Do you have anxiety caused directly by autism?

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P. Zombie
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10 Nov 2024, 8:24 am

Anxiety in autism is often described as a secondary symptom, caused by living in an unadjusted world. But I don’t think it’s the case in my situation – I’d be anxious in almost any possible worlds. Hence the question – do you have anxiety which you feel as a direct result of some autistic traits (and not as a result of living in a neurotypical world, rejection, bullying, etc.), and how do you cope with it?

Since middle school I have various forms of anxiety – the more of them the older I get. Earlier I didn’t think of them in autistic terms, but my diagnostician said they can be to large extent explained by autistic intolerance of change, inflexibility etc. I expect the world to be stable and any larger changes, or just thoughts of possible changes, cause anxiety. With changes comes the necessity to think things through and I’m easily overwhelmed by the overload of information I have to analyze. So, even simple activities, like buying new clothes, cause anxiety, because it’s not the activity I’m doing on a daily basis, and requires thinking about what to choose, will it be comfortable in the future etc. – I don’t have any gut feeling to help me in the process. Also, I fear some sudden change can come any moment – devices breaking, family members falling sick, accidents etc. – for which I’m completely unprepared.

Then, there is something I call “life inertia” – difficulties in switching to new life situations, e.g. being slow in adjusting to new workplace, new home etc.; feeling anxious / uneasy / “not quite right” while thinking about any life changes, even if the current situation isn’t good; or generally assuming that current lifestyle can last forever (and thus for example, having troubles with transition to adulthood long after the “appropriate” age for such transition).

So, anxiety is my default attitude towards anything outside of my narrow comfort zone. It isn’t very severe in any particular moment, but it is constant and shaping most aspects of my life. You could say I’m not a person with anxiety, but an anxious person – anxiety makes a large part of who I am and if it were suddenly removed, I would be either a completely different person, or I just wouldn’t know what to do and become overwhelmed in some other way.


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10 Nov 2024, 9:14 am

I happen to have GAD in addition to ASD, and so distinguishing what is the source of my anxiety can get tricky. People on the spectrum disproportionately have GAD and other anxiety disorders, but they also may be misdiagnosed with such a disorder when the autism goes unrecognized (I've heard this is particularly true about autistic women). Disturbance of routine and sensory overload can lead to apparent anxiety attacks in autistic people. What I think indicates broader anxiety problems in my case, apart from being autistic, is that I continue to have anxious thoughts even when I'm comfortably in my safe spaces.



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10 Nov 2024, 10:14 am

As the previous poster explained, autistic people may or may not realize that they are on the spectrum as they grow up. But if they determine that they are on the spectrum, retroactively then, one knows that they were always on the spectrum. The reason is that you cannot "become" autistic. It is not catching, or something you develop or grow out of.

So if you are autistic and have anxiety at any level, it is hard to say to what degree being a different kind of person influences or causes that.

Imagine that you have a bird on your head. You weren't aware of this, but he's always been there. People have always looked at the top of your head. They don't do this to anyone else. It makes you feel anxious that people stare at the top of your head. One day, you realize that there is a bird on your head and that's why people stare. So one could say that you feel anxious BECAUSE you have a bird on your head OR because PEOPLE STARE AT the bird on your head.



ToughDiamond
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10 Nov 2024, 12:57 pm

P. Zombie wrote:
do you have anxiety which you feel as a direct result of some autistic traits (and not as a result of living in a neurotypical world, rejection, bullying, etc.), and how do you cope with it?

Don't know. To find out I'd ideally need to find a world that understood and allowed for ASD, and I don't think there is one. Except that my first school was fairly quiet and well-ordered, and they admired my logical, scientific mental strengths, so I did very well academically and had less to worry about until I moved to another school which was way off my wavelength. At one point I moved into an area full of hippies and anarchists, and they were so friendly that I felt very relaxed and happy most of the time. All of which would suggest that my anxiety and general woes wouldn't be so bad in a more suitable world.

I've not been bullied much. I've not been rejected much either, probably because I hardly ever risk rejection. Of course I've lived in the neurotypical world all my life, and the insensitivity and sheer lack of understanding therein has probably been a strong source of anxiety for me.

But one thing that I suspect may make my anxieties harder to bear is that I'm sensitive to them. When I worry, I really worry. Every task I take on feels very important, so failure is disproportionately unacceptable to me. I have some awareness that the consequences of failure with some tasks isn't the end of the world, but I usually have to deliberately ask myself "what's the worst thing that could happen?" and see that it won't kill me, before I can relax.

In summary, in my case I don't think my anxieties are a primary ASD trait. When everything is stable and going quite well, I feel fine. So anxiety doesn't pervade my entire life, I just get hung up when there's some real risk to be logically concerned about, more or less regardless of the magnitude of the risk. But like I said, if I consider the matter and see that the risks aren't too awful, I can usually stay calm, and to some extent I'm in the habit of doing that.



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10 Nov 2024, 3:51 pm

Not as much as when I was younger but negative thought loops a repetitive behavior anxiety.


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10 Nov 2024, 6:19 pm

No I have anxiety caused directly by humans. Humans are naturally cruel, selfish, bigoted and destructive.



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10 Nov 2024, 7:21 pm

My social anxiety is caused by the knowledge that I'm bad at social interactions. Before I realized I was bad at it, I had no anxiety. Now, with practice, I've gotten much better than I used to be, but the anxiety is still there.


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10 Nov 2024, 7:23 pm

P. Zombie wrote:
Anxiety in autism is often described as a secondary symptom, caused by living in an unadjusted world. But I don’t think it’s the case in my situation – I’d be anxious in almost any possible worlds. Hence the question – do you have anxiety which you feel as a direct result of some autistic traits (and not as a result of living in a neurotypical world, rejection, bullying, etc.), and how do you cope with it?

Since middle school I have various forms of anxiety – the more of them the older I get. Earlier I didn’t think of them in autistic terms, but my diagnostician said they can be to large extent explained by autistic intolerance of change, inflexibility etc. I expect the world to be stable and any larger changes, or just thoughts of possible changes, cause anxiety. With changes comes the necessity to think things through and I’m easily overwhelmed by the overload of information I have to analyze. So, even simple activities, like buying new clothes, cause anxiety, because it’s not the activity I’m doing on a daily basis, and requires thinking about what to choose, will it be comfortable in the future etc. – I don’t have any gut feeling to help me in the process. Also, I fear some sudden change can come any moment – devices breaking, family members falling sick, accidents etc. – for which I’m completely unprepared.

Then, there is something I call “life inertia” – difficulties in switching to new life situations, e.g. being slow in adjusting to new workplace, new home etc.; feeling anxious / uneasy / “not quite right” while thinking about any life changes, even if the current situation isn’t good; or generally assuming that current lifestyle can last forever (and thus for example, having troubles with transition to adulthood long after the “appropriate” age for such transition).

So, anxiety is my default attitude towards anything outside of my narrow comfort zone. It isn’t very severe in any particular moment, but it is constant and shaping most aspects of my life. You could say I’m not a person with anxiety, but an anxious person – anxiety makes a large part of who I am and if it were suddenly removed, I would be either a completely different person, or I just wouldn’t know what to do and become overwhelmed in some other way.


I very much prefer sameness in all things and do not get bored. I can stay home all weekend by myself and be quite content with nothing happening. People out at work ask me what I did over the weekend. What am I going to say?

I have expanded my "comfort zone" to be OK with work, shopping for clothes, grocery-shopping, travel and most all normal activities. I think you should look upon that is your pet project, to acclimate yourself over time to things. The more you do them, the more they get normal. You may not ever love to do them. I do not love shopping for clothes, that to me seems boring. I also do not love going to work. But, I can do these things with just modest levels of anxiety.

A little bit of anxiety is a good thing, my Dad always said. It helps ensure you have some energy and care for making sure things turn out right.


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10 Nov 2024, 8:04 pm

No. Because anxiety is rarely my otherwise human reaction to my own living autistic experience.

Not even the cognitive basis over uncertainty and unpredictability.

Not even sensory issues; overwhelm by quantity, by intensity, pain or discomfort.

Not even any implications that results from the two statements the above.



But I am certainly very stressed out very often with several triggers both external and internal.

Yet it never results a resemblance of nervousness, racing thoughts, worrying, hypervigilance, full of what-ifs, survival mindset, and other physiological symptoms like higher blood pressure and heart rate...

And said stress response goes away as soon as stressors go away.
The problem is that removing my source of stress is very tricky. But when it happens the effects are very immediate.



I do not mistake my easily stressed out system for anxiety based reactions.

It takes more to make me anxious, and even takes something complicated to give me full blown anxiety that can last but otherwise to me, solvable.

And I can never seem to relate to anyone who experiences varying levels of anxiety.
Many will conflate and associate it with fear and panic -- I don't.

I experienced levels of anxiety rather differently to a point that I might as well seek something that can induce anxiety from time to time.



I have a serious problem with the term anxiety and how much of it is conflated with stressful responses.

I don't even have issues with deliberate relaxation itself. Not even with a very sensitive interoceptive system dealing with too many ails more than my already limited executive function is ought to handle.

And I already knew how disruptive anxiety can be when it came to relaxation and sleep.
Whatever disturbs my sleep isn't the same way over how anxiety typically disrupts said relaxation and sleep.

Anyone can mistake me for having anxiety all because of having too many stressors.
Most of said stressors isn't even mental or imaginary. Most of it is physically demanding because my immune system is a fricking enabler.


Most of it is rooted by my damnable chronic upper respiratory issues and the complication it causes.

... Heck, even that caused me more anxiety, uncertainty, pain, cognitive issues, social and emotional trouble than autism itself ever did.

Tried to relate to anything that resembles an overactive sympathetic nervous system or an underactive parasympathetic system...
... Instead, I found myself relating to what resembles to an overactive parasympathetic nervous system instead.


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bee33
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11 Nov 2024, 5:50 am

I have not just anxiety but actual fear almost all the time. It's because I know that if something happens that I need to deal with, I don't know how to handle it. I used to be better at things and I think that was in part because I felt less alone and more supported, but now I feel adrift and afraid. It's become overwhelming and constant. I'm at home alone almost all of the time and I always feel uneasy. My ASD is very mild so I don't know if it's related to my fear.



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11 Nov 2024, 7:14 am

Yes, I have anxiety caused by autism, and it is largely caused by a permanent situation of managing sensory overload.

The only place I can escape from sensory overload is whilst being alone, in a dark-ish room, and if I don't spend enough time there, and instead become a normal part of the neurotypical world, my sensory overload levels reach maximal proportions very quickly and I live in a state of high anxiety at that point, which is unsustainable over a period of years, for example.



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11 Nov 2024, 9:38 am

bee33 wrote:
I used to be better at things and I think that was in part because I felt less alone and more supported, but now I feel adrift and afraid. It's become overwhelming and constant. I'm at home alone almost all of the time and I always feel uneasy. My ASD is very mild so I don't know if it's related to my fear.

I was more confident and gung-ho about challenges when I was younger. I guess it goes with the turf. In the past I've bought houses but I'd be terrified of doing that now. I think the world has also become harder to deal with. Even getting my money out of a bank used to be simple. These days I get a strong feeling that it's insensitive bureaucracy that will eventually shoot me down. Every time I have to face an authority figure or "service provider," I feel afraid. Yet I don't fear social encounters anywhere near so much as long as the people are reasonably civilised. I guess the consequences of failure there are less frightening - the worst that can happen is that they'll take a dislike to me.

Procrastination is another strand of it. I wait till it's almost to late, scare myself to death in the process, and then sort the matter out.



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14 Nov 2024, 12:42 pm

Yes, my anxiety is strongly related to my ASD and sounds substantially like yours. "Life inertia" is a good term to describe what I've experienced before and right now. I discourage or proscribe myself from things I'm able and would like to do because they aren't routine, even if my routine is unproductive or destructive and needs changing. Sensory overload also increases my anxiety, so I've begun to meditate in dark rooms with little sound to some success. Writing out and planning my days and weeks with notebooks has been helpful as well; I need to concretely picture my duties so they're not buzzing in my head as some amorphous hydra of things to do.