Autism/Panic attacks?

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Today i had a exstremly bad panic attack and the other night i woke up and needed my stuffed bunny and i havent done it for a very long time because i lost my old bunny i had for years. so i took a new one out that i ended up connected to and i wont let him go now i cant it helps me not panic anymore and calm myself down. i was wondering if thats normle for panic attacks or autism [b]

Yup, it's normal for autistic people to be very attached to specific objects. As for the panic attacks--most autistic people don't have them, but it's not exactly unusual, either. I guess you probably have "panic disorder" on your record somewhere (which is a diagnosis that means you have panic attacks). Not unusual to have both.

'Course, autistics also are vulnerable to meltdowns. That's what happens when your brain kind of blue-screens and you lose a lot of your ability to cope. Some of us cry, or scream; others just kind of shut down. They just kind of run their course, and the best way to manage them is to prevent them by keeping your stress level low enough (both by avoiding especially stressful stuff and developing coping skills) to prevent the blue-screen in the first place. But those are different from panic attacks. Meltdowns are more like "I'm out of control and I can't think and can't figure out what to do next"; panic attacks are more, "I'm ridiculously scared and my heart's pounding and I feel like I'm going to die".

I have panic attacks all the time.

I have had a panic attack before and I have lots of meltdowns in fact one yesterday that was pretty bad-but its like a thunderstorm-it rains itself out and there is calm.

I have experienced panic attacks in my life. Callista is right I think, panic attacks are different to meltdowns. But I agree that it would be pretty common for people with AS to have panic attacks. We do have an awful lot of anxiety!

I have a couple of objects that I use to calm me down, similar to how you described. There's nothing wrong with that, I think that it is a really useful trick to have. I always carry around in my bag one or two small objects that calm me down. At the moment it is a red sparkly ball and my Ipod. Just knowing that they are there and if I'm getting stressed out just holding/looking at them, can ground me. They can make me feel like I am "home" even when I am not.

Panic attacks really are horrible. I spent six months experiencing one every time that I left my house. That was many years ago, and in hindsight I am able to see that I was living in a very stressful situation, and I believe that that is why it suddenly became such an enormous issue. It might help if you can try to see what is triggering you, if there is something that is really stressful in your life that you can try to change. Maybe it is something that your AS is making stressful (like constantly too many people around, sensory issues, study/work) or maybe it is an external stressor such as a person that makes you feel bad, a relationship breaking down, too much to be done, etc. For me it was my living situation (a bullying housemate that wore my self-esteem down to the ground and made me feel like I could never relax).

As soon as I moved out of that house the panic attacks reduced dramatically.

I also gradually worked on desensitizing myself. Over a couple of weeks first I went to the front door, then to the street out front, then across the street.... Just don't push yourself too hard too fast, or judge yourself badly for your progress- Just breathing when you are having panic attacks is hard enough. If you are doing that, you are already doing a good job. I also talked to someone about it all. Hope you feel better soon.

Sure. It's typical. I can't say I get them very often. It's only happened to me a couple of times, during extremely stressful periods both times. I've never been a stuffed animal kind of guy either. I tended to turn inward and just pull down the shades, lock the door, and not go anywhere when they were really bad.

It is common and for a lot of us comes from just the stress of being Autistic. When you spend your life daily pretending to be normal, that's extremely stressful. Stress from being Autistic alone has never caused me panic attacks, but it sure as hell has caused a lot of stress related health problems. I do get heartburn, acid reflux and have severe IBS, all in large part caused from the daily stress of trying to keep up with "normal" activities that for me takes a lot more mental and even physical energy than it does for "normal" folks.