Stress and autism freakout

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My brand of freakout is very different to most autistics. Things that stress most people - both neurotypical and neurodiverse - don't worry me. Moving house, homelessness, major surgery, gender transition, local natural disasters, deaths, car crashes, travel, new jobs, change, these things don't worry me at all.
What stresses me badly is inertia. A complete lack of external engagement or distraction. I start to freak out when I am living in the same place, around the same people every day, with the same routines, if I'm not working or studying and have no money with which to do anything, nothing changes, it all just repeats. It is all an empty void of zero stimulus, and my churning mind turns inward and destroys me.
Worse, my autism stuff increases sharply. My speech problems get so bad that I can hardly speak, misophonia makes even the sounds of people talking or blinds tapping unbearable, sleeping problems increase, stimming never stops, paranoia goes into overdrive, I get extremely irritable and start to panic for no reason, can't focus and actually get a kind of scary obsessive amnesia where I will repeat the same thought processes over and over without remembering that I have had those thoughts before, and I always feel the intense need to run, to move and never stop. I get extremely restless and discontent frustrated. Things that were just annoyances when I first got into any situation practically enrage me five months later. I cannot stand still.
I'm okay for about five to six months at most, but if things aren't continually moving, progressive, engaging, I start to freak out again.
I'll end up doing anything to break the stalemate. I used to drink insanely just to shut everything down - I've been sober about four months and I'm worried that if things don't shake up, I'll start drinking again and I can't take that anymore.
I'm considering going back on the street, wandering, just for something to change, to distract, to be different from this prison of maddening sameness. I'm not getting anywhere. Not living. Just treading water, struggling in place to barely survive while there is nothing, nothing, nothing. It feels like life is going on elsewhere, but I can never reach out to it.
I have attempted to set up a life that accommodates this - ironically for an autistic, one of constant crisis and never ending change. But even then, I push to try and get this going, and there seems nothing but endless waiting and bureaucracy and BS. Whenever I try to change, something stops me, and keeps me still. All the while the lack of movement eats me alive.
I'm trying not to do anything crazy (getting a bunch of tattoos doesn't count in my book). My caseworker told me to at least wait and see if I got back into university, five years after last time. Wait wait wait.
I'm not sure how I can make that work, though, staying in the same place to study for two and a half years, without going out of my mind. I'm hoping the constant course work will be enough to keep me engaged. I wish I could just be comfortable with complacency like everyone else.
This is odd for your garden variety autistic, correct? Everyone always stresses autistics' love of regimentation and rigid routine, and how much any change freaks them out. Basically the exact opposite of me right now.
If anything I'm behaving like your average manic addict, and I hate that. I'm usually very calm. It's only these freakouts that break my usual equilibrium. Alexithymia makes it very difficult for me to understand what the problem is. I'm mostly unaware of any of the emotions or issues behind this, just that basic skin-crawling restlessness and frustration and impetuous to run.
Anyone relate to this? What would you do about it? Advice / insights?

I can relate well, a lot of what you have written describes me too.

I never feel more alive than when I'm acting on instinctive and impulsively. Every thing else feels heavy and sometimes even cloying. I also feel a disconnect with time, and the slow periods seem to be interminably so.

Maybe you need something to give you more thrills, not drink or drugs, something to break up the slow passage of a standard life.

I can relate to the restlessness, as well. I am a bit of a wanderer. Sometimes, I just want to wander out of my life and start a new one. I *won't* because I care about the people in my life, and life is actually pretty good. It would really be a waste to walk out of it and start over.

But I relate to the feelings of being trapped. It's kind-of like claustrophobia, but it is a life claustrophobia.

I deal with it by wandering as much as I can. Most of the time, this involves either taking a long drive or getting out into the woods and taking a long hike. My husband knows that I need to "get out" and we will take a day trip somewhere. A change of scenery is what it gets down to, for me.

When I was in school, it was brutal. I had so many obligations and homework and deadlines that it was hard to get away. Sometimes I would skip class just to get away.

I can't imagine having a M-F, 9-5 day job without any days off to "breathe" and have my *own* time. For me, it is like people/job/deadlines/housework, etc. all starts to "crowd" me. It is like clothing that is too tight or too scratchy, but instead it is the life circumstances that I need to throw off. Temporarily. Once I get away for a little bit, I feel better and can go back to what I was doing before.

Traveling to see new places also helps if one has the money. The problem I have, though, is that I generally do not like being away from home for more than 3-4 days. After that, I need the comfort of my regular food and my regular routine! I can travel, but not far, if I only want to be gone for such a short time. Traveling also serves somewhat of a purpose of putting myself into a sensory-overload situation (which is why I can only handle it for a couple of days.) The sensory overload makes me crave the quiet of regular life.

(BTW, I don't have a lot of money to travel. I've just done enough of it to know how it works for me.)

If I did have a M-F, 9-5 day job, I would need to take individual days off here and there to cope. I would not be able to save them all up for a once-a-year vacation. I really do think that I would probably not have enough vacation time to stay sane. That's part of why I chose the field I did, however. I knew from my early teen years on that I was not cut out for a normal day job.