Yet another holiday dinner where my two youngest spent the meal outside while everyone else feasted on ham, potatoes, cole slaw, rolls, corn, green beans, and lemon pie. Yet another holiday where the chaos of the social holiday nightmare was too much for Ewan. Yet another holiday where the swirling tornado of smells forced Vaughn outside to the sanctuary of fresh air. If Ewan's Church is his bedroom, then Vaughn's temple is the great outdoors.

Thankfully, I no longer feel any guilt about the way these two choose to spend holiday dinners. They have their limits and I can appreciate and respect these boundaries as they give us what they can when they can. But today, for the first time--I felt just an inkling of what a holiday dinner can smell and feel like to an easily overwhelmed sensory kiddo.

Today, I had to smell the Ham Water.

Because it was such a wonderfully warm and sunny spring Easter day, we had the windows open in the dining room. I had the choice seat directly across from this open and breezy window. In between me and my window lay the ham. Now, I don't love ham but I don't hate it either. I prefer turkey or chicken or steak but ham and Easter dinner goes together like peas and carrots so when Easter rolls around, ham is on the menu whether Miss Lisha likes it or not. What I really don't like though, are the juices the ham cooks in--i.e., the ham water.

Ham water smells a bit like sweaty feet. It's not something that generally arouses the appetite, especially when the breeze sends this fetid smell straight into my nostrils and directly into my brain. For the entire meal, the ham water smell washed over me again and again. For the entire meal, I tried to hold my breath and eat at the same time. Then I couldn't taste my food and quite possibly started to turn rather Smurflike. If you can't taste your food, then it feels a little bit like mush and yet again, the appetite takes a nose dive. The pleasure of the Easter meal was annihilated.

Miss Lisha likes to eat. A lot. So when I had skipped breakfast in an attempt to stuff myself at lunch and realized that I was completely nauseated by the ham water--I found myself nearly in tears and getting more ticked off by the minute. Had I not been surrounded by my family and children--I might have chucked the ham and the casserole dish straight out the window and threw a temper tantrum right then and there. I was about to the throw the mother of all behaviors. I was hungry yet nauseated. I was reaching out only to find myself pushing back at the exact same time. So I left on an errand to re-group and re-group I did. I will never again rebuke Ewan for needing to re-group and seek solitude in his room. I can scarcely imagine what it is he needs to re-group from--I only know he must do it to survive.

I tried to imagine myself with autism right at that moment. Surrounded by people, conversation richoceting off the walls like gunfire, eyes staring, forks scraping, ham water smells wafting up my nose, and hungry. Hungry but repulsed. Anxious and overwhelmed. Lost in the idioms and slang and trying like hell to participate in the world around me even when I'm two minutes behind everyone else. That's what holiday dinners are like. This is the autistic nightmare.

Next holiday, imagine yourself in a pair of autistic shoes. Imagine what this social hour on steroids must sound and feel like to the person with autism. Imagine how fast you would run from this nightmare only to find yourself pushed back again and again and again by those who want you to just enjoy the holiday like everyone else. Imagine how solitude must feel like waking up from the terror of the nightmare.