If you live with an autistic partner, you'll probably already have enough insight about their early life to know how they feel about their childhood.  You may have even had conversations about their autism diagnosis, when it took place and how it impacted their life and the lives of those they were close to at the time.

If your partner was confirmed as autistic in later adulthood, it could be that there wasn't much support or acceptance from their family.  Where this is the case, Christmas time can be a bit of a challenge.

At some stage, your partner may have made a conscious decision to stop or at least try to stop masking.  

(To read more on masking, click here).  

It's when they start that process that difficulties within family units often begin.  

Other people (including family) will have likely come to know an edited version of your partner.  A persona that they curated in order to fit in to the non-autistic world and once they start behaving as they feel it's more natural to behave, family assume they've suddenly changed for the worst whereas the truth is that they knew the persona and are now getting to know the real person.

As previously explained in the section on masking, doing this for prolonged periods of time can bring on mental health issues in the intervening years, which are so often emanate from us just 'carrying on as normal' or 'pushing on through'.

There is a phrase - 'Depression is the curse of the strong'.  It really resonates with me because we do just push on and push on and we either ignore the feelings of approaching burnout or (more commonly), we don't even feel them creeping up on us and it's only once our bodies and minds have reached the point where we absolutely can't take any more, that we crash.  Hard. And those crashes can take months to recoup from which is why it's so important to take care of our mental health and be mindful of when we're approaching overload and of course, this applies to Christmas as well.

We'd all hope to live with acceptance within our families but if that just doesn't work in your partner's family dynamic, try and help out by reminding their family (and yours) well in advance of what your partner feels they can and can't manage over Christmas.  If you can, give them a few dates that you've agreed with your partner will be OK for socialising and even agree that you'll pop along to some social events on your own.

In short - just make sure you've got your partner's back.