Ok, so is it just my life here, or does this sound familiar to anyone else?
We have many friends, but due to our habit of moving around, many live far away. When they are "out of sight and out of mind" for my husband they become acquaintances, not friends. They remain my friends, however.
We will not travel to see them. My husband cannot fathom why we would, as they are now not friends, but acquaintances.
He cannot, also, fathom why they would come to see us. But they do! They come 2-3 hours (each way) and they want to spend time with us and our family.
The stress this causes is ENORMOUS! The whole routine of life is interrupted. They "invade our home." They "require entertainment."
Our home is being invaded by my best friend and her husband this weekend. The stress, for my husband, started last night. He is miserable. And yet he ok's the visits, I think to please me. I ask him how short they should be, and he gives me a time frame, but now that the time has come, the amount of time for the visit is too long. When I said, "You told me this amount of time was ok" he says "Remind me of this conversation next time."
I do have an agreement with all of our friends that they leave early Sunday morning and that gives us the entire day on Sunday to relax and get back to "normal" before the week begins. We also have what we call an "in-law" apartment on the bottom floor of our house where they can stay. That is part of why we rented this house, so that when we have guests, there is enough room for everyone to breathe.
Does this happen to anyone else? Does a friend visiting your home cause such stress and issues? How do you deal with it?
Sounds familiar. While both my wife and myself are on the spectrum, I believe in the rule that you should keep an 'open house' (to some degree) but she doesn't. So the only persons who have stayed overnight at our place ever are my parents (hers live only 20 miles away) and my brother. Even friends of our children dropping in to play for an hour or so are an issue.
We deal with it like this: I play the host, my wife 'retires' to her room and stays there and as soon as 'our' guests are gone we have an argument. Every time (not when the guests are children, though).
How much advance warning are we talking about here?
About two weeks advance warning (in our situation) and he actually suggested the visit...LOL - Again for me.
Total invasion for me. Only about 2 people are welcome at my house and even then I like plenty of warning. Anyone who knocks at my door unexpectedly won't have it answered and I don't care if it is obvious that I am at home. I have even been known to redecorate after someone I dislike has been in my house because it feels tainted somehow. Now my door remains locked and bolted.
I don't like people calling around unannounced; or coming home to find there’s been an invasion while I’ve been at work. A intrusion of any kind isn‘t nice…this includes the phone ringing unexpectedly.
I don’t usually feel comfortable in other people’s houses either.
When i was a teen, I loved the house being filled with my friends. That changed before I was 30. Dad moved back in and we had an unspoken agreement that home was our safe sanctuary zone. No guests. Not even relatives. I never answered the door if I wasn't expecting someone.
Dad became terminally ill when I was 45. This required a parade of health professionals to visit our house a few times a week. Both the dog and I became totally unglued by this. I put a sign on the door to "come in" the days the nurse (I hired) was scheduled so I could stay shut in my room while she was there. I can't cook so I hired a service to deliver daily meals for dad. I always left a sign for the delivery person to place the meal in my cooler on the porch. I waited until he drove away before opening the door to snatch the cooler inside and relock the door.
I got in fights with the VA because they kept sending a confusing assortment of people to the house, telling me a caseworker needed to visit, and the nurse's boss and the chaplin and heaven knows what else. I demanded to know why each visit was necessary. They acted surprised that anyone would mind. They just said it was procedure. It felt like I was being attacked by chaos and everything was spinning out of control.
It reminded me of the time I had to call the fire department for a small house fire. I was shocked to see strangers from the neighborhood wandering through and poking their nose into my bedrooms just because a firetruck was there.
The invasion of Dad's caretakers (they stayed strangers regardless of how many visits) was one of the top three hardest things to deal with surrounding my father's 2 year illness and death. Even though I hired some of them out of necessity. It felt deeply violating and traumatic. The dog lost her mind and started biting people. I felt the same.
It was 5 years ago but my tummy aches just from remembering it. You can take his anxieties seriously.
My sister had to leave my birthday present on the seat of my car this month because I won't answer the door or phone. I feel guilty but... I am what I am. It took another 2 days to steel myself to phone her and say thank you.
Monday an electrician is coming. *sigh* I can't feel settled while the scent of strangers lingers in the air after they leave.
hubby has autistic traits and i have non ( of which i know anyhoo ) and our son has hfa-our daughter has non-as far as i know.
hubby will disapear ( to our garage or lean-to ) if its too noisy when we are "asscended" upon-and josh will play up-diving everwhere-beating on kids etc etc-but then they both like it quiet, i do feeel under pressure to accomodate both hubby, josh and the "visitors" whilst they are here, sometimes hubby will arrange something, a visit, a meal, then he will have panic attacks and will dread going-i think at 1st he wants to do the activity or see the person/s and then all of a sudden he doesnt want it. i am left confused by this but yet i wing it mostly-i think my whole autism association is based on winging it!!!!!
i just go with the flow, see what the mood is throughout the visit etc-wing it mostly-and then pick up where we left of before the " visiting".
i guess you should just try to get to the phone first when ppl r gonna call to make sure he doesnt invite the ppl at he wrong time-or if you have seriel visitors that come a certain day or time that you could make anothe rplan that you all do something family orientated together/ seperate-so the visitors cant come. another idea is to maybe go somewhere with the visitors so theres either a bit of space for you r hubby or so that there not in your house, and maybe there will be something different to talk about when you get back
sarah
You can take his anxieties seriously.
Thank you Silky (and everyone else who has been kind enough to respond.)
Honestly, we just figured it out, along with all of the other AS things, that this is a normal response for him. We have been puzzled by it for years, as we would make plans, he would seem excited, and then he would have such anxiety before it happened. This post was about people coming to our home, but he also has anxiety about concerts and things. I got us very special $250 tickets to a concert last year that we BOTH really wanted to go to...and he almost backed out at the last second.
I do want to have friends over, but he is my priority, so I am minimizing visits, and working with him to make them as comfortable as possible. Thing is, he really does like these people (he stresses out when it is HIS friends coming as well.)
Today I am going to offer to leave him behind and take the crowd out to the museum.
great idea
if hes up to it maybe he could make the evening meal-if not doesnt matter-its not very often mine can do a meal
How much advance warning are we talking about here?
Family: several weeks; friends of children: NO advance warning.
Total invasion for me. Only about 2 people are welcome at my house and even then I like plenty of warning. Anyone who knocks at my door unexpectedly won't have it answered and I don't care if it is obvious that I am at home.
I don't like people calling around unannounced; or coming home to find there’s been an invasion while I’ve been at work. A intrusion of any kind isn‘t nice…this includes the phone ringing unexpectedly.
I don’t usually feel comfortable in other people’s houses either.
This pretty much describes my experience. I don't like having people round. I live with an elderly relative and other family members come round on Saturdays to see her so I either hide in my room or retreat to my bf's house although the latter can be quite stressful as I can't have any alone time.
On the few occasions I've had friends round I find it easier with aspie friends as they understand and don't do anything that makes me feel overly 'invaded' but I struggle a bit more with NTs I know as they don't seem to have any understanding of my anxiety.
My bf is particularly bad as he leaves litter all over the place and doesn't respect my things and is quite messy.
I also hate it when the doorbell rings. I don't answer it unless I am expecting someone and when I have my own flat (which will hopefully be soon) I will either get a door bell that flashes a light rather than makes a noise (as light changes are far less distressing for me than noise) or just put some wadding in the speaker so as to muffle the noise!
I also don't like it when people I don't know phone me or when people phone me at random times - and even a couple of people have phone my mobile who I know through work even though they had my work number and I'm pretty clear that I don't want work contacts calling my mobile!
Total invasion for me. Only about 2 people are welcome at my house and even then I like plenty of warning. Anyone who knocks at my door unexpectedly won't have it answered and I don't care if it is obvious that I am at home. I have even been known to redecorate after someone I dislike has been in my house because it feels tainted somehow. Now my door remains locked and bolted.
Total invasion, definately!
We have lived in our apartment for 9+ years. In all of that time, only two people have been allowed in. We have no doorbell, and ignore all door knockers we don't know are coming (even if it is obvious we're home, also). Plus, the ringer on our phone is turned off, and hooked to an answering machine with the volume all the way down. (It has a feature where a code number can be entered to get it to ring if there is an emergency, and only the landlord and my son's school has this code.)
We wanted to string the outside of the doorway with barbed wire, but the management wouldn't go for that. Also had a mat that said, "GO AWAY", but it was stolen.
Anti-social? Why, whatever gave you that idea? 
Oh, one more thing. We haven't redecorated as such, but once, there was an emergency where the landlord had to come in with no advance notice (obviously). When she left, we had to clean the whole place (and I mean everything) with Lysol and extract the carpet. (My sig. other has OCD, and feels very strongly about others touching, or even seeing her stuff - especially when it is someone she does not particularly like. She uses the same word to describe it: They "taint" everything with their gaze.)
Maybe some of you understand why my dad chose to retire to a 28' x 20' two story bungalow in a thinly settled (10% were year rounders) community straddling the Morgan-Berkeley County lines in WV, and even that wasn't good enough, Dad had one of those little sheds moved in from Lowes on a truck and put in (and added electricity). He was not much for entertaining.
What Mom thought of that, when Dad died, Mom moved to the nearest settled area, Martinsburg, and ultimately followed me to Greenbelt, but did want to die there.
It depends what mood I'm in for me. Sometimes I feel really sociable and will talk to anyone who will talk to me, but other days I want to be left alone and get pissed off when anyone comes round.
When I come home from school I usually want soem time on my own though, and it annoys me when my Mum and Brother get home early.
Well we survived the visit. It will be some time until the next one, I can tell you that...
May i suggest you write a 'survival guide to family dinners' 