Curious- Anxiety in Autistics

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I'm curious about how many people here have anxiety issues and what those anxiety problems are related to. I know that we talk about anxiety a lot and it's very clear that part of having ASD is anxiety. However, I'm simply interested in people's insight.

I was diagnosed with Panic Disorder when I was roughly 12 and I don't think I got out of it until my mid teens. I still meltdown and still get anxious about stuff (particularly when there has been a major change) but I can safely say that it's not as crippling as when I had panic disorder. I suffered from some pretty bad panic attacks. I was constantly tense and had heart palpitations even when I thought I was okay. On top of the changes that were happening, most of my panic attacks were triggered by sensory stimuli that upset me. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've had meltdowns and panic attacks at school. My school was awesome because of the support for people on the spectrum, so I probably had it a lot easier than most people here.

I'm 19 and I do feel stress a lot and I do have anger problems (which my psychiatric nurse and I fell are related to feelings of being overwhelmed by anxiety). I still meltdown and worry. However, I haven't had a full blown panic attack since I was maybe 17 or 18 (though I did temporarily develop some of the symptoms when I was freaking out at the beginning of my course at college).

In general, I'm a pretty standard case of a person with panic disorder; I had loads of panic attacks (often on a daily basis), developed phobias because of it, avoided stressful situations and actually took days off school because of it, found it difficult to sleep, became a complete hypochondriac, needed beta blockers, etc...

I also have Trypanophobia (needle phobia), and that's caused panic attacks as well. I still have this, by the way. i'm rubbish with needles.

So how about you guys. I'm interested in what the source of your anxiety is. What makes you so fearful? How did you cope with it? Do you still have it? Do you have any advice for anyone who is still suffering from anxiety, etc...

I'm looking forward to any responses

Oh, and I wonder if you could mention your ASD diagnosis (Autistic Disorder, PDD-NOS, Aspergers, blah blah blah), thanks

Social phobia that in its worst times shifted to a generalized anxiety disorder; at my worst times I didn't do anything school/workwise and didn't leave the house for days or weeks at a time. I cured myself by getting 7 piercings in my lips (one after the other) and leaving the house, knowing that everyone was going to stare at me anyways - after a while I stopped thinking about it.

I still tend to avoid situations that involve other people and too many new things at once, and I can't allow myself to get into a habit of not facing the outside world because that rapidly turns into anxiety.
Not diagnosed, suspected Asperger's.

i've been given selective mutism, generalized anxiety, and social phobia.

I don't agree with the social phobia dx. Anyway I'm considered severe anxiety-- school refusal, constantly worrying, hard to leave the house. I have phobias of doctors and dogs.

I have PTSD from childhood stuff. In the past the only time I got panic was in a confrontation, I couldn't stand up for myself because I would stop being able to breathe right and talk and would start stuttering. I have begun having panic attacks in this last year or so...I always heard about them but I never really experienced full blown ones (at least I don't think I did). This is related to recovered trauma...I had one at work the other night and I thought I was going to flatline or something, my breathing just sped up to the point where I couldn't breathe in or out because I was trying to do both at the same time, I guess that is called hyperventilating, it's pretty new to me to have it just out of the blue because before if I got one as long as I didn't try to talk or fight back I was okay. These are not fixable like that.

social anxiety,insomnia from worrying, night terrors, dwelling on negative thoughts etc.

I've without formal diagnosis suffered from social and general anxiety for many years. However, I think it's possible that i've found something that works for me: rhodiola ( google it). It's very hard to tell precisely whether i'm not committing the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy here ( urgh, google it again), but I have what I consider to be some evidence that it works for me. In the past, when I go back to college after a break, and thus live by myself after being in the bosom of the family etc. I get really anxious for a period. There have been about 9 occasions of this going back. In the first year, I was taking rhodiola and was remarkably unanxious; then I forget about it, stupidly, and on subsequent occasions was very anxious. Last term, after a week of wrenching anxiety I took it, and the anxiety went, and this term ( indeed, this very week, term just having started), I took it, and have experienced very little anxiety indeed. Again, it's hard to know whether this is owing to rhodiola or other factors, but there's no harm in giving it a go.

I've got all of those on some level (particularly panic disorder & OCD, gen. anxiety depedning ion environment) but undiagnosed. I don't wanna go to the doctor about EVERYTHING I have issues w/

I think I might have SA and Asperger's. However the latter is undiagnosed (therefore I am unwilling to fully commit to saying I have it). I have been to see a what I think is a clinical psychologist (don't know for sure) to see about CBT for SA. when I talked about my issues, which were basically anxiety issues about people. she bassically said what I said to her, you definitely have issues with Social anxiety. she did not whip DSM or say you have SAD. I don't know whether I'm supposed to infer that I do or whether its not her job to "diagnose" and label.

I mentioned aspergers, but she said she didn't really know anything, only that its a mild form of Autism. Which I remember telling to my GP, couple this with her reading a transcript of what I said to the GP. She might have just rhymed that off.

From what somone else said on this forum. Its quite possible that I'm just a nerdy person with SA. thats why I can't really tell if i have Aspergers definitively.

I haven't been diagnosed as such, but I spoke to my psychologist and she said that me being absolutely terrified by the prospect of 1. Going into school and 2. Sometimes going out at all, is just to do with the anxieties associated with Asperger Syndrome.

I'm going to speak to my psychologist more about this when I next see her, which won't be for a while as I've only recently switched from psychologist A to psychologist B...well it's more like psychologist H but yes

I had severe social anxiety before finding out I was autistic. When I was under 14, especially in my early school years I could of had selective mutism. I never got diagnosed. I was just seen as shy and quiet.

I still have anxiety about change, especially going to a new location or breaking routine, but not really generalised anxiety.

I've never really had an anxiety disorder. I thought that I did, in October. It was only a feeling of vulnerability after being a punk for a couple of years.

Loads of anxiety, but it comes and goes in waves in a kind of yearly cycle. Selective mutism too (not dx'd, but I know I do it). I guess it's a natural response to information overload.

It has been suggested I suffer from social anxiety, social phobia and a stress disorder. I thought I was OK until they explained thats why I do A,B and C behaviours.

I do hate the constant looping thoughts, annalysing and re-annalysing negative events looking for understanding and reasons. Re-creating scenarios with more acceptable outcomes. The process can last weeks, months and I re-visit some events years, decades later. Never helps or solves the problem, however I repeat this behaviour everytime.

I've been diagnosed with GAD, but that was before they knew about my ASD. GAD is related to unusually high levels of anxiety in the absence of unusually anxiety-provoking events; but with an ASD, things that can be easy for NTs to tolerate can become overwhelming in sensory and other cognitive ways to the point that it is quite reasonable for an ASD individual to be anxious about them.

So, I have anxiety at higher levels than NTs do, but it is just another part of my autism. I have some moderate difficulty with transitions and new situations; and I am still just getting used to the reality of being "disabled" (I didn't grow up with the label, as many of you did) so I am still dealing with the problem of calling myself lazy and demanding more of myself than I can actually give. All of that combines to produce entirely reasonable anxiety. I am quite sure that as my coping skills grow, the anxiety will reduce to manageable levels.

Yes, I get panic attacks, every so often, especially in places where I know I cannot escape, like airplanes. It's claustrophobia.
I've been dxed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and also post traumatic stress. It's become better over the years, but stress brings it back.
As I get older, I am less tolerant of change and less resilient. Too much change causes anxiety.

_________________
Never assume you know what I'm thinking, just ask for clarification.
"Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal', must necessarily be 'inferior'. " -- Hans Asperger (1938)

I have been diagnosed with OCD and PTSD.

I used to have many panic attacks, but they are far and few between these days - when I start getting pounding in my chest, sick feeling, escalating panicky thoughts, and hyperventilation - I've learned to slow down my thought process by telling myself that I'm just having a panic attack and that everything is going to be ok and I concentrate on breathing slowly and deeply.

I have found no cures for my OCD. It hasn't seemed to become worse, or gotten better, it just seems to be staying the same intensity, and types of compulsions have remained the same, but the themes have changed slightly over time. When I was anorexic, I found some of my obsessive-compulsions related to eating, food, food-preparation etc... over time this has become less of a obsession and compulsion - but it still affects me regarding food. I still wrap plates of food in gladwrap in many layers much to the amusement of others, I still won't eat liquidy-meal leftovers (like spaghetti bologneise) because I feel like it might be contaminated because it has a liquidy substance in it, I still scrub each bench and table top surface every time anything is placed on it that has been in direct human contact, and I smell everything that has been in the fridge. I used to have a very strong fridge phobia and would not eat or drink anything that came from inside of it (I used to cook everything I would eat even making my own bread at every meal) - and when I prepared food for others from the fridge I would wash my hands straight after touching any food or containers that had been in the fridge. That was before I learnt in my science class that bacteria tends to be stalled in it's growth in a fridge... after I learnt this amazing piece of information, I will now eat stuff from the fridge, but the fridge phobia is still there to a slight degree. I currently keep the fridge at colder temperature than most people do (at almost freezing point), and I won't eat anything with a liquidy substance in it from the fridge, other than drinks such as coke, milk, or juice from the fridge. I label everything in the fridge from the date I put it in to the length of time must consume by. I know my behaviour is abnormal and irrational, as no one else dies or gets food poisoning from their food consumption habits do they??? but for some reason I just feel like I have to do this or else not eat anything from the fridge at all.

As for the PTSD, time has tempered it slightly, I am not having as many nightmares as I did a year ago, but I still have on average one-two nightmares per night. I still have avoidant behaviours, and I still dissociate every now and again particularly during conflict or when I am reminded of painful past events, and I become extremely stressed by certain physical triggers or particular events that remind me of certain past events.