Accepting anxiety as a feature of being a woman with ASD

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@Tokatekika, welcome! Meet friends, give them a heads up that you may need the toilet frequently - the good friends will stick around. I am new to this also and really like the idea of setting folks' expectations, "You may find me … feel free to … I'll understand." (And now I hope they do also.)

Amending my answer - I do feel tremendous anxiety at times. (I have a problem where if I'm not feeling it right this second, I can't recall ever having felt that way before. My feelings and memories are fragmented that way.)

A couple things have helped me: one is reminding myself that in the case of making a social blunder, what feels like a tsunami for me, is a ripple for others. (And sometimes a ripple can influence others in a good way - you never know.)

Another is an existential approach, of replacing the 'neurotic' (specific, irrational) fear with the 'big bad' existential fear of total isolation and death - which would result from being completely rejected and ostracized by literally all of humanity. As social animals, the anxiety instinct serves to motivate us to 'blend in with the herd', ultimately for survival purposes.

So if you can think about it that way, it can be reassuring to realize that a minor social mishap isn't going to affect your survival, and that your emotional instincts are just performing their biological function.

^

This is something I struggle with, the ability to think rationally when it feels like I've been hijacked by anxiety. It's why I'm working on the baseline levels of anxiousness as a way to reduce this escalation. Or give myself a chance to rationally recognise what is happening physiologically and take steps to reduce the build up of stress hormones before I get caught in a loop.
Exercise is essentially my best friend in this so far.

I am curious about the emotional memory fragmentation per se that you mention. Do you have aphantasia?

I'm not a visual person, so my 'actual' vision as well as images in my head are fragmented and blurry, like looking at a Monet through a kaleidoscope.

The fragmented memories are more of a PTSD thing, and I struggle with dissociation and psychosis. I'm learning to be more aware that this is the case, so that at all times I know there's something I'm probably not remembering. (I just don't know exactly what!)

A weird way to live, but I'm making progress at integrating all the confusing fragments.

Wow, thank you.
Someone on the spectrum that I know has aphantasia, when you mentioned the memories being fragmented it resonated with me as something I've heard before.

I hadn't considered the PTSD as a reason for the disconnect in my memories, kinda obvious now that I think about it and something I've been told before but I guess I didn't connect with it. The disassociation is probably at play here too.

I hope this post is tangentially suited to this thread Amity, though if you disagree, let me know and I will remove it.
Today I read this list in Quora, in reply to the question: What are some psychological facts that people don't know?

The answer intrigued me, especially the numbered items relating to trauma, and as anxiety often arises from past (and ongoing) effects of trauma, it seems worth adding in here. I don't necessarily agree with every single part of the answer, though the whole piece really really impressed me. So here it is:


Written by
Kiersten Pressfield, B.B.A. Management and Economics

1 The people who experience the most shame have the least reason to feel ashamed and the people who experience the least shame have the most reason to feel ashamed. The greater the person’s conscience, the more likely it is that they experience shame.

2 Not all human behavior is ‘reactive’, as many modern mental health professionals would lead you to believe. There are ‘predatory personalities’ who purposefully seek to harm others.

3 We do not see others as they are, we see them as we are. That is the reason that kind hearted people often get manipulated and it is also the reason that toxic people are naturally paranoid.

4 The vast majority of humans are under the control of “other people’s” will. Most of those “other people” are psychopaths. Most humans are dissociated from themselves and programmed to follow the will of the few who are aware.

5 The universal law of polarity proves that opposites attract. Until a person is fully conscious of their choices, they will be unconsciously drawn to people who have the opposite qualities.

6 The more authentic a person is, the more likely they are to be exploited. Predators seek out authenticity.
It is emotions that are used to manipulate people. A person’s mind cannot be manipulated unless it is first granted access to by the emotions. Once access is granted, the mind can be used to serve another’s will. Be cautious when you have a strong emotional response to someone you do not know well.

7 Power is the root of all evil. Money is only a symbol of power. People who have the most control over others know that there are more effective ways to control people than money.

8 The new age ideologies that preach that “It’s all love” and “Everything belongs” are half truths aimed at lulling humans to sleep and keeping them from protecting themselves.

9 The more intelligent a person is, the more likely they are to question their own beliefs.

10 There is a universal force that opposes the evolution of consciousness. It is both personal and non-personal. Resisting it is necessary for self actualization.

11 Many modern gurus and spiritual teachers are psychopaths.

12 When a person does not resist the forces that oppose evolution, they are left alone. If you want to have an easy life, lose your integrity.

13 The law of attraction is easiest for people who are not very smart. The more intelligent a person is, the more difficult it is for them to focus. The LOA requires intense focus so it is difficult for highly intelligent people. The exception to this rule is psychopaths. Psychopaths are able to focus very well. Non-psychopathic, intelligent people can certainly train their minds to focus but it requires much more practice.

14 Emotional freedom is not so much about non-attachment as it is about loyalty to your own True Self.

15 The true test of a person’s character can be judged by how they behave when given absolute power.

16 Sometimes the most powerful statement you can make is silence.

17 Most of the harm that is done in the world is not by evildoers, but by the lack of action on the part of bystanders.

18 Manifestation is a top down process. It begins in your mind with a thought, it is then amplified in your heart by your emotions, and it is brought into form through action.

19 Self awareness is a bottom up process. It begins with a sense of groundedness in your roots. It is given meaning in your heart. And it is brought to awareness in your mind.

20 You can judge a person’s level of consciousness by how they react to struggles. A conscious person uses struggles as a conduit for growth. An unconscious person allows struggles to pull them further into unconsciousness.

21 The things that we cling to the tightest are the things that we are most certain to lose.

22 Avoidance is just another form of attachment. It is attachment to not having something. An emotionally healthy person does not need to attach to or avoid things.

23 Most people are living out some form of repetition compulsion. Until we are able to acknowledge and process our unconscious patterns, they will repeat until they either kill us or wake us up.

24 Decisions made from a place of fear will always leave you feeling unfulfilled, even if the outcome is in your favor. On the contrary, decisions made from a place of authentic power will leave you feeling fulfilled, even if the outcome is not in your favor.

25 The wiser a person is, the more reluctant they are to give advice. Be cautious of people who give out a lot of unsolicited advice.

26 How a person feels after they have had an interaction with you is an indicator of your True Self. If you feel ashamed or exhausted after an interaction, you are probably dealing with a toxic person so proceed with caution.

27 The need for validation is the biggest cause of suffering for many people.

28 The body is a map for the soul. If done consciously, the physical body can be used as a tool for self actualization. This is the concept of yoga.

29 We are each living out an archetype. Avoiding the journey of our archetype results in depression. Embracing the journey of our archetype leads to bliss.

30 The body is a mirror of the subconscious mind. Trauma is stored in the subconscious mind, and therefore the body. Consciously releasing trauma from the body is one way to heal from trauma.

31 Feeling traumatized is a healthy response to abuse and violence. People who lack empathy do not experience events as traumatizing. It is not possible for a psychopath to develop PTSD.

32 For some people, the path to self actualization is about understanding that they are connected to all other beings. For others, the path to self actualization is about understanding that they have a separate identity that is independent from all other beings. Both are absolutely correct!

33 You can tell that a person is operating from their false self if their psychological structure is hierarchical. There is no hierarchy in the world of Truth. People who operate in a pecking order are living a lie.

34 The wiser a person is, the less likely they are to strongly identify with specific groups or ideologies.

35 Many physical illnesses are unresolved traumas that have not been brought into consciousness. Typically, as traumas are brought into consciousness, they move from physical pain, to emotional pain, and finally to spiritual pain before they are processed and released. Sometimes, this happens in the reverse order.

36 To become wiser, work on connecting the right and left hemispheres of your brain.

37 People like to watch movies about great adventures because they long for their own great adventure. Every great story of adventure is really about finding the Self.

38 Intelligent children are more likely to get bullied and less likely to be a bully themselves.

39 Humility is required for self actualization. For this reason, it is difficult for narcissists to become self aware.

40 Relinquishing the false self is the goal of self actualization. False selves are either power based or shame based. For obvious reasons, it is more likely that a person with a shame based false self will succeed in this mission.

41 People who can only see the good in themselves project out the bad onto others. People who can only see the bad in themselves project out the good onto others. A healthy person has the capability of seeing both the good and bad in themselves and others.

42 We all have an inner masculine and an inner feminine. People who are able to marry their inner masculine (spirit) with their inner feminine (soul) are living a life of Truth.

43 [i]What we deny or reject within ourselves will show up outside of us in our relationships. Relationships with toxic people are indicators that we have ignored or disowned some part of ourselves.[/i]

44 There are people who have cut themselves off from their life source and must literally steal the energy of others in order to exist. When a person is not connected to his own life source, he will automatically (consciously or unconsciously) begin operating within the predatory cycle in order to survive.

45 People who are connected to their own life source (kundalini, chi, qi, holy spirit) must guard it like a dragon guards its castle.

46 Abusive relationships follow exactly the same pattern as cults. The only difference is the number of people involved.

47 An alarming and growing number of mental health professionals and clergy leaders are predatory personalities. These are ideal professions for psychopathic predators. Be exceptionally cautious with these people.

48 It is rare for a person with a narcissistic mother to find their way to adulthood emotionally intact. Most people end up with either narcissistic, borderline, codependent, or schizoid traits or C-PTSD.

49 The relationships that challenge us the most can also provide us with the greatest growth if we allow them to be used as a catalyst for personal change.

50 All predators, manipulators, and narcissists follow the same patterns of abuse. They need not be aware of the pattern, although some are.

51 In order to receive the things that are meant for us, we must let go of the things that no longer serve us.
The way to find your true calling is to take action. Follow your bliss and it will lead you to the goal.

52 Alcohol enlarges the ego. Marijuana shrinks it.

53 People who experience extreme childhood trauma sometimes develop fragmented egos which have cracks or openings. For this reason, these people often have psychic abilities. Likewise, most people who report having mystical and (non-substance induced) out of body experiences, also have a history of childhood trauma.

Your relationship to your True Self is more fulfilling than any other relationship you will ever have. The path to discovering it is the privilege of a lifetime.


The italics are mine. These items really leaped out at my first reading.

^^^Thank you for posting. All true.

For today, I had to take frequent breaks to breathe deeply and calm my mind in order to face the many tasks to do this day and before the end of the month.

Thankyou for this conversation I had anxiety a lot for all my life cant remember a time I not scared

^I'm glad and hope you find it helpful to not feel alone in your experiences with fear

B19, I liked the list, though I agree that some points were not quite right.
The literal reading of generalised statements will always be problematic, taken as a philosophical list, I found it easier to interpret. Also to add that her personal bias, from perhaps experiences coloured the theme.

These are two I would add to the points you highlighted. Though really they are the one message.
Noticing these patterns is something I have improved at over the years, though have caused me to feel a lot of anxiety, in both experiences of the abuse and in noticing the patterns in others.
Thankfully, recognising it is more thought based than anxiety based these days.
I find lately this comes from my brain and gut working together, rather than pure anxiety driven gut reactions.


Consciously releasing the trauma has been quite liberating, sure I have some ways to go yet, but these releasing experiences have given me hope for freedom. Or regaining the independence of mind that my childhood self had before all this.
Though I need to manage my expectations to limit the possibility of false hopes.
Perhaps I am underestimating the mind body connection again and the physiological impact of healing. It makes sense that it would be difficult. Interestingly the releasing of trauma seems to travel downwards from the front of my brain towards my gut where it dissipates. Its followed by a lovely lightened feeling, like a weight has left my body.
Perhaps I do expect too much of myself, it would be kinder to recognise that physical symptoms of this journey are valid.
I think can accept the anxiety as a permanent feature if I can envision a time where it's a lot less powerful. I can see that.

I found the list thought provoking as well (and it's nice to see you back, B19!) I appreciate hearing other people's experiences with letting go of physical pain and memories - and especially where we perceive these things to reside.

For me, childhood memories, pain, tension, and knots reside in my stomach. Basically logical circuits that are so complex and intertwined, they became a root-bound mess. "You must do X, but never do Y, except when Person Z demands it, in which case proceed to Special Protocol Q"... Basically those are the rules I developed as a child, and they all conflicted with each other, tying me up in knots - so there were always secrets I had to keep, from various family members.

As for my heart, I don't feel much of anything there at all - except at sunset, an achey, grieving feeling.

In my head, I don't feel I store information there (that's way up above, in the stars, often dissociated and inaccessible to me) - and in my head I only hear sounds. Sometimes it's my own voice, but often it's other voices - some familiar and trusted, others unfamiliar and confusing. Some male, some female, some old, some young.

Sorry if this is not on topic for ASD. But in the case of female ASD, it seems too common that we also develop anxiety and trauma issues, so hopefully it's not completely off-topic.

That is so confusing for a child and much pressure to be under during the rapid development years.

Using so much social energy on learning and using non transferable rules to support the adults agenda, when social rules are already confusing enough.

To me our anxieties are intertwined with our experience of being autistic and our individual environments. So essentially anything/everything related to that is relevant.

I do feel that women on the spectrum are quite susceptible to various types of abuse, commonly experienced by women everywhere. Also to add that I believe it's true of all autistic people, the social communication aspect of the condition makes us vulnerable.

For me it's like a partial social blindness and I cant identity the danger or how serious it is until its upon me. I have a feeling that something is off or a knowing that I cant see something socially. I can feel that there is a pattern, just cant see it without the time and most importantly the correct knowledge to reflect on it afterwards.

If I wasnt constantly anxious I might be able to recognise that this feeling of 'something unknown' has merit, but as I feel this way about many many things throughout the day it feels impossible to sort the many rational and irrational sensations of possible danger.

I'm not sure about where I specifically store the traumatic memories... apparently the physical memories are there though, lying in my sympathetic nervous system awaiting a trigger.
When a memory is brought to my consciousness I am most aware of the tension in my chest. To visualise, its like a spinning ball of electricity/ high energy, that fluctuates in size and strength. I don't really have better words for it.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It has felt connecting to read and feel some commonalities with some of you. I've been struggling with tension and anxiety for as long as I can remember, though like some of you mentioned I didn't necessarily know to name them that, I just thought I was a bad person and didn't even think to question or notice that I was constantly tense and afraid. I was too matter-of-fact to convince the first few therapists I saw that I was really unhappy. I also haven't ever really trusted myself so I've always felt like I was making up or exaggerating my problems. "If I really wanted to stop being miserable I could, I must just like having something wrong with me to make me different," etc.

I'm still not sure I believe my spectrum diagnosis or if I think it's really "just" anxiety that explains my trajectory. I hoped that getting the diagnosis would help give me some more specialized tools for dealing with the anxiety and tension. I do think writing things (even simple things) down so I don't feel like I have to remember them and just disengaging from over-stimulating things instead of powering through are two useful things I've learned.

I have a therapist now who specializes in working with people on the spectrum (though she's NT). She has given me some useful tools so far. (I've been given dozens of tools over the years, and it's a bit overwhelming to keep track of what I'm "supposed" to do in any given situation, but at least she's been pretty good about following up and helping me practice the ones she's given me.) Her perspective is very much that people on the spectrum don't have to stay anxious. Reading all your posts, I wonder if that's really the healthiest perspective, or if accepting a certain level of anxiety, while working to mitigate it, might be more realistic.

One item on the list brought to mind a profound healing experience from my own life.

All my life, until my mid 30s, I had very weak arms. I tended to link this as somehow related to the tiny wrists I have always had, though otherwise I am an average person, bit on the slim side. My weak arms affected me in many ways (the one time I attempted to play tennis was a disaster, though comical to bystanders). I thought that was "just me". In my mid thirties I made two enormous discoveries:

1) It wasn't "just me", and 2) There was a covered up history about the cause of my weak arms.

I went through a rough patch in my mid thirties and decided to book a two week stay at a therapeutic retreat which offered help with breathing patterns, and the impacts of life experiences on health and well being in the body and mind. I did know the man who ran it, so was quite confident he was not one of the charlatans who can infest healing centres.

He noticed the trouble I had breathing in an entirely normal pattern. Again, I knew that I had had this from childhood. My horrendous foster mother used to threaten me with violence when I was in breathing difficulty, telling others that I was just pretending. Who would ever want to pretend that they couldn't breathe and put themselves in a state of desperate air-hunger? Not me. But she was a very ignorant woman, and I have long accepted that. It is what it is.

For those two weeks of therapy I struggled with being coached to develop a normal breathing pattern. It worried me that others found this easy; for me it was a huge challenge. However I decided to keep up sessions with myself once I went home, to see if I could bring about the change without onlooker pressure.

Quite soon after, during a session, I had an extraordinary breakthrough - vivid eidetic flashbacks to being the infant I was in an orphanage in the late 1940s. There were things about this orphanage that I had always remembered; however that day I learnt that there were things I had totally suppressed in my mind, but my body remembered always, and the trauma was stored in my arms. As the flashbacks came, in a vivid rush, my arms went wild, as I watched the visual imprints of what had happened, and a strange vocal sound came from my inner self, a cry of someone in utter desperation. My whole body began to shake uncontrollably as the immense feelings poured through me, and I was incapable of walking or rising, I lay on the floor and let the process continue, knowing (from the therapist) that this was the breakthrough I needed to fully experience.

Everything came back. It was what I call "the Pea Incident", which I can see just as clearly now. I was smallest person in the orphanage, and it bugged me that all the other kids had meals together at a huge oval table, while I had to sit apart in a sort of low highchair. I sooooooooooooo wanted to be part of the big kids' table and not on my own. A very large woman put a bowl of green peas on the highchair as my meal. I remember looking at them, then at the big kids, then an idea came to me - I was only aged one so it seemed like a good idea at the time - that if I tipped the peas on the floor, then somehow this would be understood as my desire to sit with the big kids. So I tipped, and watched the green peas roll across the wooden floor.

Suddenly I saw this same huge woman advancing toward me with a vicious look on her face, grabbing me painfully by the arms and yanking me out of the chair very roughly; then, like a screen going down in my mind and perceptual faculties, everything just went blank. That is exactly what my one year old self experienced, and my adult self re-saw and re-experienced it. It was like a light being turned out in my mind. Consciously, I had so deeply suppressed what happened next that I hadn't been able to recall it for well over 30 years. It was too scary. I think she battered me until I was unconscious.

My foster father, who was a kind and benign man, a bullied and cowed husband, who kept his silence to keep himself safe from his sociopathic wife, was still alive when I was in my 30s, and when I managed to get him alone, with some wine to relax him, I told him about the flashbacks and asked him if he knew anything about them. He looked very shocked, stunned and started to cry. Then he told me that the first time he had seen me, my arms were in such a terrible state of bruising, wounds, that he had demanded to know who had done this. The orphanage told him that I had arrived like that, my family had done it. But I had been there for months. It was all the usual lies that you get from "good Christian orphanages", and things were not good for orphans generally in the late 1940s. No-one was there to protect them, and some survived, some didn't. I survived. But at a huge cost.

The breakthrough experience was the starting point for me of another 30-odd years of depth healing. The changes in my physical body have been remarkable. The revelations of what certain physical feelings mean for me has been remarkable. I know now my body and its different levels of operation in a way I once could never have imagined.

I did learn to breathe normally (more or less) eventually, decades on, as I more and more recognised it as caused by buried states of terror, from traumatic events, of which there had been many unfortunately. Now in my early 70s, I feel for the first time in my life, that my body and my mind have achieved a synchronised understanding, and that I can fully understand and be aware of the levels of communication between both parts of me. They are finally in unison.

Of course sometimes I wonder what my life might have been like had this always been so. Yet no-one (I believe) ever gets through childhood and adolescence without receiving wounds to the mind/body, and though my case is extreme in some events, the process is not. The body strives to protect us from what we are unable to bear and process. The body never forgets. The body is where the trauma memory is stored, until we break through.

Others may think differently, though I never will.

I feel safe sharing this with you Amity, you have always been a very good influence on WP. Although for years I harboured anger about what happened, I came to realise that I was blessed too, somehow, that I survived and discovered things about the mind, body, and their complex interactions that helped me in many ways in the second half of my life. So I have made my peace with the terrorist years of infancy and childhood, and it can be done.

Seconded - I really appreciate the perspectives here, on a topic that most of the time we feel we must keep silent about. It helps to understand what others have been through, and know that I'm not alone.



It's depressing that this is the conclusion we draw, from our life experiences as autistic females. My own perception is that I've always been a hated, despised misfit, since my earliest memories - and after a while it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I contribute to making that pattern repeat itself, because "it's who I am".

I think it is possible to change though - and I've gotten to the point where I have to. I have both autistic and schizoid traits - with the autistic side of me caring about people, wanting to connect, but feeling anxious - and the schizoid size giving up entirely, convincing myself that I don't care, I prefer isolation anyway.

But life is forcing me to face this anxiety. I live with my parents (which is not entirely healthy, but at least it's a roof over my head, whereas so many autistics and schizoids end up homeless, if they can't get along with family or housemates, and aren't functional enough to live independently.) I see that danger looming in my future, and it's hitting me - I have to learn to quit shutting myself off from everyone, if I hope to have any quality of life at all.

And that means facing the anxiety, and not just running away, every time I feel overwhelmed by hopelessness. So thanks again for this thread, and all who have contributed. It helps so much, to be able to talk about these things.

B19 I remember you shared some of your story here, after that self diagnosis debacle hijacked the forums, it stayed with me, as will this.
Much respect

People got away with hideous abuses of children in the past, so many vulnerable little people denied basic human needs, the untold stories are still silenced by the effects of these wrongs.
There is to me at least comfort in seeing how the view of childhood has changed/is changing in progressive countries.

An ah-ha moment for me was recognising that I had CPTSD (lol yes I know now it was obvious). Becoming aware that rationally my mind knew I was having an intrusive memory, but my body believed completely it was back in those terrible moments.

Or the awareness that I do have flashbacks and those are the moments when my rational self checks out and I am not in control, I have been hijacked by emotion and memories.

I get impatient with myself and how slow my progress is, that's something I'm working on. I think it's one of the reasons I started this thread and perhaps the reason why I trip up and loose hope at times.
I could consider a longer trajectory, I mean I can choose that, I have that freedom. I dont know why I'm in such a rush, I might need to be, but then again I might not. Is it the process or the end product I'm aiming for here... perhaps the aim could just be the process, more like blazingstars idea of dancing with it in the moment...

To pick up on something you said about the process being the same for everyone, that our bodies will do as needed to protect our day to day way of being... This is something I recognise too, trauma has the same impact on our functioning, even if the source of the traumas is very different.

I also agree that the traumas people on the spectrum experience need urgent special emphasis and the understanding of these needs to come from an autism spectrum condition perspective.
The basic ways in which our environments create comorbids which makes our experiences of being autistic much harder than they need be, is something I believe takes lived experience to fully understand.
People I consider BAP seem to also understand this. With most people (including some autists) who have internalised societies bias about disability it feels like I'm speaking to them in an incomprehensible language when Ive tried to describe this.

I see anxiety as a warning sign, a red flag that all is not well, yet these valid anxieties are healthy normal reactions to an unaccommodating world.
It's a loop we can be stuck in, if we are accommodated in our personal environments the anxiety can be limited, but for many it seems this is not the lived experience.