Holiday Syndrome: Why the Holidays Hit Autistic & ADHD Adults So Hard 

Brett: From disrupted routines to sensory overload. For many of us, this time of year comes with added overwhelm and anxiety to meet expectations that might not necessarily be ours. Hi, I’m Brett from Neurodivergent Insights, and today Dr. Megan Anna Neff and I are talking about the concept of holiday syndrome and the impact that it has on those of us who are neurodivergent and how it has some extra added layers. Dr. Megan Anna Neff is the founder of Neurodivergent Insights and is an autistic ADHD clinical psychologist who blends research, clinical insight, and lived experience to make sense of adult neurodivergence. They create clear, compassionate, neurodivergent affirming education for autistic ADHD and ADHD adults and for the clinicians who support them. Dr. Neff is also the author of Self-Care for Autistic People and the Autistic Burnout Workbook. Much like in their writing, here our videos look to offer practical tools, grounded explanations and honest conversations about sensory health, burnout, masking identity and everyday neurodivergent life, living with ADHD and autism.

So what is holiday syndrome and what exactly does it mean for those of us who are neurodivergent? Let’s break that down with Dr. Nuff and learn how those of us who are neurodivergent can navigate this time of year with more clarity and compassion

Megan Anna: So the term comes from James Cattell, if I’m saying his last name right, and he is a psychiatrist and was a psychoanalyst as well. And there’s this paper that came out in the 1950s that coined this term holiday syndrome. And basically what it refers to is this idea of a pattern that he was noticing in his patients or clients that between around Thankssgiving here in the States to around January 1st, he noticed a pattern of shifts in his clients. Sometimes it was something like melancholy or depressed mood, but it was also a little bit more complicated than that. It could be getting in touch with essentially our unfinished work from childhood.

So the way we relate to other people, the way we perhaps project some of our unfinished stuff that can get projected onto other people, some psychomatic complaints, so like headaches or fatigue or stomach issues, patterns of more family conflicts, perhaps more relapse into substance use or eating disorders, more anxiety or panic attacks, or also more magical thinking, like this idea of, if I could just find this one thing, it’s going to cure all of my problems.

So there’s not one way it shows up, but the common theme is getting in touch with unfinished business, getting in touch with a more childlike state that brings to the surface a lot of those dynamics.

Brett: Well, and I feel like those kind of show up in a variety of different ways because you’ve got both the actual end of the year, which is its own sort of cycle of completion and you’re walking into a season of changed routines and high expectations and frankly, a lot of rigid rule thinking because with this time of year, we also have a lot of pop culture coming at us with the expectation of we have to feel and act and be a very particular way for these six weeks, but you found some people don’t believe this is legit, that this is a myth?

Megan Anna: Yeah. Or, well, if I could go back a second to something you said, yeah, that is part of what he really picked up on was the cultural pressures around this is a time for intimacy, this is a time for connection, it’s a time for tradition and family.

So, and he was also noticing it was the clients who had fewer positive social connections outside of family who were the most impacted by this, which would make sense, right? Because there’s all of this messaging around what this time of year represents.
And so if you come from a family where there is discord, where there is a lot of pain, where maybe you’re not in relationship to your family anymore, of course that’s going to bring up like old griefs or old dynamics.

So I just wanted to highlight something you named. And then yes, I’m really glad you asked about that because as I was reading about this again for this year, there is mixed feelings about this whole idea. There is this messaging out there, and I’m someone who has contributed to it, that this can be a hard time of year for mental health. And it’s interesting, that’s definitely matched my clinical experience. It matched when I was going through training. I remember all of us during the holidays, because we were all doing clinical work and then we’re all together the rest of the week, we talked about how heavy the clinical load felt during this time of year.

So I’ve anecdotally seen it. However, there’s other people in the mental health field who have said, “We don’t actually see that. We don’t see a dip in depression. We don’t see an increase in suicide during November, December.” That some of that comes January and that some of the higher risk comes in the spring.

So there are some people who are saying, “This is actually not the most helpful message to be getting out there because we’re not sure that it matches the research.” I will say anecdotally from the neurodivergent community, it does feel like it’s a harder time of year for many of us.

Brett:Yeah.

Megan Anna: Yeah. I’m curious your thoughts. 

Brett: Most of my neurodivergent friends and family very much bring this up every time this time of year. And in particular, I’m in the Northeast of the States and we are at time of recording, going through a particularly difficult cold snap. We always have the added level of seasonal effective disorder moving in that starts at the time change, the end of daylight savings and so forth.

So that’s why when you mentioned to me that some people feel this is a myth, it really took me back because in my community at least, I very much, it is anecdotal, but I very much see it all around me this time of year.

Megan Anna: If we’re looking at mental health, some of the hardest windows is after the holidays, but before the spring has arrived because …
And that’s the mixed bag of holidays. For some of us, it also, for some people it gives them something to look forward to.

And so that helps get us through this sad season. I live in Oregon, it’s gray, it’s rainy, this is always a really hard time of season for me, both energy and mood-wise, as it is for a lot of Oregonians.

And so sometimes it is, it’s after the holidays and it’s like, wow, Springfield’s a long time away.

So that can be another window for different reasons. Now back to holiday syndrome, it’s about the unconscious stuff. And that’s what I really appreciate about this is it adds that layer of nuance of we have a lot of unconscious stuff kicking up for us, many of us during this time of year.

And that’s the tricky thing about unconscious stuff is we’re not always aware of it. And when we’re not aware of it, that’s when it can really sneak in and have a lot of power over us.

And so just even increasing awareness of, I might have some stuff from childhood bubble up this time of year. I also might be receiving other people’s projections this time of year. And I think that awareness can help us move through this season with more resilience.

Brett: When I heard you use this term, when I read the term holiday syndrome, that was such an aha moment for me because my therapist has sort of named it using a different phrase, a different word, very similar phrasing though. The concept is exactly the same though. And when my therapist named it, it was about two years ago and it was one of those moments, and I don’t know if this is Alexa thymia, but it was one of those moments where it’s just like, “What’s that thing? What’s that thing?” I feel this regular pattern of feelings coming upon me at this time of year. It starts just before Thanksgiving and it lasts until the new year, but I couldn’t put a name to it.

And then when in therapy we discussed this concept, I was able to go, “Yes, this is it. ” I was able to lock into it. So I definitely am curious about that, the feeling that kind of sits there that we always can’t necessarily name, or maybe we don’t even always notice, and it is very unconscious at that time.

Megan Anna: And it is, I feel like, I mean, it kind of parallels a lot of the Autistic ADHD experience. So much of what is orienting and containing is starting to have names for experiences. And for the holidays, it could be many things, right? There’s also the routine disruption. And once I had a name for that, that was so helpful because I get a lot of routine disruption, free floating anxiety. And once I was like, “Oh, that’s what this is, I understand what this is, it’s so helpful.” And so with holiday syndrome, it’s like, okay, there’s some holiday syndrome stuff, there’s also routine disruption. And being able to name it, whenever we’re having an experience that we don’t understand, our mind becomes a very generous storyteller in the sense that, especially if we have anxiety or depression or OCD, it will come in with a narrative.

So for me, a lot of the times it’s been, “Well, I must not love my family, or I must not be a good person that I just want to spend my time alone working during the holidays. 

And so there’s all these narratives that my mind would tell me around what’s wrong with me because I didn’t understand those feelings. I didn’t understand the dread I had going into the holidays.

And so naming things, I think what it does is it kind of helps to cut out some of those mind stories that our mind is really wanting to tell us whenever we’re having an experience that doesn’t make sense. 

Brett: And I think that’s so critically important to double down on too, because sometimes it can be stories that our brain is telling us about us, but also it can be, as you noted before, in family dynamics and things, it may start to tell stories outside of us as well. And that can be just as anxiety inducing as the stories about ourselves.

But it sounds like one of the first things we can do to sort of get a little bit on this is naming it and acknowledging when it’s happening and being aware of those stories coming in.

Megan Anna: Yeah, exactly. Kind of naming it, naming the story. And then my go- to is pivoting toward curiosity, like where does this story come from? If we could, if we want to lean into this, we could see the holiday season … If we have some capacity and we’re well supported, to see this actually as an invitation to do some really deep work, because if our unconscious is bringing this to the surface, especially if we’re in therapy, that’s really good material. It’s kind of like a portal to the unconscious that it’s giving us.

And so if we’re able to notice those stories, be curious about it, there’s actually an invitation in the season to do some pretty deep psychological work. Again, if we’re supported and in a space where we can do that sort of …

In psychoanalytic terms, we’d call this uncovering work. There’s containing work.
There’s seasons where what you and your therapist are doing is it’s containing. It’s so emotionally hot that the work is you go to therapy and it’s containing.

And then there’s seasons of when we’re doing uncovering work and that’s when we’re, let me understand what’s coming up for me, let me understand these unconscious patterns. And of course you might do both uncovering and containing work in the same session, but I’ve noticed for me, I definitely have seasons where I have more ability to do the uncovering work and then seasons where it’s all about containment. It’s all about the getting through the season.

Brett: How do we balance the how I should feel versus how I do feel? How do we balance that?

Megan Anna: When we are starting to feel that I should be feeling something else, because that’s when those mind stories come in and that’s also when those secondary emotions come in, right? We can start having feelings about our feelings. Like if we wake up and we’re sad or we’re anxious, if we then feel like we shouldn’t be feeling that way, now on top of that feeling of sadness, there’s judgment or there’s worry.

Those secondary emotions are the ones that tend to be a little bit stickier because we can kind of get locked into those, those initial emotions. If we can let ourselves feel them, they’ll tend to move through, but it’s those secondary emotions that really can get us stuck.

So I think noticing when we are starting to have feelings about our feelings, and usually there’s a narrative with it, and then seeing if we can step back to say, “Actually, is it okay that I feel this way? Where does the pressure come from that I’m supposed to be feeling anything other than I’m feeling? Can I let myself feel what I’m feeling? Is it okay to not be okay?”

One thing I like to remind people this time of year is it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay if this is not the happiest time of the year for you.

Brett: You remind us a couple of times in the article that it is okay to not be okay at this time of year. And I think it’s really important that people hear that because there is that expectation and I’ll go back to something else you just said, which my therapist will say that to me often, which is, I find it’s good advice, but I also struggle with it of you have to let those feelings move through you in that moment. And I feel like sometimes there’s that sort of knee jerk reaction of like, “I don’t want to. ” You’re a little kid a little bit like, “No, I don’t want it. I don’t want it. I don’t like this feeling. I want it to just go away.” And sometimes the only way is through, which is not an easy thing to hear or do.

Megan Anna: It is not. And I have this running joke with, I guess myself, that the things I write about and the things I talk about are the things I struggle the most with.

So that’s called emotional avoidance, what you just described that I don’t want to feel that. And that’s a really human experience. We also know it tends to be more common among neurodivergent folks, especially those of us with lyxathemia and it’s something I struggle with.

And so I do talk about emotional acceptance a lot because I think it’s my way of cognitively trying to get myself to then go feel my emotions. I am getting better at it, but I also really struggle with emotional avoidance. It is really hard to sit non-productively with hard emotions.

Brett: What are the other things that we should be thinking about that we can be doing to just sort of move through this process?

Megan Anna: I think a lot of the things that in general are good for neurodivergent people.

So things like sensory self-care, making sure we are taking moments for sensory detox or sensory resets because it is a high sensory season for a lot of us. And so I think, and that sensory load, that just can amplify everything. I know if I’m feeling sensory overloaded and then there’s an emotional experience on top of that, it’s like an emotional sensory meltdown at once. It’s not pretty.

So I would say a lot of intention around sensory soothing and sensory self-care. Things like mindful self-care, and I do have an article about this. I think we’ll make a future video on it, but when we think about self-care, there’s self-care that’s nourishing, kind of deeply nourishing in the moment and in the long term, and then there’s self-care that’s perhaps helpful in the moment, but maybe not helpful in the future.

So things like binge watching TV and it’s something I do and it’s like in the moment it’s really helpful, it’s distracting, but then if my sleep gets, if it interrupts my sleep and then I’m waking up with less sleep, it’s not actually a good long-term nourishing, making sure we have some of the nourishing self-care because I do think the holidays, it’s a time for people who drink, it can be easy to kind of overindulge, which can disrupt sleep.It can just be easy to fall off our routines in ways that are anti-nourishing for us.

So I think having some grounding, nourishing practices that help hold us. I think having some anchoring routines, because there is so much routine disruption, if we can have a few anchoring routines to help support us as we move through the season, I think that can be really supportive, especially for autistic people. And that could look like also making sure you have some of your same foods or safe foods, because again, holidays like food can change a lot too.

So whether it’s anchoring through same and safe foods or anchoring through practices, there’s a few ways that we can build and anchors into the season while a lot is changing.

Brett: Yeah. I tend to buy a little extra of my safe foods a little bit more at this time of year because of just holiday shopping and with stores having holiday hours and things like that, I worry about not having my safe foods when it’s like an off time to have it.
So I often will plan ahead for something like that.

Megan Anna: That’s really smart. I actually haven’t done that before, but you’re right, because grocery stores will run out or things. Okay, I’m going to go stock up with my frozen burritos.

Brett: Yeah. I know. Well, I was checking expiration dates for like … And if you’d like to learn more about holiday syndrome and the self-care techniques that you can apply for this time of year, be sure to check out neurodivergentinsights.com, where you can also sign up for our newsletter and get articles and these videos every week right in your inbox. You can also check out more of Dr. Megan Anna Neff’s writing on neurodivergent insights as well as in their books, Selffare for Autistic People and the Autistic Burnout Workbook. If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter and learn more about Dr. Megan Anna Neff’s work and what we’re doing at Neurodivergent Insights, check out the links below for more. Thanks for watching it and be sure to like and subscribe so you don’t miss another video from Dr. Neff. And that helps us get more of our educational videos out to more late discovered ADHD, autistic, and ADHD adults.

What strategies do you use this time of year? How do you perform self-care for yourself during the holidays or what do you think about holiday syndrome? We’d love to hear your thoughts, comment below, and let us know. Thanks for watching