Welcome to Dysregulation Season! How to still have a spooky, celebratory good time when dysregulation is looming!
Celebrations and holidays can equal sensory overload! Let's discuss approaches to celebration that won't leave you feeling quite so dysregulated.
Hello Gifted Guides!
We’re so glad you’re here.
How are you doing?
Are you feeling a little (or a lot) overwhelmed and out of sorts? If so, you’re not alone!
We often affectionately refer to October as the start of “dysregulation season.”
Why?
(Maybe you can already guess!)
We refer to the period between October and December as “dysregulation season,” because from now until the end of the calendar year can feel like a race—if not a full-on sprint, with no let up.
For some, the stress might be rooted in parent-teacher conferences or the approach of midterm exams. For others, the stress, festivities, and disrupted schedules of the holidays are overwhelming. Halloween alone can cause a lot of anxieties, stress, excitement, and dysregulation for many gifted and twice-exceptional (2e) students.
Maybe you or your learner is sensitive to the change in weather. Maybe you’re eyeing the time change that’s coming up (at least for most places in the US) and dreading what that will do to nighttime and morning routines in your home.
This is all to say, there may be a lot coming up for you and your learner over the next few weeks. Anticipating those events and activities can be a lot of fun. It can also be a lot of stress and anxiety.
Sometimes, we can’t tell the difference between excited and anxious. That can leave us feeling stuck in a mishmash of overwhelming feelings.
This month, we’re going to start discussing how to navigate times when you and your moods, emotions, and regulation may be pulled in a variety of directions.
With busy schedules, come external expectations.
Between now and the end of the year, there are a lot of opportunities to celebrate. That said, each of those opportunities likely requires you to allocate a certain amount of time and energy. Some days that expenditure of time and energy may feel like a joy—something you’re genuinely looking forward to, something you’re confident you’ll enjoy. Other days, that expenditure may feel more like a demand.
When things feel like demands, gifted and 2e individuals—child or adult—may find themselves trying to run as far away as possible from the obligation facing them.
Baking 12 dozen cookies when you feel like it and want to be in the baking zone? Fun. Relaxing. Creative. Baking 12 dozen cookies at midnight because you worked all day, but there is a cookie swap or bake sale tomorrow afternoon? Awful.
Making a homemade Halloween costume for your learner or having a pumpkin carving contest with your family and friends? That can be seasonal fun, where you make loads of wonderful, funny, cozy memories. Realizing you have had pumpkins in the back of your van for a couple weeks and completely forgot you were going to carve them, but now you feel like you have to either decorate them or cook with them, but the thought of either is repulsive and overwhelming? That’s less cozy and fun, for sure.
Celebrations, just like anything else, depend a lot on context. While there can be a lot of unspoken expectations around holidays—what traditions to uphold, what is acceptable to skip, etc.—there can also be a lot of opportunity around celebrations. Focusing on opportunities, as opposed to focusing on demands, can help make your celebrations feel more aligned with your needs and energy levels.
Celebrating the things, events, traditions, and people that are meaningful to you doesn’t have to look just one way. You don’t have to celebrate the same way others do. You don’t even have to celebrate the way Past You did. You can curate and cultivate what works for you, your learner, your schedule, and the current moment.
Transferable advocacy skills: You’ve got them! So, use them!
It can be easy to think of accommodations in a school or work setting, yet it can be hard to consider accommodations in a home or social setting.
Why is this?
There, of course, can be many reasons why this is often the case for neurodivergent individuals. One reason is commonly rooted in the fact that settings like work and school, or roles like employee or student are based on expectations of productivity and performance. When expectations or standards aren’t being met, that is usually fairly demonstrable, and the need for a solution or accommodation is tied to notions of success in the workplace or school.
“Success” at home or in our social lives is harder to quantify. This can leave us feeling uncertain, stressed out, frustrated, or as if there is something wrong with us. Because home life and social life don’t come with clear cut standards or definitions of success, it can be harder to understand how to support ourselves in these situations. It can also be hard to see when others may also be struggling, leaving us to feel as if we are all alone or as if something is wrong with us.
We can’t tell if the fabric of someone else’s shirt is irritating them to the point of distraction. However, we can tell if that’s happening to us, and it can be incredibly easy to unnecessarily shame ourselves for having such a reaction or need.
This is of course not because these needs or reactions are anything to be ashamed of!
Still, you were probably taught at some point that there is a “right and wrong” way to celebrate or to uphold traditions. Diverging from these traditions can seem like you’re doing something wrong. These are all valid feelings.
In these moments, we challenge you to find what the “right and wrong” way to celebrate is for you, your learner, and your loved ones. What works for you won’t work for everyone, and that’s just fine.
Figuring out what works for you can feel tricky, especially when it also feels like there are high expectations to honor traditions or celebrate just so. So, let’s talk more about how to find what works for you and your group.
Hearing your gut and then listening to it.
A big part of advocacy is not just listening to your gut but also taking action. If you are looking to Halloween or other festivities you and your learner might have coming up, you can probably make some guesses on where you all might encounter some challenges.
You probably have an ever-evolving list of factors to take notice of and accommodate for. This is not exclusively a gifted or 2e consideration. This is typically just how most of us move through the world. You gather experiences and information throughout your life, and that helps you to prepare for other experiences.
You might know that your favorite aunt loves to bring pizza casserole to every family gathering. You might also know that pizza casserole doesn’t necessarily agree with you, so you probably make a note of the other foods you have access to. Maybe you’ve started volunteering to bring a dish yourself, to help ensure you feel good about the food you’ll be having at family gatherings.
That’s not behavior or advocacy tied to any specific diagnosis. It probably doesn’t even look like “advocacy” the way we often think of and discuss advocacy. Nevertheless, you’re advocating for yourself by making sure your dietary (and digestive!) needs are accounted for.
If you can make this accommodation, you can make others. That process doesn’t have to feel shameful or disruptive or different.
As with so many accommodations, accommodating your holidays, celebrations, and traditions doesn’t need to be an overhaul of the gathering in question. You don’t need a spotlight saying, “we made THIS change for XYZ personal reasons.” There are probably already tools in your Advocacy Toolbox to help you through these more personal or social gatherings.
What are things you, your learner, or your group as a whole typically do to make environments more accommodating and accessible in your day-to-day lives?
Start there!
Do you wear noise canceling or reducing earbuds at work or school? You can probably incorporate those earbuds into a celebratory gathering that you have noise concerns about.
Is mobility a challenge? What accommodations do you already use other places? Can they be applied to the setting in question? If something is in the way of using your typical mobility accommodations, can you chat with those organizing or attending said event to see what options might be available, based on the tools and strategies you already use?
Is food a challenge? What accommodations do you already use other places? Can they be applied to the setting in question? If something is in the way of using your typical food-based accommodations, can you chat with those organizing or attending said event to see what options might be available, based on the tools and strategies you already use?
Is there a sensory challenge you’re concerned about? You guessed it! See what you’re already doing and how it can apply to the situation you’re currently planning for or experiencing.
You don’t have to ask permission to have needs. You might just have to ask for some help or collaboration to incorporate your accommodations into a specific environment. There’s nothing wrong with that.
The point of celebrations, holiday gatherings, and traditions is to spend time with people you care about, doing things that are fun and meaningful to your group. You finding and implementing accommodations to make that true doesn’t detract from the fun and memories at all. If anything, it makes it easier for EVERYONE to enjoy the moment—yourself and your learner included.
You are a tremendous advocate. You work on your advocacy all year round. There is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to bring this skillset into your celebrations to make them even more accessible, enjoyable, and memorable for you and your loved ones.
Conclusion
As you work to be a Gifted Guide and to advocate and support your learners—both insides and outside of the classroom—know that the Davidson Institute is always here to support you how we can.
If you’re in one of our programs already, you know there are lots of resources for you to access via our private, member’s only website.
If you’re not currently participating in one of our programs, there is still a wealth of information and support available to you. Check out our Resource Library or our free resource guides or any of our other curated resources (like our Spotify and YouTube playlists or our Bookshop.org reading lists).
Finally, a fundamental part of advocacy is making sure basic needs—like food and shelter—are being met for both us and our learners. If you or someone you know might need extra support, findhelp.org may be a useful resource. It can also help you find organizations to support, if you’re in a position to help others.
We are honored to be part of your advocacy community, and we wish you a good start to “dysregulation season”!
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We’ll see you next month. Stay well, Gifted Guides!