Why the Holidays Feel So Hard for Neurodivergent Brains

Holiday stress, weather, and why disappointment hits harder right now

Hello, hello, hello. This is Danielle and Shay with ND OutLoud and ND Hive, and we are talking about disappointment today.

We all face disappointment. But I think when you’re neurodivergent, especially this time of year, there’s an even higher level that kicks in, and there are a few reasons why. One, holiday stress. We have holiday stress. All of us have stress. Even if we love our family, there’s still holiday stress. Two, the change in weather. That affects all of us. It’s less sunny. Some of us hate the cold. Some of us hate the warm. Some of us hate the dreary. There’s a different combination for every single one of us. Shay loves the colder weather. I hate the colder weather.

Well, I love the colder weather because it’s nice. You get to wear the hoodies and have the blankets and the sweaters, and you just get to feel all cozy and warm. But summer for me is just too hot. You feel sticky and yuck. I’d rather be warm than cold, so I like it when it’s warmer.

So we’ve got that affecting us from a physiological standpoint and from a mental standpoint. Weather affects us, then we have the holidays, and then something like disappointment happens. So Shay, I know we were talking about this because you’ve come up against things that combine with the holiday and some disappointment this week, and obviously I have things that come up here and there. But let’s talk about what you’ve been facing and what tools you’re using to get through it.

A holiday show that flopped, and the tears that came a day later

Are you referring to the holiday show we just had that was very disappointing? Yes. So, everyone knows that we do multiple things so that we can keep the pricing here for our community very low. I do stickers and custom magnets, and I was so excited for this show. I thought, this is going to be great, perfect. It’s for the holidays, it’s for gifts, all of those kinds of things. But it just didn’t work out. It was really strange, the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen, where people just literally walked right by. It was like I was invisible. They would go to booths that just didn’t make sense, and the people that normally would be like, “Yes, give me those stickers, yes, give me those magnets,” completely walked by. So I was really disappointed, because I was counting on it being really successful, on things taking off and getting our name out there. It was really frustrating, and I’ll be honest, there were moments of tears, because we put a lot of hard work into it, just like a lot of us put a lot of hard work into things.

And I’m not talking about necessarily business. We’ve got relationships, we’ve got education, or an event itself. And I don’t mean a business event. What about getting a meal ready for dinner? Or getting a meal ready to have family over? We are going into the holidays, and how many of us are going to be doing the big meals and things like that? So it’s more about making sure that we know how to deal with the disappointment. So how did I deal with it? Well, I got home and cried.

But you want to know what I think? Some of us are so hesitant to show the emotion and allow those emotions out. And not allowing the emotions out has consequences.

Well, I didn’t say I came right home and did that. That was a day later. We got home Saturday night, and it wasn’t late, but it was evening, dark out, all that. Pajamas, dinner, bed, because it was so noisy, overstimulated, all of the above. Woke up the next morning, bad migraine, and then on top of it, just that disappointing heaviness. It stayed with me all day, and I did really well all day, until I went to bed that night. I guess I was overtired. I mean, come on, we’ve got the combination: overtired, over-everything, over-whatever you want to put on the end of that. And so that’s when it just kind of let loose, and all the emotions came out and all the disappointment.

And you know, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re weak. I think that’s where we tend to get stuck. We start down that spiral of, we didn’t do it right, it’s not the right thing, we didn’t do it good enough, we didn’t take care of it the right way. Those “right” words in there.

Why holding the emotion in makes everything worse

Well, and I think the other part of it is, and I’ll talk about disappointment for me in a minute, when all of those emotions come up and we don’t let them out, we increase our overwhelm with everything else in life. Sensory overwhelm, migraines, getting sick, like getting the flu or a nasty cold. All the crap.

Allowing our emotions to go out, however that is. Some of us get mouthy and angry. Some of us cry. Some of us angry-cry. Some of us throw things, and our poor husbands or significant others are a target when we’re like that. But that process of letting the emotion out is a tool. It is an important tool. Like the spoons and forks metaphor: I’m done, let’s remove some forks, get rid of that emotion, and allow that emotion out.

Do you need to journal it? Do you need to get on a phone call with your bestie and just let it off? Do you need to physically exert, go hit a punching pad, go for a run, exercise, whatever? Because some of that allows the emotion to come out in a way that releases it from our body, and it’s not necessarily in the tears.

When your own body is the disappointment

Yeah. And what is the way for you? I think that’s a really important lesson for me. My disappointment has been with my body. I did something stupid. I probably looked at the sky wrong or something and hurt my back last week, just before Thanksgiving, and my son had just said that they were staying home an extra day to have Thanksgiving with us. So I had this whole plan in my head. I have chronic illness and MS, so the plan was not an awesome plan anyway. It was too much. And then I got hurt. And then I was frustrated with myself and angry with myself.

My poor husband was a saint. He jumped in and helped with everything, but it still didn’t go the way I wanted it. I didn’t get to make everything from scratch. I had to use instant potatoes. And there was so much disappointment in myself over having to do that. I didn’t make green bean casserole, because that was just one more thing I couldn’t do. And there was something else I didn’t make that I wanted to make. I just couldn’t do it all. There was so much frustration and anger and shame with myself, and disappointment in myself over it. Thank God my husband handles me well when that happens. But I was so frustrated, and there was the disappointment of my body failing me once again.

Yeah. And you and I have talked about this before. You’re dealing with the MS, and I deal with the TBI. So we do have disappointment day to day. It’s not just the big events or the big things we’re working on. It’s also day to day. We wake up with a migraine and we just totally cannot process. And so we’re disappointed we can’t do the day the way that we had planned. I mean, planning in our world is, here’s my plan, and then here’s my backup to my plan, and then the backup to the backup to the plan. I have to have a plan A, B, C every single day. And that’s one way we handle it.

What happened in body doubling that week

But I think the other thing that was really good for me this last week is I got on and I was talking to everybody in body doubling, and everybody else had a similar story of why they were disappointed in themselves, or filled with shame, or just frustrated. We had a community member get on, and she was so frustrated with herself because she felt like she should be more organized than she was and just couldn’t get started. And I said, “Okay, take us to the kitchen with you and just get started.” And she’s like, “But, but…” “Just take us to the kitchen with you and get started.” And she said, by the time I walked to the kitchen, I felt better.

Things we don’t think about. Something small can pull us out of that disappointment. Someone, and it’s always someone else, that sees us, that hears us, that’s like, “Oh my god, I got you. I’m right there with you. I get it.” Hearing that is one of the best things. I mean, my husband helping me and trying to be my arms and legs was amazing, and it was helpful, and I keep thanking him for that. But it still wasn’t the same as me being able to do it, and I was still really frustrated and disappointed in myself, and there was a lot of emotion behind it.

But then me getting on with a bunch of other neurodivergent people, men and women, not just women, and saying, “Oh my gosh, I am so disappointed and frustrated with myself.” And somebody else said, “I’m so frustrated with my brain today, I can’t do the thing.” And somebody else said theirs. We all had our reasons why we were disappointed in ourselves.

Well, and I think it helps us get clarity for ourselves. Absolutely. When someone else says, “I’m frustrated with this and I can’t seem to figure it out,” we instantly can come up with some ideas for them. Not that we tell them what to do, but we’re like, “Oh, have you tried this? This might work for you.” But I can’t do that for myself. And then for ourselves, we can’t do that. But we have that bouncing back and forth in the community, with people, where we’re able to create an environment that allows us to just come in and be like, “Okay, I think I’ve literally lost my mind.” And we’re like, “Okay, cool. Well, the rest of us have, too. So where did you lose yours? We’ll help you find yours if you help us find ours.” Which isn’t always easy.

There was no fix, but the disappointment dropped anyway

But it changed things for this other woman that came in. It changed her whole entire day, and she was so happy and relaxed after that. And for me, it was like, oh, I’m not the only one who struggles with this. And people entertained me. There was no solution for me. But people started sending me memes, and people started joking with me, just laughing with others who get it. There was no fix for me. This other person, we could help her fix it. There was no fix for me. But still, my disappointment just kind of dropped, and it was so much less overwhelming.

You say there was no fix for you, but there was a fix for your mindset.

There was. And that’s what I’m saying. When we come into this community, we have that capability of seeing where your mindset is, and you seeing where my mindset is, and we can do that interaction back and forth instead of sitting in our isolation. Instead of sitting in bed with a blanket over our head. Fine, come in with a blanket up over your head. Put us in the dark. Put us on the phone underneath your blanket and we’ll chat with you. It’s getting out of that isolation and starting to create a way for you to have somebody putting their hand out and saying, “Here, let me help you.” And somebody saying, “Here, I get it.” Just having somebody else understand the frustration. That was it.

You do not have to sit in isolation this season

So, if you’re frustrated with yourself, if you’re stuck in disappointment, if you’re stuck in holiday stress or any of the other things, come join us. If you need to come vent, please do. We have people, especially when they first come and join us, that use the whole time to vent. Come do it. We laugh, but it helps. There is so much help in that. And you’re like, well, I have a therapist for that. It’s not about talking to a therapist, and we’re not knocking therapists, because we very much believe in that around here. But sometimes talking to others just like us, who don’t want to fix us, who aren’t going to talk at us with solutions, who are going to go, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, I get it,” is exactly what you need in your day.

Come join us. ndhive.com. We are absolutely here to help you.