Stress and Symptoms

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Do you feel like the more you are stress the worst your AS is? I don't know I feel silly when I'm tired.

When I'm stressed, my routines and preferences become much more important to me. If I don't get to do what I had planned on doing, even if it's just a simple housework routine, I get upset. I don't say anything about it, but it ruins my whole day. If I lose another routine thing, like if my husband goes to bed before I do, making me unable to lay in bed and read before I go to sleep, that adds to it. If my internet goes out, that does it too, because I take breaks from housework and do things online, I'm not much of a tv person and if I watch tv then I have to wait until a commercial to get up and do my work. If I read a book in between chores, I'll get too caught up in it. I don't complain about these things, more than saying "The d*mn internet's down!" or something, but you can tell I'm in a bad mood because of it. When I'm stressed, I need my certain things even more. When I'm not stressed, I can just blow it off. One or two or even three of them, but a lot of them being gone/off will stress me out in itself.

Also, when I'm very stressed my tolerance goes down for things that get on my nerves. Certain things that I hate but had to learn to deal with in normal family life become almost intolerable. I also have trouble getting an idea or concept across correctly. I tend to get very frustrated and come across as mean. You can notice what I'm talking about on several threads last week. I wasn't angry at anyone on the forum, I was just stressed out, and no matter how I tried to say what I meant to say, it came out wrong. That adds to the frustration because when I'm not under tremendous stress, I tend to be able to get across what I mean, and I'm very nice and very calm usually.

So, I'd have to say, yes to your question.

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Yes, when I am more stressed, it does bring out the aspyness more. I think the stress hinders our processing of input more. This is why we tend to want to cling even more to our routines or plans more at such times. The routine or the plan have already been somewhat "processed", so it is easier to deal with that during times of stress. Any interruption or change to the routine or the plan while already stressed makes the stress even worse, and we are more likely to act up, or even have a melt down, because of processing overload and processing conflicts. When we are having processing problems we get very frustrated, and that often leads to anger or emotional upset.

Now that I have been living alone the past few years, I have had a lot less problems with this. When living with relatives, they often interrupted my routines and plans. This made life very difficult for all of us. I definitely prefer living alone. I don't want to have to deal with the constant turmoil any more. Also, I get along better with my relatives now, and want to keep it that way.

Here's one of life's ironies. I used to not get along with my 3 siblings. Now, none of them gets along with one another, but they all get along somewhat with me. I wish everyone got along, but at least things are better for me. Man, being a hermit is great!

I look at it a bit differently, but the result is the same. Dealing with Autism is stressful. Increased stress may not necessarily make my Autism worse, but at some point I get so tired of dealing with it, I just let go and the Autism shows more. It's not that it's any worse, it's just that it becomes more visible because I'm not hiding it anymore.

When I quit hiding it, that relieves the stress, because I'm not expending vast effort faking anything anymore. I think my Autism is there at the same level at all times. I can hide it, so it's not right out there and obvious, but that's stressful and tiring, so after a while I quit hiding it to relieve the stress, and it becomes more obvious. But it's there all the time, at the same level, whether it's obvious or not.

I think this is true for all of us.

My symptoms definitely get stronger when I'm stressed or tired. It becomes harder to function and I feel like just disappearing into myself while I rest and recharge my batteries. When I'm stressed I find it soothing to stim and do other repetitive things.