What Family Restaurants Actually Cost Me as an Autistic Adult
When I go to visit my extended family such as my aunt or grandparents, these visits are mandatory most of the time. My family expects me there.
Declining anything leads to questions, guilt trips, and follow-up visits to "check on me." Going costs less than not going, so I end up going anyways.
Every time I go to a restaurant with my family or grandparents, the area itself is very loud with people constantly talking from all directions. My family is directly demanding my attention through eye contact and constant small talk. I have to filter all of these out at once.
People (Most notably my family) assume I don't like restaurants because I'm picky about food or antisocial. It's not the food. I don't mind the texture of most foods sometimes even though some do bother me like foods with very strong texture such as eggs. It's the constant demands to talk and "be involved" which is what pushes me past my limit every single time.
I'm constantly checking the time on my watch or my phone, hoping soon that we could eventually go home, so that the masking would stop. It usually extends far more than the 2-3 hours my family said we'd be there, so the unpredictable factor added alongside that is draining as well.
The Sensory Stack
There's often loud music playing inside the restaurant. Constant loud and abrupt small talk from family members. Babies crying on the right of me. A sudden burst of family members laughing in the background. All of it hits at once. I 've tried to use my Sony XM5 noise-canceling headphones, which somewhat helps combat this. But my other family members find it rude, especially my mom. I can feel the pressure from her—not directly saying it—to take them off.
This removes my only source of defense against everything happening at once. And it only mildly helped things anyways since it was loud and ongoing regardless.
I do have earplugs at home that I've gotten the habit of using, but it wouldn't drown out the intensive exhaustion of laughter or a sudden plate or utensil falling on the floor.
The main driver is having to mask. Adjusting myself to appear more "normal" and to "fit in" with my other family members. Giving the impression that I'm enjoying myself when I'm exhausting myself significantly just being there. I constantly feel myself subconsciously adjusting the way I sit. The way I talk—which is often soft in volume, which gets remarks from family members to speak up more.
I do this to minimize any more mental work that I'm already doing. It usually ends up backfiring and leads to more anyways. I often try to go to the bathroom to minimize this cost but it usually leads to more questions about "Is my stomach feeling okay?" which leads to more masking, and exhaustion.
The Cascade Effect
Using my app 1-10 slider context in mind during this post:Starting roughly at a 3 or 4 energy most days, Brief exchanges like talking with the server cost me 2–3 energy. Exhausting but brief, so it doesn't drain me completely once the exchange is over. (But still enough to have barely any energy left over)
The main boss is interacting with my grandparents and especially my mom.
My grandparents want to know how my life has been going—majority of the time in detail through back-to-back exchanges. I'll say casually, "I'm doing pretty good," not going into much detail since I'm already very exhausted. Hopefully this minimizes how much back-and-forth I have to go through.
Then my mom decides to point out that I'm "not talking as much." And usually chips in or asks me questions which everyone else expects an answer to.
This usually leads to my grandparents saying, "Is there something wrong?" or "Is everything okay?"—which leads to more small talk.
And my mom and sister usually play this off as not being a big deal. But constantly having to go into detail like that, while maintaining eye contact, and the lingering pressure of possibly saying something they may find offensive or "off"—this is a massive cost that I have to manage, and something I ultimately can't manage because my brain literally can't handle filtering all of these variables at once. Not knowing how to respond in a way my family members or mom won't find offensive is so exhausting too. I often try to guide my mind away from this by using my phone. Not with the intentions to be "rude" but to minimize any conversations going forward for the rest of the meetup if I appear "busy". This usually fails though in the end as my family and grandparents expects hugs and goodbyes before the conversation truly ends.
What After Looks Like
Majority of the time I'm doing absolutely nothing. Either sitting in my room listening to nothing, or brown noise from my headphones, or sobbing for an hour because of how exhausting it was. (Especially during moments of which I literally can't find anything to say)
I'm immediately put off to not talk to anyone for the rest of the day. At this point I look forward to spending the rest of the day alone—either stimming or playing games by myself to regulate, at least a little bit. (My energy around this point is sitting around a 2 most of the time when this happens)
This feeling doesn't go away for the next day or two before I meaningfully recover—if mental demands significantly lighten up the next couple of days at the bare minimum.
If they don't, my recovery easily scales further to at least a week.
In some cases, it's even ongoing. I barely get any recovery at all due to sudden slamming of doors and family members coming into my room abruptly one second after knocking. Not knowing when they will show up. Often taking my recovery period as "offensive" and wanting to interact more as a result. Demanding everything while ultimately questioning nothing.
So in response to all of this, I decided to built Spoons, since well, Some drains I can't avoid. But by tracking it reveals how much these interactions costs—and I can protect the hours afterwards to ensure I can recover well enough to not drift further into burnout. (Which I've been dealing with for the past 5 years, so I still have a lot more work to do.)
Launching onApril 2026. getspoons.app - One email when it's ready. No spam.
— Omari
Note: I'm sharing my personal experience as an autistic adult, not medical advice. If you're experiencing severe burnout or crisis, please consult a healthcare provider familiar with autism.