If a cure was proposed, would you try it?

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That sounds awful. Are you always depressed? Does anything make it better or worse? How's your self-esteem? Do you have friends or feel connected to other people?

Well some of the comments here expose the myth by some advocates that no one wants curing of their autism or at least some parts of it like anxiety.

Yes I would ask to be cured if proved safe

In the past lower diagnosis figures probably meant lower funding for research.

That’s changing autism is everywhere these days, with so many effected the market for effective autism treatments is huge.

Just a question what comes first prevention or cure. If prevention then the motivation to find a cure and treatments will reduce.

https://www.medgadget.com/2019/12/autis ... -2026.html

What a load of nonsense. Anxiety is not part of autism. It is it's own illness. It is a mental illness for goodness sake.

Also I like who I am because of autism but that's probably because I'm very borderline autistic. I'd say HFA but that's not true cos of my anxiety and other disabilities - so I'm not high functioning in practice.

I'd rather be an introvert who 'overthought' and had specialist interests and was an academic type than becoming one of the masses: the generic, extroverted, not very intellectual allistic types you see about who don't have original thoughts in their heads.

I don't think anxiety is a part of autism but t is a common co-morbid,maybe that's what people mean possibly.

Autism is just a psychology of extreme withdrawnness it's the co-morbid's that are the disabilities,but autism almost always has many co-morbids.

OK then, I don't think my anxiety is a co-morbid since it was developed in adult life.

I would like my brain to go back to what it was before I was put into the situation which caused my anxiety. But I would also like my eyes to stop being sensitive to light (which I think is caused by autism tbh) and to stop being dyspraxic.

Maybe I'm wrong but I was always told there are 'positive' traits also part of autism such as being more prone to study, being more logical etc. I wouldn't like to get rid of those personality traits. I think that would make my brain inferior to what it is now tbh. I also wouldn't want to get rid of my good observational skills.

A scientific cure yes, a psychological one no.
When I read the Fountainhead and picked up on Individualism (Not Objectivism GOD no, I'm no Atlas Shrugged fan!) as a credo, well from there on in, I lost all interest in trying to fit in. Good luck to those still struggling with this.
As I sit I am working in my workplace kitchen because I don't feel comfortable in the big office room with everyone else. So long as I can work my way and adjust for my quirks then I am not going to TRY not to sweat it.

Now if a pill could make me feel better inside, rather than just being psychologically tweaked to make all the norms out there find me more palatable, then I would try it. I would like to see who I am without autism. I am guessing a whole lot happier and more effective.

I do receive pharmacological treatment for depression and insomnia and psychological treatment for various issues, mainly alexithymia (inability to identify and name my own feelings). Both are helpful - help me deal with reality and live my life more satisfyingly - which is why I stick to them.

In my history, I happened to receive both helpful treatments and harmful mistreatments, both psychological and pharmaceutical.

I don't find my autistic traits (peculiar focus, sensory issues, social oddity) requiring any treatment themselves. Just the comorbids.

Regarding anxiety. I have had a thought. Is it possible that one may start off in life without anxiety whatsoever, but as one slowly goes through life one gains some good ad bad experiences, but somehow due to autism the bad experiences are highlighted as when dealing with other people and situations involving other people, as one is different one has much more of a hard time.
Due to this the anxiety grows, where the ones who don't think different may rarely get anxiety, but the ones who do have these past experiences to draw one so they get anxiety daily or regularly according to how ones day may pan out. This also makes one have anxiety if something is planned for a future day and so one tries to prepare oneself before hand in ones head which can cause sleepless nights etc...
And it is why one may get a shutdown (Or a meltdown) if on the day a change happens... Because one has already mapped out all eventualities in ones brain in preperation for the days event, and this something new and unexpected pushes rhe brain into overload.

(I am talking theory here based on my own experiences, but may also be shared by other peoples experiences as well. Does it make sense?).

Anyway. I will let you lot carry on. If I am making no sense ignore it. Haha!

No I think it makes sense.

Just in my case, it's never with 'normal' or 'my type' of NTs or, basically, the kind of people my mother (NT) mixes with.

It was day after day having to listen to women gossiping, saying racist stuff etc without blowback, and being rejected for hundreds of jobs, being told I had 'no people skills' because I didn't get on with those women and that feeding back into job references which meant nobody wanted me.

Before that, I only ever got close to it when I went to a really rough school and got bullied. Every kid there was either borderline criminal (knife crime and things were common, gangs were common) or being bullied. Even that wasn't diagnosed, it just scared me to the point I refused to go to school.

But when I mix with 'regular' NTs or 'regular' people, it doesn't happen. I went to uni, it didn't happen. I went to uni a long way away with lots of people, getting on a train every day, going to cafes and pubs it didn't happen. I went to school, it didn't happen. I went to sixth form, it didn't happen. I volunteered in a shop, it didn't happen 'til my friend was attacked & the bosses did nothing about it. Even when my uncle took me to overly social, overly sensory simulating places, it didn't happen. Only set in when I was put into a negative social setting with no way out - a setting different to where my NT cousins have ever been placed - did it set in. I don't think my older cousin could've coped either. (She's not got anxiety but she's a worrier & a people pleaser, I've always been a people pleaser myself too, it's a shared trait which makes dealing with nasty people and bullies hard).

My little cousin is NT but she's also blunt & bounces back off anything & doesn't care what people think of her. She could probably cope but only cos she'd tell those women 'where to get off' (ie give them a piece of her mind - something I was afraid to do so I internalised a lot).

Autistic people are more likely when it comes to social anxiety to have a lower 'tolerance threshold'. However, I think we should also make sure that the general population, autistic and NT alike, don't engage in things like bigotry, bullying, and gossip. Because those negative behaviours are a problem and aren't an inherent part of being allistic.

I actually feel really sorry for my NT cousin at the moment. She's getting married next year and even though she only invited friends and family, she's scared in case someone judges her (perfectly ordinary) wedding dress.

When she was a teenager, she had to wear a full face of makeup before going out, even just with family to our local pub far from her home where nobody would really see her. She hated getting anything less than an A at school (I did as well) and used to 'beat herself up' about it (I did that to myself as well).

So I wonder how much anxiety is from my autistic part of the family, how much of it is from the other side of the family and how much of it is environmental.

It is reminders of the enviroment which you were in that naturally makes you anxious.

Tell you something strange (I am a people pleaser too which has got me into difficulties as I can be a bit gullible when it comes to someone taking advantage) is that though I have had quite strong anxiety all my life on occasions, I did not know it was called anxiety. I tend to be less able to show it outwardly somehow?

But something else is at play with me in regards to a stressful enviroment and being timid, is that I also get homesick due to prosopragnosia. (Always scared of loosing my Mum as in not recognizing her...).

I guess I'm an idiot because I thought my anxiety, since I had it for as long as I could remember, was genetic and part of being autistic.

Some autistic people aren't withdrawn. Some are even extroverted and like being around other people often. Some would say social withdraw is a co-morbid symptom of depression.

A normal extroverted person may withdraw if depressed. Introverted people may become more withdrawn if depressed BUT they may also become withdrawn for other entirely different reasons which vary from person to person.

Are you diagnosed with a form of anxiety?

If it is just an emotion then NTs get it too. And I wish people would quit calling it anxiety, it's just nerves.

If you have actual anxiety, I'm not sure if that's a co-morbid or not. But I'm sorry if you've had real anxiety for as long as you remember.

Real anxiety - in its many forms like GAD and social anxiety and health anxiety - is a mental illness that can be treated already, through use of medication. I don't think it can be cured but it can be managed.

I didn't always have it (SA), and when I didn't, I had less of the 'anxiety' that people talk about (nerves/worry about how other people perceived me) than most NTs I know. I really didn't give a damn if people liked me, as long as I stuck to my moral code like not setting out to hurt people.

SA meant I couldn't get out of bed in a morning, could only talk to one person, etc. I didn't have suicidal ideation but it was pretty close - like I wanted life to be nothing more than being curled up in bed and that was the only thing I could cope with.

I still have SA to an extent like I think people are talking about me when they're not. That's another symptom - auditory hallucination.

Mum forced me to a doctor and to medicine. Now I have it as much as for eg, an alcoholic who avoids alcohol is still an alcoholic, but it's treated/handled, through my medicine.

Real anxiety is horrible but I find easy to separate it from my autistic brain.

I refer to it as cyclic depression, it goes through cycles where it’s better for a while, then worse for a while, then better again, etc. (but I don’t ever have the mania or hypomania that is a part of bipolar disorder), though it’s usually at least lurking in the background to some extent. It gets a bit better/worse depending on how helpful or inconvenient I feel like I am (a key part of it is feeling like I’m a burden), but it really just follows that cycle no matter what. I have extremely low self-esteem, I know that’s an issue I need to work on. I have one person I feel a close connection with and a few people I consider friends, although it’s really just people from here, no one I’ve even met in person.

I know anxiety is a disorder on its own as well in NTs, I kind of judge autism for the medical disorder / problem company it keeps & autism has a lot of bad co-morbids including anxiety for it too be just magical co-incidence lol .

So, saying it’s a separate condition is not totally accurate 1/3 of autistic people have epilepsy & other things like intellectual disability is many times higher than in NTs, is that just a co-incidence as well?

Science says idiopathic autism is in many cases probably a neuronal migration disorder in the womb that can affect many parts of the brain so the metaphorical cut in brain function can be anywhere and vary in severity maybe reducing intellectual development, executive functioning or maybe anxiety among other things. The neurons that don’t make it to their destination get stuck in the wrong part of the brain & can cause epilepsy as well which is probably why it’s so common in autistic people.

So, separating things as separate disorders & claiming autism`s innocence is not so simple.

Neurons that don’t make it to their destination is obviously not a natural difference as some naively claim even if it is mild and has accidently caused some positive minor traits like attention to detail or in some mathematical ability at the expense of other in my view more important things like building relationships & independent living.

But despite this I understand some autistics may be happy and comfortable with their condition and may not want to be cured and as far as I’m concerned good luck to them. But many others may not be so fortunate or think differently so all opinions need to be respected.