It's Not the Food: What Family Restaurants Actually Cost Me as an Autistic Adult
It's Not the Food
These visits are mandatory most of the time. My family expects me there.
Declining leads to questions, guilt trips, and follow-up visits to "check on me." Going costs less than not going.
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 assume I don't like restaurants because I'm picky about food or antisocial. It's not the food.
I'm constantly checking the time on my watch or my phone, hoping soon that we could eventually go home.
This happens for 2–3 hours every visit.
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 use 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.
The Masking Demand
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.
The Cascade Effect
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.
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."
This usually leads to my grandparents saying, "Is there something wrong?" or "Is everything okay?"—which leads to more small talk.
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 costs me 6–7 energy most of the time.
Not knowing how to respond in a way my family members or mom won't find offensive is so exhausting.
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.
I'm immediately put off to not talk to anyone for the rest of the day. 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 is around a 3 or 4 around this time.
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.
About Me
I'm Omari, a 23-year-old autistic adult who's been managing chronic burnout for 5+ years while working warehouse shifts.
This is why I built Spoons. Some drains I can't avoid. But tracking means I know what it costs—and I can protect the hours afterwards to ensure I can recover well enough to not drift further into burnout
Launching April 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.