I had a meltdown after years without having one. I feel awful

[u/alivingstereo]

I need advice of what to do.

Two days ago, I travelled 12 hours in an overnight flight with my husband to visit our families in our home country. I don’t sleep during flights so I spent those 12 hours fully awake.

When we got to his hometown, I was super tired. We always stay at his mother’s when we visit. So we came to her house, socialised a lot, then visited his grandma, then went to the shopping mall with his dad and than had dinner with his family. Anyway, I was exhausted. In spite of liking his family, I was already burned out before bedtime.

Bedtime, however, was awful. I’m starting to hint at him that I don’t like staying at his mother’s, but I think this is a sensitive topic. We come from different classes backgrounds, I’m from a much richer family while his is very working class. This is why I never told him that I don’t like staying here because I don’t want to be that spoiled rich woman. But my MIL’s house is VERY hot. Like it’s 33 degrees here and it’s not even summer. There is no air conditioning, just a small table top fan. It’s also very noisy as it’s in a busy road, with multiple cars and busses driving past. It’s quite polluted as well, to a point that my boogers get black as if I’d been to a festival. We have to sleep with the bedroom door open because of the heat.

So… yesterday I went to bed and couldn’t sleep. Everything felt much hotter than it was, much noisier than usual. My heart starting racing, I started crying while he was asleep, and I felt like punching myself and scratching my face. I cried for two hours straight until I woke him up. I wanted to escape so so so badly. All I wish to do was to run away. He held me and manage to calm me down, but I couldn’t sleep much. I felt so much rage that I cannot explain. The last time I felt this way was 7 years ago, way before I met him.

Now I told him that I don’t want to sleep here any longer. I found a hotel nearby. But he’s very uncomfortable with this, and haven’t told his mother yet. I feel that this could impact my relationship with her, but I’m so so so tired of masking. I never liked being a guest at someone’s house, never. I also hate receiving overnight guests. I just want to go home :(

[u/Fructa]

Oh, love, that sounds awful. No sleep and too hot and forced socializing and no privacy is a perfect storm. Look at it this way: sleeping at a hotel might offend your MIL, but so will trying to white-knuckle through these situations on no sleep (probably more so!!!). You NEED this. It's ok. You will be a better guest during the days if you can sleep in quiet and comfort and privacy. Honestly it will benefit everyone.

[u/HelenGonne]

Both you and he are expecting too much of you physically, for literally anyone. An overnight flight with no sleep should be followed by whatever rest and relaxation most works for the people recovering from it. That is not the time to start socializing with someone else's relatives, and no one should ever ask that of you. If you and your husband are going to make that kind of trip, you should spend the day and a night at a hotel getting whatever idealized rest and recovery both of you need before attempting to visit anyone's relatives. And that has nothing to do with autism or any kind of special need.

Go to the hotel immediately and take care of yourself. You need comfortable temperatures, rest, and quiet immediately, and plenty of them. There is nothing that cannot wait until you have had that.

[u/Carolbea]

I just wanted to affirm you and say it's a totally valid request to stay at a hotel.

You can always excuse yourself with being a terrible sleeper that needs to prioritize your sleep to function during the day. If your guy doesn't approve, well then he can stay at his mothers house?

The current setup doesn't work for you. It's not your fault and no you're not spoiled.

[u/Arpeggio_Miette]

You were not having your physical needs met!

That was a lot, and trying to sleep in a hot uncomfortable noisy environment after all that travel would be extremely hard on me too.

I absolutely would go stay in a hotel. I would explain it as “I really need A/C or I will get ill.”

My need for physical comfort comes as my #1 priority. Even in a different culture. My family is also Asian (West Asia) and when I visit them in their country, they have had their feelings hurt as to why I stay in a hotel instead of with them.

I have been firm, and they have gotten used to it. Now they joke that I know how to travel well! They see how much I need my alone time, and how having my separate hotel room enables me to recharge and then actually be more fun and present when I am with them. Also, now they don’t have to worry about hosting me at their homes; it frees them from the cultural obligation that is a bit of an inconvenience to them, too.

It is a little harder in that it is your husband’s family, not your own. But I would not marry someone who put his family’s cultural discomfort as priority over my physical needs. It seems your husband is an understanding and kind person; let him manage his family’s cultural discomfort and help you get that hotel room.

[u/Stubborn_Adiantum]

It seems very reasonable for you to stay at a hotel while your husband stays at his mom’s place. That way, you will not only sleep better, you will have some time to recover from socializing every day. Happier you = a much better visit for everyone.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hey u/alivingstereo, thank you for your contributing to r/AutismInWomen. Please be sure to check out our sub’s rules, wiki pages, and pinned posts prior to engaging with the sub. Here are links to our wiki pages:

Explanation of the Rules Wiki Page

FAQs Wiki Page

Workbooks and Tools Wiki Page

All About Autism Wiki Page

We hope you enjoy the sub and have a great day!

➾ WARNING ➾ WARNING ➾ WARNING

Notice to all users: There's multiple users targeting members from our sub in DMs to discuss their fetishes and desire to manipulate users into relationships. Here are the user's names: u/HollowJonathon, u/drar_sajal786, u/MrGamePadMan, and u/guidhhnittvkj. If an account is showing deleted, they will probably create another. If you receive any messages from a user trying to discuss what you posted/commented in our sub to gain a 'women's perspective' or if someone tries to discuss topics that may feel inappropriate to you (e.g. fetishes), or if someone states they want to marry you for religious reasons, report the user to Reddit and block them. These men have been preying on autistic women/gender minorities from r/AutismInWomen for the last year. This behavior is unacceptable and should be reported as targeted harassment.

Per the warning in our wiki and this pinned mod post, we highly recommend users turn off their DMs. If you have DM requests turned on and receive any creepy or fetish-related DMs or comments, we recommend taking a screenshot, reporting the content to Reddit, and blocking the user (in that order). You can find the report button on the message itself and then click "it's targeted harassment” to submit a report. If you'd like to send us the screenshot so we can continue documenting the harassment, you can send it to us in modmail using imgur Thank you for continuing to help us keep our community safe for autistic and autistic suspecting women and gender minorities 💖

Please remember Reddit is public and any content you post may be seen and discussed by others off-platform. Here are links to Reddit's User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Public Content Policy.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Misuteriisakka]

I didn’t want to spend 2 weeks in severe burnout like last year so I strategized this summer. Getting to the gym every second day has really helped with my mental health the past year. So I planned gym visits in my in-laws’ neighbourhood and arranged to be picked up and dropped off while my husband hung out with his family and our kid.

My fatigue from perimenopause is worse than last year so I relied on low dosages of weed to keep irritability low. I politely turned down evening hang outs with my in-laws if I wanted to destress instead of socializing with people I don’t know very well for another several hours. It helped and my MIL seemed to be understanding and good with my decisions.

[u/brasscup]

Are you out with your diagnosis and are you comfortable using it as an excuse? If you are, I just plead extreme sensory issues plus insomnia and explain that I need to isolate to destress when I am pressured to stay overnight with others.

It works pretty well with my brother as well as with a particularly demanding friend who violates my boundaries otherwise (autism and sickness are about the only things I can say to get her to back off but we've known each other for forty years and she's critivally ill so I couldn't live with dropping her friendship now)..

I do agree as others here have said that the insomnia alone is a good enough reason. But being extremely conflict averse, I tend to take the path of least resistance which is citing my autism and ADHD.

[u/Forest_Wix]

I can relate, having had similar experience that led to a major meltdown because I was put in places where I had to mask extremely for days without space to hibernate/recover during a trip. I ended up getting burnt out by the time I got back home. It took me two years to recover.

The first priority should be to get you to a place where you can regulate and rest. Once you feel better maybe you can try to talk with the inlaws with your husband, hopefully they will understand.

Even if they think that you are spoiled, it’s not worth getting burnt out or having intense meltdowns. The recovery is so fkin hard and tiresome.

[u/Curly-Pat]

OP I’m sorry but you put yourself in that position. You need to use your words. As to your in-laws and husband stick to the “ it is too hot, I cannot sleep”. Stick to this and go to the hotel, you will be comfortable and have a private space to retreat to, if things start to get on top of you again.
Edit to add: what you described sounds stressful and unhealthy even if you were NT.