Asperger’s, Tourette’s, and Thanksgiving

Published November 26, 2009 by Nancy

For some families, holiday get-togethers are tense.

Everybody’s got an agenda. Everybody’s got expectations.

That’s too bad, because Thanksgiving can be a lot of fun. The idea is to just enjoy being together. Have some fun, eat good food, hug a lot, hike in the woods. Sleep uncomfortably, screw up the turkey, spill the milk. Drink a bit of wine, laugh a lot.

It’s never a time to air out old grievances, pin people down, or make demands.

If you or a family member is Asperger or Tourette, then holidays are especially tense.

Here are some of the ways Asperger and Tourette kids and adults experience family gatherings:

1. There is too much strange new food. Or too much familiar food cooked weird. You’ll hear: “Yuck! This tastes awful.” You know what happens then. Grandma looks horrified, Auntie June frowns in disapproval, Uncle Ted mutters something under his breath about ungrateful kids.

2. There is too much noise and too many people. They cover their ears and go hide somewhere. Anti-social-like. Grandpa roars: “What’s wrong with you? Too good for us?”

3. Relatives walking right up to their face and talking right into their nose. Loudly. “Well, is this little Jimmy? Look how you’ve grown! Do you remember your uncle Charlie? And Auntie Ruby? So how’s school going, son?”And in defence against this intrusion, expect a reply of: “#$%@! off!”

4. They accidentally expose simmering tensions, white lies, and contradictory facts. This is always met with a horrified silence.

Why does this happen?

Families are about conformity. It’s a kind of fake conformity, because we’re all different, on different paths, with different ideologies and priorities. But when we’re together as families, we try to fake unity. We pretend — for the sake of the family. It’s too bad that we do this, because someone who doesn’t get that ends up easily piercing this conformity.

Over and over again.

Some advance planning can help.

1. Talk to family members in advance. Make sure they’re aware of the types of behaviors to expect. Make sure they know how best to accommodate to the special needs.

2. Explain about over- and under-sensitivity. Get everyone to decide to build the meal and activities around choices.

3. Agree in advance that putting a person down because they can’t eat food is being rude. And not the other way around.

4. Explain about inability to lie. Agree in advance that this is a good thing. Agree to accept that there will be embarrassing moments and hopefully you’ll all find a way to laugh about them.

5. For the Aspie person:

• Bring a book to read.
• Upon arrival, find a few quiet places for alone time.
• Help in preparing the food so that you get to make things you like.
• Do more listening than talking.
• Designate “answer” people that you can go to quietly to ask questions, rather than asking the group.
• Plan to advocate for yourself.
• Decide what you would find fun and be prepared to do that.