Bad Tolerance to Stress
Is this a typical autism thing? I feel like my ability to handle unpredictable things or handle stress (especially in work environments where you are expected to hold it together and act adult) is definitely less than a typical person. I have trouble with changes to what I am doing or in what is expected of me, it's hard to mentally adjust and I get stressed. Its tough because I know logically I cannot let on at the job because then they would probably let me go, so I come home and let it out there (get upset/cry or get real down). I know this is a flaw I have and it doesn't seem to budge even though I have been trying to be better about it for years. My husband says I overanalyze everything and over think things (I do, he is right). I guess I do that because I feel like the more I analyze and think it through I might be able to come up with a solution or gain some control of it, though it doesn't usually work that way. It is tricky.
Yep.
I,m having my own personal adventure with stress today.
Ugh.
I like to get references and documentation from reliable sources, playing in Google found the following from an outfit I do not know.
But what they say here is legit by my personal experience and other data known of,
http://www.autism-help.org/adults-aspergers-stress.htm
"
Stress and Autism Spectrum Disorders
In many cases, people find it much harder to deal with stress if they have autism or Asperger's syndrome. Sensory problems can create many difficulties in coping with too much sensory stimulation. Coping with stress uses many different cognitive functions of the brains such as recognizing the symptoms, identifying causes, formulating a coping strategy, maintaining control of emotions appropriately and remembering these techniques. Being on the autism spectrum can make it difficult to balance all these processes to manage stress.
A possible analogy is comparing ability to handle stress on the autism spectrum with roadworks on a six lane highway. If one or two lanes are closed down, there is little disruption to a light flow of traffic. But once the traffic reaches a critical point those closed down lanes suddenly result in traffic at a standstill backing up for kilometers. An adult with Asperger's will usually be able to handle a light load of stress, conversation, noise or workload, but at a critical point they often can no longer cope and the stress sets in.
"
_________________
"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
Different from stress, but stress can lead to burnout, I've been there and lived that.
This time this reference is in my browser bookmarks,
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/well ... dvice.html
"
‘The Battery’s Dead’: Burnout Looks Different in Autistic Adults
Though little studied, exhaustion among people with autism has become its own pandemic.
By Beth Winegarner
Published Sept. 3, 2021Updated Oct. 14, 2021
Tyla Grant, 24, holds down a full-time advertising job, is trying to get a nonprofit off the ground and creates regular content for her podcast, YouTube channel and Instagram. Occasionally, she winds up so fried she can’t speak or get out of bed for days.
Ms. Grant is also autistic. While most people undergo periods of burnout — physical, cognitive and emotional depletion caused by intense, prolonged stress — autistic people, at some point in their lives, experience it on a whole different level. Autistic traits can amplify the conditions that lead to burnout, and burnout can cause these traits to worsen. They may become unable to speak or care for themselves, and struggle with short-term memory. This harms their ability to perform well at jobs, in school or at home.
“It’s the point at which there’s no more of you left to give. The battery’s dead. Tyla’s left the chat,” she said. “Whatever you want from me, you’re not going to get.”
"
plenty more at the page,
_________________
"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
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Spoon Theory originated from Christine Miserandino while she was at dinner with her friend, trying to explain her experience living with lupus. The entire story from Christine can be found here: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles ... on-theory/
Essentially, Christine handed her friend some spoons and she explained to her friend that the difference between people being sick and healthy is that healthy people don’t have to consciously consider every little action they take in their daily lives. They simply live.
She went on to say that, for chronically ill or disabled people, a finite number of spoons are given at the beginning of each day. Every task, regardless of how small, may take one of the spoons in your drawer. Tasks that many people often think of as one task are further broken down into even smaller tasks, each resulting in the loss of a spoon. For example, if you think of getting ready to go to an appointment, it’s not as simple as just getting up and going.
When you get out of bed, take a spoon.
When you take a shower, take a spoon.
When you get dressed, take a spoon.
When you brush your teeth, take a spoon.
The list goes on, and it doesn’t take long to come to the conclusion that your spoons need to be conserved if you have any hope of making it to the end of the day. As such, someone will likely often have to choose between tasks.
Much like with Christine’s experience, as autistic people, we tend to wake up each day with a finite number of spoons, and the events of the previous day often impact just how many spoons we wake up with. For instance, if we didn’t sleep well, experienced a shutdown or meltdown the day before, or if we are experiencing burnout, we might start the day with fewer spoons. As such, it can be imperative that we carefully plan out our day to maintain spoons.
As autistics, our spoons are not taken at the same rate as someone who is neurotypical or who has a diagnosis different from our own. We might have to relinquish multiple spoons for a single task, and have far fewer spoons left that we initially anticipated. An example of this might be taking a trip to the store. This might deplete three or four spoons (or more) because it not only takes energy to drive to the store and do the shopping, but the amount of sensory input involved can quickly take its toll. Due to this rapid depletion, autistic people often find ourselves with a spoon shortage, or even feeling as though we have negative spoons. This deficiency can quickly lead to meltdowns, shutdowns, autistic burnout, or illness.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Yep.
I,m having my own personal adventure with stress today.
Ugh.
I like to get references and documentation from reliable sources, playing in Google found the following from an outfit I do not know.
But what they say here is legit by my personal experience and other data known of,
http://www.autism-help.org/adults-aspergers-stress.htm
"
Stress and Autism Spectrum Disorders
In many cases, people find it much harder to deal with stress if they have autism or Asperger's syndrome. Sensory problems can create many difficulties in coping with too much sensory stimulation. Coping with stress uses many different cognitive functions of the brains such as recognizing the symptoms, identifying causes, formulating a coping strategy, maintaining control of emotions appropriately and remembering these techniques. Being on the autism spectrum can make it difficult to balance all these processes to manage stress.
A possible analogy is comparing ability to handle stress on the autism spectrum with roadworks on a six lane highway. If one or two lanes are closed down, there is little disruption to a light flow of traffic. But once the traffic reaches a critical point those closed down lanes suddenly result in traffic at a standstill backing up for kilometers. An adult with Asperger's will usually be able to handle a light load of stress, conversation, noise or workload, but at a critical point they often can no longer cope and the stress sets in.
"
I like that analogy about the roadwork on a highway. Its like ability to cope exceeds capacity and eventually I know I'm going to lose it in some way (try to wait till I get home).
Spoon Theory originated from Christine Miserandino while she was at dinner with her friend, trying to explain her experience living with lupus. The entire story from Christine can be found here: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles ... on-theory/
Essentially, Christine handed her friend some spoons and she explained to her friend that the difference between people being sick and healthy is that healthy people don’t have to consciously consider every little action they take in their daily lives. They simply live.
She went on to say that, for chronically ill or disabled people, a finite number of spoons are given at the beginning of each day. Every task, regardless of how small, may take one of the spoons in your drawer. Tasks that many people often think of as one task are further broken down into even smaller tasks, each resulting in the loss of a spoon. For example, if you think of getting ready to go to an appointment, it’s not as simple as just getting up and going.
When you get out of bed, take a spoon.
When you take a shower, take a spoon.
When you get dressed, take a spoon.
When you brush your teeth, take a spoon.
The list goes on, and it doesn’t take long to come to the conclusion that your spoons need to be conserved if you have any hope of making it to the end of the day. As such, someone will likely often have to choose between tasks.
Much like with Christine’s experience, as autistic people, we tend to wake up each day with a finite number of spoons, and the events of the previous day often impact just how many spoons we wake up with. For instance, if we didn’t sleep well, experienced a shutdown or meltdown the day before, or if we are experiencing burnout, we might start the day with fewer spoons. As such, it can be imperative that we carefully plan out our day to maintain spoons.
As autistics, our spoons are not taken at the same rate as someone who is neurotypical or who has a diagnosis different from our own. We might have to relinquish multiple spoons for a single task, and have far fewer spoons left that we initially anticipated. An example of this might be taking a trip to the store. This might deplete three or four spoons (or more) because it not only takes energy to drive to the store and do the shopping, but the amount of sensory input involved can quickly take its toll. Due to this rapid depletion, autistic people often find ourselves with a spoon shortage, or even feeling as though we have negative spoons. This deficiency can quickly lead to meltdowns, shutdowns, autistic burnout, or illness.
That is also a very good analogy. I have found that if there are too many stressors going on (example: loud noise exposure I cannot get away from like random fireworks going off through the summer, plus poor sleep and work stress just add up and make me start to lose it. I was having a very hard time.)
Another thought on this, do some with autism handle stress real well? I wonder about Elon Musk, he says he has autism and yet he handles tremendous amounts of stress and demands everyday that would easily drive someone like me over the edge. Maybe not every autistic person is bad at handling it? Is it a core feature of autism to be bad at it?
Stress isn't a core feature, per se. The diagnostic criteria says we aren't good with change of routines, and we have sensory processing issues. Stress happens when we have to deal with changes to our routine and when we're bombarded by sensory input (or, in some cases, not enough sensory stimulation.) There are other criteria describing autistic people as being inflexible to change, not understanding social cues, etc. Those things could all cause stress if our adaptive functioning is weak.
In terms of being able to deal with stress, I guess we're all different. It seems many autistic people have depression or anxiety which affects our vegas nerve / nervous system all the way through our bodies. Having stress and anxiety can affect people's cortisol levels whether they're autistic or not. It just seems we have a lot of reasons for stress when you consider we all need some form of "support" in order to function in mainstream society. (Yes, I know we don't always get that support ... which makes it even worse).
I don't know who Elon Musk is so I can't speak to that.
_________________
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
This is kind of a sideways answer to that: several years ago I had a surgeon who pretty much right away at our first pre-surgery meeting recognized that I was on the spectrum - her adult son was too.
So we got started talking about that.
Her son found driving too stressful but did watch TV just fine.
I'm okay with driving but feel actual physical stress from TV and movies along with the mental stress of the intensity of lights and sounds.
I would say change word core to common.
Not present in absolutely everyone who is autistic but present in enough of us for a connection to be made note of.
And the specific things that are overly stressful to a given person can vary widely between people.
_________________
"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
This is kind of a sideways answer to that: several years ago I had a surgeon who pretty much right away at our first pre-surgery meeting recognized that I was on the spectrum - her adult son was too.
So we got started talking about that.
Her son found driving too stressful but did watch TV just fine.
I'm okay with driving but feel actual physical stress from TV and movies along with the mental stress of the intensity of lights and sounds.
I would say change word core to common.
Not present in absolutely everyone who is autistic but present in enough of us for a connection to be made note of.
And the specific things that are overly stressful to a given person can vary widely between people.
I see, so highly common but not necessary for every single person with autism, complete with differing stressors for those who are easily stressed.
Oh, he's just some moderately notable billionaire recluse building a rocket factory and launch site at an undisclosed location on the Texas coast.
Somehow got it in his head that worldwide internet can be provided by a bunch of satellites; progress is slow, he's only got about 2,400 of the final 4,000 launched and in orbit so far.
Oh and he's bodged together some electric cars too.
_________________
"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
In terms of being able to deal with stress, I guess we're all different. It seems many autistic people have depression or anxiety which affects our vegas nerve / nervous system all the way through our bodies. Having stress and anxiety can affect people's cortisol levels whether they're autistic or not. It just seems we have a lot of reasons for stress when you consider we all need some form of "support" in order to function in mainstream society. (Yes, I know we don't always get that support ... which makes it even worse).
I don't know who Elon Musk is so I can't speak to that.
Thank you for that information. It does seem depression and anxiety do tend to go hand in hand so to speak with autism, that does make sense. It does seem being in a more contusive environment does make for better functioning, though I've had it where people wonder what my problem is because I'm not living like they are because it stresses me out too much. Lack of support is very hard, I wish there was some form of help even for those who seem to do rather ok, because it doesn't take much to tip back over the edge of not doing well.
Elon owns and runs Tesla (the electric car maker), and SpaceX and the Boring company and I think one other. He says he has autism but deals with a lot of stressful things all at once all the time and seems to cope quite well.