#and whatever time I'd have to prepare for bed for I spend 2-3 hours being a pro trichotillomaniac while daydreaming terrible scenarios

[leaf-green-spring]

Oughh this cannot be good for my psyche

[welcome-to-the-petting-zoo]

Hey Anon,

This is your "lucky" day, you get two idiots' wisdom for the price of one.

I kinda just wanted to let you know that I feel ya, because I experience essentially the same thing every time I go out. I have a theory why that's happening to me, which might not at all apply to you, but I'll share more details of my experience so you can compare and who knows, maybe some of my coping mechanisms can help you navigate your experience as well ^~^

To start out I have to point to the fact that I'm autistic and I have relatively little social energy to begin with, but that doesn't mean I don't like going out. But whenever I do, the following happens (it doesn't particularly matter whether alcohol is involved, it happens either way, alcohol just amplifies the urgency of the emotions, while the lack of alcohol speeds up the timeline); to illustrate I'm going to talk about a night in town where we go to a bar or club:

Phase 1: Pre-fun nervousness. In this phase I often regret making plans and have a terrible time choosing what to wear and getting out of the door. Luckily my family knows this and they can gently kick my ass until I actually leave.

Phase 2: Just getting started. I meet up with my friends and we start the evening. Some drinks are served, everybody's catching up with each other and in about 20-30 minutes I actually start enjoying myself too.

Phase 3: The body of the night. In this phase I'm peaking. (I find you're extremely lucky for being able to feel it build up, because when I'm in the "zone" I can't feel shit because my excitement is too loud, and it all comes crashing down on me after I've burnt all my energy, basically one moment to the next, without any warning.) I'm having tons of fun, dancing, playing games or whatever one does on a night out. I don't feel tired or cautious, I'm just all on there.

What happens in the background, unnoticed is that my social batteries are draining steadily and depending on the activities, somewhere between a couple minutes and a couple hours, they are going to be completely empty and I'll need a rescue, but of course because I'm a fool that never learns, at this point I'm completely oblivious to this and I still firmly believe that "this time it'll be different", which is the finest form of self-bullshittery ever.

Phase 4: The Crash. As I said, for me this happens without any graduality in it, I'm on the dance floor, having the time of my life, aaaaaand I'm done. And I need to leave inside 5 seconds or the world will literally end. I'm overwhelmed, sounds hurt, lights hurt, the closeness of people suffocates me, and I need to be in a dark, quiet place, alone to cool off.

When I'm drunk, and especially when I was younger, this is the exact moment I'd (maybe) grab my coat and just bolt towards the door. Before my friends would even notice, I'd be gone and spend the remainder of my little energy to find a place to sleep, which, if I'm in luck, might be my bed, but it's not unheard of that I'd sleep in some weird-ass but definitely public place (what can I say, I'm a charming mofo)...

Okay, so what if you don't want to be a dumbass like me and rudely bail on your friends every time you're out? Well, you can have a Plan™ and you can make #precautions.

First off, congrats on identifying your pattern, that's a great first step. Now that you know it's going to happen, you can prepare for it. Have your friends be your allies. Explain to them what's happening to you before it happens, and let them know what you'd like them to do or how you'd like them to react when it happens. People get scared and worried if something unexpected happens, but at the same time they can get used to practically anything, so as log as they know what to expect, they are likely to be fine. Make sure they know that you're "just" having an extreme fit of tiredness, and it doesn't mean you weren't having fun, in fact, the more fun you're having the harder you may crash afterwards. If you have a friend who is also prone to get socially exhausted or just doesn't like to stay out too long, ask them if they could maybe help you get out. It's always nice to have someone who can extract you from an overwhelming social situation, and it makes them more likely to check on you sometimes, making sure you actually have enough energy left to get out before you crash, unlike my stupid ass who always has to make a French Exit...

You can also try to identify things like what your normal timeline looks like, what might speed it up, what might conserve it a bit longer, etc., and plan for this in advance. For example if you know that you can easily hang out and chat at a quiet bar for hours and hours but you can't handle more than an hour of massive crowds, you can just make sure everybody (including you) has the right expectations about the time frame.

Don't forget to take breaks. This is probably the one good thing I've actually gained from smoking. It provides me with a natural excuse in social situations where I can go "I'll just be a second, I'm going for a smoke", and then you can slip away for a little bit and just take a break. Btw this works with bathroom breaks too, and most often nobody is checking what you're doing in there, so bathrooms are a very handy hideout for the socially tired.

And when you feel your energy levels plummeting, say your goodbyes and leave. I know it's a scary thought because society and peer pressure tells us that it's rude to leave while your peers are still up for more, but in fact there is nothing wrong with a bit of self-preservation and at the end of the day, why would you need to sacrifice your fun for other people's? If your friends are younger or they don't know much about people with more severe limitations, you might have to be firm with them at first, not letting them bully or emotionally blackmail you which is something that used to happen to me a lot in these situations, where people, out of misguided good intentions, kinda aggressively bargained with me about me staying just a bit longer because they were having so much fun, but as I grew older I realised that this was selfish and uncool of them, and I've learnt how to assert myself in this situation.

The thing I had to learn the hard way is that sometimes when you're having fun, you're too distracted to pay attention to your body's signals and in general, as long as I'm focused on something, I can't at all feel my energy drain, and then once my concentration is broken, I realise I'm dead on my feet. This is just how I function, with everything, not only socialising, so I once again urge you to cherish that feeling of it building up in you, because that's going to be your get-out warning and it'll leave you enough time to say goodbye and politely extract yourself from the place before you completely crash.

I hope you can get something out of my ramblings, sorry for the long answer.

- Fox

This may be a weird thing to ask, but after talking with friends I've realized that it's not normal to randomly shut down in the middle of events? I'll be sitting and having fun and I can feel it build up and then all of a sudden I stop speaking to people, everything becomes TOO much, I shake and bounce WAYY more, and I feel like need to get out of there right now. I feel bad because my friends can tell, but I can't stop this? I don't think it's normal but... it's happened all my life and idk...

(sorry I'm the anon who was asking abt the sudden switching feelings in public) I just realized I may need to clarify, but when I say 'I stop speaking' I meant I stop having lengthened conversations with those friends, I'm not entirely shut off. When I speak, however, it's mostly small things in response at that point forward, or just asking someone to get me out of there. I don't think I clarified, so that's what I meant. Haha, sorry.

Hi there anon! It’s not a weird thing to ask, and I’m glad you’re reaching out for support!

It isn’t clear from your ask whether you are diagnosed with any physical or mental disability, that would be the obvious culprit for this experience, but I’m going to go ahead and guess not. 

And well.... The question becomes, as always, what is normal? 

If I have to venture a guess as to what you’re experiencing, it could be that you become overwhelmed and/or experience social burn-out. This is a pretty normal occurence among me and my friends, likely because I mostly hang out with neurodivergent mentally ill people. That is not to say that you’re necessarily ND because you experience this, but it is a more common occurence among those who are.

There is no “cure” for this experience, but since you can feel the build-up, I would focus on damage control. Try to inform your friends beforehand, if possible, escape somewhere for a little while.

When I’m with friends, I will sometimes ask them if it’s okay for me to sit by myself and listen to music on my noise cancelling headphones for a while, and people are usually okay with that.

So just.. yeah, you’re not alone. A lot of us have these experiences, for whatever reason. 

I hope this helped at least a little!

Cat