not a close relative or friend of your boyfriend.

Another option may be to only attend some of the planned events, prioritizing the parts that are most important or meaningful, and are also most likely to have some structure that would work for you, while sitting out the others.

With weddings, for example, you could attend the ceremony itself and dip out of the reception; the ceremony tends to be the most ordered and predictable, whereas the reception is where the wine is flowing, music is playing, people dance and flirt, emotions run high and plans go out the window. If you can make it through seeing the happy couple say their “I Do’s” and get through the receiving line so you can say your congratulations, I think you’d be forgiven for getting a taxi back to your hotel. It might require a little finagling with the RSVPs, so the happy couple doesn’t end up paying for a chicken dinner nobody’s going to eat, but it is doable.

As an aside: speaking as someone who’s been the Emergency Support Extrovert And Human Shield for introverted people at parties and events, don’t stress about taking a much needed away-from-all-this break. Having someone who can run interference and cover for your absence can help push against the folks who may guilt you for not being more involved. Doubly so if you don’t have actual responsibilities or duties at the event.

You can also have A Very Good Reason why they haven’t seen you for an indeterminate length of time. A quick “Sorry, I was feeling queasy/ had a work emergency call/ needed to get some fresh air/ took a smoke break and got caught in a conversation with someone” excuses a host of absences and absolves you of a lot of guilt. People will tend to take these at face value, and sometimes they may even be true!

Also keep in mind the power of “oh, that’s just AWBT” as people get to know you. Familiarity breeds acceptance with many of our idiosyncrasies. A good friend of mine is somewhat infamous for Batman-ing out of parties; we all joke about it, but we also know and accept that there’s going to come a point in every party where we turn around and he’ll have vanished into the night.

Now, the second option is to expect that there will be fuck-ups and unintentional-yet-unavoidable alterations to the plan and to prepare accordingly. The issue here is that it’s quite literally impossible to plan for every possible contingency. You could have no way of knowing, for example, that your boyfriend’s buddy was going to smoke bomb out and leave you stranded at the wedding, or that his grandmother was going to give him a hard time. But this is why planning for specific fuck-ups is less helpful than a more general “ok, what are the things that would be the hardest for me to deal with, that are also most likely to happen?” and work from there. As a wise man once said: while plotting and planning is great, it’s often most effective to have a series of options in place and reacting to circumstances as they come up.

So, if we use the examples in your letter as the basis, it seems like the biggest, hardest-for-you-to-handle issues were finding yourself stranded, having no spell slots to handle interacting with people you don’t know well, needing time away from the maddening crowds and something for your brain to do that will keep you from spiraling. All of which can be tricky, but not insurmountable.

So what are some ways that you could have options in place that you could take advantage of if the need arose?

One option that would be useful would be to have an Emergency Back Up Support in place in the event that your boyfriend is called away. Now, this isn’t always going to be possible and it’ll be highly contingent on your relationship with some of your boyfriend’s family and friends. It is, however, something you can establish prior to the event, with a little advance information. If you can, see if you can have an idea of who’s going to be around, especially if you have a good relationship with them already.

In the case of visiting your boyfriend and being alone with his parents when he got stuck at the hospital, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend were able to step in and help. This is a good example of having options in place that you could take advantage of if needed. If they’re likely to also be at family functions you would be attending, they might be a good secondary lifeline for you if your boyfriend gets hung up somewhere.

While it’s not something that will be guaranteed, the value of knowing that it’s available is much higher than the effort it takes to set up. Knowing that there’s a friendly face or two who will be able to take you under their wing for at least a little bit might make things less stressful and require fewer spell slots to keep your brain from going kablooey on you. Just the sense of “OK, worst case scenario, EBSF will help until Boyfriend gets back” can help ease the stress and make it easier to socialize.

Another helpful option to set up in advance is to have things that can keep your mind busy when you get left to your own devices. Since it seems like your brain gets stressed like an Aussie shepherd without a job to do, ­maybe having a couple cozy management sims on your phone could be an option. When things start getting too much, taking a moment to dip out and go water your crops and make sure you deliver presents to your friends in Stardew Valley could give your brain enough “chores” to keep it occupied and give a sense of accomplishment. Other options to help manage your bandwidth might be puzzles that require focus and engage the analytical parts of your mind – sudoku or even Tetris can be incredibly helpful here.

(Tetris, in fact, is very good for managing PTSD and reducing its presentation and symptoms. In fact it’s apparently so effective that a number of therapists actually prescribe it as part of the treatment alongside more traditional forms of therapy like EMDR.)

There are also a number of helpful meditation apps that feature short, easy guided meditations and breathing exercises that help turn the volume down on your anxiety when your brain is doing its best to go berserk. A few minutes of a calming voice guiding you back to your body and walking you through how to breathe and focus can help restore some much needed control and peace.

This is where smartphones are a godsend; you have a multitude of potential brain-relaxers easily to hand, depending on whether you are in more of a “organize the farm” mood, crafting and selling potions or you just want to have some satisfying number crunching. And of course, various e-book apps mean you also have your favorite paperbacks easily to hand as needed.

The next thing may or may not be feasible, depending on your boyfriend’s family’s approach to planning. Some people plan family events like they’re planning the landing at Normandy; others are far more loosey-goosey, taking things as they come with little care for things like “schedules” or “how long we’ll be at $PLACE”. If his family is more the former, knowing the overall schedule – even if it’s not a strict hour-by-hour breakdown – can make it possible to find spots for Introvert Time, where you can slip away and have a break from the chaos and the hustle and bustle.

Having a plan in place also means that you can try your best to ensure that you and your boyfriend have some dedicated “just us” time. Obviously – as you’ve seen – that’s no guarantee that it’ll happened as planned, but having it on the docket means that other folks will be more likely to adjust plans around the two of you not being there.

A fourth is what an old friend of mine learned after years of being in the Army and a seasoned protester: always have a way to leave when you need to. Since getting stuck at the wedding was a stress multiplier for you, it’ll be helpful to have options to get around as needed that aren’t entirely reliant on someone not, y’know, forgetting that they were your ride. But once again, this is where the era of ubiquitous smartphones is your friend. Between emergency contacts, ride share services and taxi-booking apps, knowing that you have a way to peace out is comforting. Your boyfriend may decide he wants to stay a little longer or your previous ride turned back into a pumpkin and mice, but you can be assured at the very least that your coach back to your bed is 5 minutes and a valid credit card away.

Now the last thing to keep in mind to make family events a bit more manageable is to manage expectations for you and your boyfriend’s alone time. When you’re going to big family events – weddings, anniversaries, graduations, reunions, holidays, etc. – the emphasis tends to be on family together time. That, and the familial obligations that come with them, means that there’s going to be a higher-than-average chance of your boyfriend being dragooned into service, whether it’s convenient for the two of you or not. Sometimes family members get slotted into certain roles, whether it is the Explain Tech To Grandma Again Official or general dogsbody, and it ends up being a lot like being the On Call at work.

This is one of those times where expectations vs. reality can cause conflict, so it’s helpful to adjust your expectations. As annoying as it can be when you’re long-distance, there may be visits where you and your boyfriend get a lot of time to yourselves and you sort of have to just fold that into your idea of how the visit is going to go. At times like that, see if you can schedule your time alone together either before or after the event, so there’s less of a chance that your boyfriend’ll be dragged away at the worst possible time.

Oh, and one more thing: you and your boyfriend’ve been together for about a year, and long distance for the majority of it, if I’m understanding things. That’s not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, and certainly if most of the time is spent apart. I suspect part of the conflict you and he are having around the way your trauma and possible ‘tism affect you is that it’s still somewhat new, rather than something you’ve both handled until it’s become just a part of the texture of your relationship. Over time, especially as your management of it improves, I suspect things won’t get easier per se, but more efficient and less stressful. Part of growing as a couple is finding the rhythm of your unique dance together. If he’s a good and conscientious dude and wants to help make this relationship work, I think you’ll both become old hands at folding ways to meet your needs into family visits.

Good luck.

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This post was previously published on Doctornerdlove.com and is republished on Medium.

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