38 Results in Anxiety

What does having no instincts mean?

One of the most severe difficulties associated with autism is the difficulty imagining what might happen in a situation. You could describe this as social imagination or just simply lacking instinct. Most neurotypical people will go into any situation and be able to cope with it on the spot. The situation can be anything, for example going on the train, going to a cafe, meeting friends, going to the GP or going to a conference. In most instances they don't have to do much 'preparation' beforehand, or least not overly conscious or right-to-the-very-last-detail preparation. Autistic people, on the other hand, have a tendency to either overprepare or underprepare.

How to cope with overwhelming thoughts

Some autistic people have a great number of thoughts all the time throughout the day. In fact, they can have so many thoughts that they feel completely consumed by them. I thought I would write an article about the different types of thoughts that a person may have and how they could sort and manage them, and ultimately de-clutter their mind!

If I didn’t mask, I wouldn’t speak

I don't like the idea of masking because no one should have to hide who they really are. Individuality should be loved and accepted.  But masking is also a means of being able to interact, and often, if a person did not mask, they would not be able to interact at all. 

How reactive are you?

Someone who is unreactive might never say or do anything at all. Someone who is very reactive might talk too much, might talk inappropriately, might stand too close to people, be too "touchy-feely", or they might attempt to 'take over' an activity being done. The former is what you probably understand to be an autistic introvert, the latter an autistic extrovert.

Controlling what you can and managing what you can’t

One very important lesson I have learned which helps in many areas of my life is: controlling what can be controlled and executing strategies to manage what can't be controlled. A strategy I use to deal with such situations is to work out what, right now in that situation in that moment, can be controlled to my benefit.

The 3 factors needed to succeed in any situation

There are three very important factors that impact on whether or not I will have a positive and successful engagement. These factors are relevant to any and every engagement - work, hobbies, friends, dating, meetings, etc. It might be very helpful for you to recognise what these three things are. You might find you can incorporate something into a situation that you're already finding very hard and find that it becomes much easier; or you might find it explains why you struggle with one thing yet excel at something else...

Another way of looking at “challenging behaviour”

Throughout my life I have found myself in trouble on numerous occasions. I think this is because other people think that my behaviour is strange, naughty or thoughtless and sometimes the things that I do come as a complete surprise to others. But when people look a bit deeper and try to understand me, my behaviour completely makes sense. I’m no longer “difficult” but someone that is very anxious and has quite severe and complex communication difficulties. The issues surrounding my behaviour usually happen because I have difficulty communicating with people and they have difficulty communicating with me. I have three excellent examples I can think of. The first is when my workplace was organising the local community fair. This is a fair where local shops each have a stand and the fair attracts many people from the community. My workplace had a stand and my colleagues had asked me whether I could help out on the stand. My immediate thought was "no!" I tried to say to my colleagues that I wasn't able to help out but somehow this communication was either lost or ignored and, as what normally happens, I ended up doing something I didn't want to do - in this case, I ended up helping out on the stand at the fair.

Why might making friends be difficult for autistic people?

I understand that lots of autistic people don't have much trouble making friends, their difficulties are more to do with keeping them. I can relate to why keeping friends can be hard, but personally I think I have more difficulty making friends. In this article I will look at some possible reasons why this is and suggest some appropriate strategies.

The freeze response to anxiety in ASD

I've been thinking about the Freeze response to anxiety. A lot of people know a bit about Fight and Flight and less people think to remember Freeze. Let's consider Freeze and how and why it might happen to people with ASD.

Familiarity vs predictability

I've been thinking about what makes a situation easier for me. One aspect I talked about recently was how immediate a situation is. I debated whether doing something very soon is sometimes easier than planning it ahead of time. Something else I think makes a difference is how predictable and how familiar something is. Let's find out more.