Anxiety and AS

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I am wondering, if people have an ipinion on this idea.

I used to belong to an anxiety board. Most of the members were NT, really lovely people, and probably a handful of people I have suspected AS.

I found that these people see,ed to have a certain type of anxiety. Their anxiety disorders seemed to be made up of either panic attacks, social anxiety (which seemed to me to be a fear of being watched) or generalised anxiety, also OCD and free-floating bad thoughts.

When I posted my anxiety problems people never seemed to understand, though they were nice people.

My anxiety problems seemed to be to do with issues like: being asked to do too many things at once, being expected to multitask, being expected to be efficient and not make mistakes at work, being expected to remember things I could not remember, being expected to say the right thing socially or expected to appear normal when I could not, being expected to be neat and tidy, being expected to be able to cross the road without help.

All the things that have made me anxious have sort of built up ove the years to make me a complete nervous wreck.

What i am asking in this thread, is, do people with AS experience different sorts of anxiety disorders to NTs? Do we need different sorts of treatments?

When I have seeked treatment I have been treated like I was an NT,the pshch didnt seem to understand that my problems were different and didnt know what to do.

What, then, is the most helpful in treating the anxiety of a person with AS?

Yes, actually I do know the type of anxiety you are talking about.

It stems from the fact that those with AS, and those on the spectrum in general, have uneven development/abilities and people tend to assume if one can do A, then they can do B.

With AS, this can be a very big problem because many of us tend to be "above average" in intelligence, can be very good at certain things, and can appear normal. People have a difficult time gauging us and have a hard time accepting that a seemingly easy task to them can be very difficult for us.

I can thread a needle, but I can't braid my own hair. I don't have the proper coordination for it and have no idea what is where when I try.

I can solve a differential equation, and solve any problem in a college level physics book, but I can't figure out how much to tip a waiter or add 11+7 without pausing to give it some thought and possibly count on my fingers.

I can repeat any string of numbers, letters, numbers and letters or any sentence spoken to me, but I can't follow and remember long verbal directions.

I can read complicated laboratory instruments but I cannot tell the time on a swatch watch.

And, I can't multitask for the life of me. I'd be a horrible secretary.

So yes, I definitely see the source of your anxiety.

If I understand you correctly zen_mistress, your issues sound exactly like my issues.

Only times I've experienced really extreme anxiety were when there were understandable reasons for it - one time it was a girlfriend who was screwing around, another time it was the workplace management trying to force me to do things I just couldn't do.....that was a direct result of not knowing about AS.

Apart from those incidents, all my anxiety has been fairly low-level, though it's been debilitating enough - I still function but can't enjoy life and a lot of my finer social skills desert me, it's like the dangerous thing clogs up most of my brain. I probably make it worse by failing to explain my prodicament to the people I'm with.....it often seems too complicated or exagerrated to explain and I tend to expect no empathy.

I've engineered my life to be relatively stress-free, and most of the time these days I don't really get anxious at all, apart from a little social stress when a lot seems to depend on my "performance." But I don't see that as an ailment, it keeps me awake and on my toes.

What does bother me is the way I can get stressed out by relatively minor things.....e.g. if there's any kind of disciplinary problem at work involving me, no matter how vague or trivial it is, even if I know perfectly well that I'm a million miles away from losing my job, it really gets to me.

I am diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, along with AS, but I do see what you mean.

I don't have panic attacks, or severe social anxiety. As a matter of fact, I'm not afraid of talking to people much at all. I get afraid of the blankness that I know will come when I do. I have an extreme inability to carry on a two way conversation that involves several different topics, and moves quickly skimming over the top of subjects. I find that I literally have nothing to say to most people, so yes... that makes me anxious when I'm in a situation that I know involves that kind of socializing.

I get anxious when I know I'm going to have to do a task that I'm unfamiliar with. I have a difficult time doing everyday things that other people seem to just know how to do. I like to walk through the task/situation first, possibly watching someone else, or at least be verbally told what is to be expected. I get anxious if I can't get any prep time and am just thrown into something.

I get anxious while driving in high traffic areas where I get visually overstimulated. I also can't remember how to get anywhere, and rely heavily on GPS, so I get scared that I will get lost. This is probably my biggest anxiety to date, and one in which I am working on overcoming by exposure therapy.

Other things that make me anxious are just things like excessive worry. Like worrying that things won't go as expected, and then I'll not know how to proceed. That's why I like things being in a routine, so I'll know what to expect, and how to react.

Of course, being overstimulated by a sensory assault makes me anxious, and if pushed to fight or flight mode it can turn into a meltdown. I will also avoid the situations that make me feel that way, but I feel that anyone would, so that's not really irrational.

I forgot to add one of the biggest anxiety producing situations for me, and that any situation where I think I'm in trouble for something, or made a big mistake that I'm about to be called out on. If I'm getting yelled at for it, my anxiety goes so high that I feel like I could pass out.

I had a therapist who assumed that my anxiety was due to a fear of a negative outcome of a particular situation. Her way of trying to help me deal with it was to say things like, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" But that had nothing to do with my anxiety. I find it difficult and it feels very awkward and uncomfortable to be in the situation itself, it's not that I'm worried about the outcome or worried that I will embarrass myself.

If I'm worried about how the other person will react, it's more that I know I will say something that might offend them and I will feel bad and anxious for having offended them. Of course, the therapist assumed this was an irrational fear and not an actual fact.

NT anxiety has to do with fear of making a blunder and being judged, and with feeling inadequate or lacking confidence. That is not the source of my anxiety at all. I just feel overwhelmed in the situation itself, and not for reasons I can control by just telling myself it will be okay, because I lack the actual ability to navigate a social situation, whereas an anxious NT has that ability, they are just too afraid to use it.

This is me in a nutshell..specifically I have trouble accepting criticism, misinterpretaton and judgement from others when I fail at multitasking or other things that come naturally to most people. I am also a social perfectionist and want to be liked by everyone: and if someone has issues with me I will worry endlessly about it.

Thank you, all you guys. Yes it is our uneven abilities that I think are the cause. i think that it is true that people assume that we can handle things we cant.

Right now I am going through a phase of trying to decide how much i want to push myself and stress myself out and how much I can get away with being myself, which is undesirable in the workplace, i have learned.

i have been on disability for years now and my GP wanted me to go back to work, but I couldnt explain to her why I couldnt go back.. basically the issues which plagued me two years ago havent gone away. It is like I have been permanantly traumatised by perfectly normal workplaces...

I read about anxiety in this book once. Apparently anxiety and depression are complicated things. The book listed about 6 different anxiety modules that can be set up in the brain, involving abnormal activity in certain regions, ie the amygdala, limbic system, and all these different components. So people who have anxiety disorders can have different types of the disorder, just as there are many different types of depression involving different brain parts.

Anyway for me my anxiety is like this sort of permanent hypervigilance. All my senses are on high alert, as if there is a predator nearby at all times. I have highly exaggerated senses which cause problems for me. Not overload so much, but more of a on-edgeness.

So, I am not sure what to do about my anxiety. I have thought of moving to a monastery as sometimes I wonder if the world wants me to be anxious, and wouldnt have it any other way.

I suffer from bad anxiety issues, and through self-therapy I've learned that there are three groups or sources to my anxiety. I am diagnosed officially with GAD and PTSD, not AS. I doubt the GAD is 100% accurate, and I'm sure that i do have AS.

One group of my anxiety sources is pretty well exactly what you talk about. I know my abilities, if anything I know them too well, being so introverted and introspective. If put in a situation where I need to do something (like being social or sexual) beyond my abilities then i'm stressed.... And this is where panic/anxiety attacks come in. In some cases it's because i "doubt" I can do them, due to past experience... in other cases it's because I know i'm literally incapable of doing them.

The second group relate to the PTSD which is a 100% accurate description, originating from at least 4 major sources of trauma. two were single incidents, 1 long term, 1 very long term.

The third group, well, simply put, they're self-imposed. Stress and anxiety are part of my life, and always have been, it's just a simple fact. But they are a way that I can get myself to accomplish things. Many times my special interests become part of these issues. To me it's a trade-off between anxiety and depression. I prefer anxiety.

the last two aren't relevant to the OP, so i won't go into further detail... but the first one is the group of anxieties that people don't understand, and no amount of explaining can ever get them to understand.
My Psychologist who Dx'd me with GAD told me I had negative feelers just looking for things to worry about.
No.. I don't. I have realistic feelers looking for the things I SHOULD worry about.
I know that's a perspective issue.. and that's WHY people don't understand.

In an NT, there is no reason to fear the things I (or by the sounds of your OP, you) fear. I do know what I can do though, I know how good or bad I am at various things. So why should I not be consciously aware of the situations that can lead me to have to do those things.

Most of the things I fear doing, I don't really want to do anyways. Though that's primarily because I'm bad at them, and there's lots of other things I can do well, so why not do those instead. However there ARE things I want to be able to be good at, but am NOT. Sometimes I try even harder to avoid those situations, because those are the ones I feel the worst about failure in. Other times I seek out those situations, trying to better myself, only to fail and make myself even less likely to succeed the next time.

Most NT's hear what I just said, and call that GAD. I fail because I expect to fail, and I expect to fail because of a bad experience or two. They cannot give credit to the fact that there are OTHER reasons, REAL PHYSICAL REASONS I fail. All they can see is that "self-fulfilling prophecy" as i've had it called. Or they say it's because I've convinced myself that I can't do it... Well if i've convinced myself, why do I keep trying some things that I know I can't do? Why do I keep failing or falling short?

How to deal with anxiety that comes from this source isn't something I can help you with. If I knew the answers I'd be off implementing them now.
Avoidance works as a coping mechanism... but it's not an answer!
I do feel that WP has helped me get closer to the answers. And so long as I'm getting closer, I guess whatever I'm trying is not in vain. The problem is that anything i've tried is so mentally exhausting it's hardly worth the effort. But I persevere anyways, hoping it will get easier. Maybe if i solve some of the ones I want the most, I can then move on to other things that I kinda want.

I agree fully with those parts of your post. For me in a way, I think I need to let go of being good at some of the things that I forced myself to be good at.

Yes I have used anxiety and stress to accomplish things. If I was a completely relaxed person, I dont think I would have worked at all over the last 12 years.

I would have been fired within weeks as soon as they say how ineffectual I was without heaps of adrenaline and cortisol rushing through me.

Its very frustrating, as I have been so stressed for so long I couldnt relax if I tried. I dont even know who I am supposed to be any more, or how to get back to me.

I get anxiety from some of the same things you mentioned.

I can't multi-task.
I can't listen to more than one person talk at a time. I get really irritated with multiple talkers.
I can't stand being watched over.
I have a need to have my environment in a certain order, and if others screw around with work station or invade my space, I get extremely uncomfortable and anxious.
Sudden noises or movements close to me make me jump out of my skin.
Too much noise sends my senses into overwhelm.
Sudden interruptions completely throw me off and I get "stuck" and then anxious.
Unclear verbal directions bug the s**t out of me and asking people for clarity has often resulted in angry reactions.
I hate being pushed to hurry something or told to do a half-assed rush job or micro-managed. My anxiety just goes through the roof.
I hate to talk about myself or get personal socially unless I know someone extremely well, so any workplace social interaction fills me with dread.
Gossipy social interaction makes me anxious because I find it is hostile.
Sexual attention makes me anxious because it's out of place and unwanted.


I've had anxiety and panic disorder since as long as I can remember. I first really remember it being that when I was about 16. Before that age, I wasn't aware that's what was happening and I also dissociated frequently. I also have PTSD and my current therapist, whom I just started seeing a month ago is trying various methods to treat my anxiety. The first thing she tried was EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which is also nicknamed "tapping". I tried this a few times. It's nominally helpful. Although in an acute attack, I don't think it would help me.

I've also been doing hypnosis with her using visualization. She said this only works with people who are extremely visual, which I am. She used a progressive relaxation technique in her office to calm me and hypnotize me. It's not what people think it's like. I know what's going on. Then she asked me to visualize a place that I find the most calming and relaxing. When I told her what the place was, she then narrated walking thru that place and inserted calming and relaxing images into my location. The whole thing went on for about 40 minutes. When it was over I felt extremely relaxed and at ease with myself and when I'd come in for the session I was quite anxious.

The benefit of this is suppose to be that whenever you're feeling anxiety all you do is go in your mind's eye to that calming place. I've tried it a few times and it's worked. Sometimes better than others, because the drawback is that sometimes you just can't remove yourself completely from a situation in real life to do this. Although, I would imagine it gets better with practice.


p.s. It's ironic that after getting yelled at and ridiculed for "daydreaming", basically dissociating, my whole life, I am using a technique to treat some of my reasons for dissociating, (overstimulation, hypersensitivity and anxiety) by in essence daydreaming.

I think anxiety is a continuous, underlying feature of life with AS. Sometimes there are triggers, sometimes there is simply an excess of sensory stimulation and sometimes there is nothing identifiable at all causing anxiety. The natural human response to an emotion is to seek an explanation, so you say "I am anxious because..." and fill in answers like being a bad person, people looking at you, following you, you're a klutz, etc, etc. These subsequent rationalizations can be even worse than the original anxiety.

* Avoiding or limiting sensory overload helps a lot.
* Planning helps - especially asking other people to describe in detail what is going to happen, who will be there, when things happen, in the most comprehensive and tedious detail possible - e.g. having an hour-by-hour itinerary for a holiday is far less anxiety-provoking than "visiting Prague for two days". Knowing the order of the stores you are going to visit is less stressful than "shopping".
* Accepting that anxiety is present and not caused by an actual danger (the mindfulness approach) can help.
* Progressive muscular relaxation and other relaxation techniques can train the body not to respond so severely, so anxiety less frequently becomes panic.
* Access to a limited quantity of anti-anxiety medication, to be used during severe anxiety, is very useful both for dealing with an immediate emotion that has no value, and for allowing the mind to rest and stop "explaining" the anxiety with harmful explanations.

Crocus... thx for the interesting post. A lot of the things you say bother you bother me a lot too.

Yes I have tried a few of those methods. I used to have visualisation CDs, but I was trying it at a time of my life where I would do the visualisation, relax myself,then go back to my life and get really anxious again and then meditate or do visualisation CDs... and I wondered why the CDs werent working!! To me the problem is the way I live my life... and it is so hard to change.

stuart, that list is helpful, i am not wanting to go down the med road again, but the rest of your list is good.

What you say about anxiety- that it is part and parcel of having an ASD, I am not so sure about that. I see people on this board occasionally who look very happy with their lot, and I wonder what their secret is. And when I think of myself in early childhood I remember being a happy, carefree child. So surely it is attainable, to have much lower levels of anxiety? Or even very little at all....

Yes i agree that the rationalizations can be a problem with me, definitely. It is my mind itself which keeps this anxiety machine going. it is like an out of control steamroller with its controls jammed on High.

I relate to what a lot of folks here are talking about.

I've always had the impression that I somehow *need* to operate with a higher level of anxiety than NTs do just to function. If I try to relax or let my mind wander I end up forgetting things and making absent minded mistakes. It never seemed fair.

I felt this way all throughout school growing up. While other kids were talking in the hall between class I just had to focus all my energy on packing up all my belongings, getting the right books and materials from my locker, and making it to class on time. I was never able to let my guard down or I would screw up, forget something, lose something, etc... I couldn't just do tasks in automatic pilot mode *and* feel relaxed enough to ever enjoy myself or socialize at the same time.

Even to this day I feel like a lot of my problem with social interaction is just me never feeling relaxed enough to really connect to people. The *environment* always gets in the way of me being able to interact. Either my back is hurting, or I feel a bead of sweat on my forehead, or there's an obnoxious jarring noise every time I begin to articulate a thought and then I lose it. I'm just always tense, keyed up, and irritable when there's commotion and distractions or when I'm being constantly interrupted or forced to multi-task.

I guess there's the anxiety NT's face (which mostly has to do with negative ruminations dealing with the "big issues" in their lives) and *then* there's the constant anxiety/tension we have to put up with just to get through the daily minutia of life.

Yeah, I hear you with that. The necessary solution is something that's immediate, not something you do before interacting or afterward, as you mention with the cds. The visualization I use is not with cds but a relaxing location/scene that I have chosen. It could be a sea shore, or a forest, or in front of fireplace in a cabin...but it should be something you choose as the place that relaxes you the most and makes you feel good. Then you insert feelings of strength and calmness into some image in that scene that's powerful for you. When you start feeling anxious, you then conjure up that image to give you some grounding and calm.

The problem with anxiety is that it's very complicated. It's also a positive self preservative mechanism that warns us of danger. The problem arises because ours is amped up all the time.

Yoga and practicing meditation helps to alleviate general anxiety. Remembering your posture and doing regular stretching throughout the day (roll your shoulders back), put a hand on your solar plexus and calm your breathing.

For me, I wouldn't say anxiety is part of ASD. Moreso, a highly strung and overly sensitive nervous system, which can look like anxiety. The anxiety that develops is a by product of being highly sensitive as well as from negative or traumatic experiences, some (perhaps many) of which are due to the ASD.

Thanks crocus, I am still trying to get my head around how I can apply those kind of things to my situation.. the problem is I pretty much feel stressed every second. I used to to yoga but it made me feel hyped up and more energetic, weirdly.... it had many benefits though, made me feel very fit... but I just cant seem to relax.

Yes, I wonder what my life would had been like sometimes if when people said "You are a selfish person, forgetting to bring my {borrowed item} to school. People who think of others dont do that."
or "You dont get your school work done because you are lazy" or 'You insulted that person on purpose. You are a malicious person"

.. if I had just said "No, I am not any of those things. Back off." Somehow I think I would be a lot better off now. As that is where it all began.