Do people with AS suffer from anxiety & sleep problems?

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I have quite a bit of anxiety.......and for the past couple of days its been really hard to get any sleep. I just can't seem to relax.

I have anxiety and I have had sleep problems my whole life. My sleeping problems come and go.

I have sleep problems, but not anxiety.

The Attwood that you've ordered is _the_ basic book on it, and you for sure need to read it, and there's another oriented to what you need, "Asperger's on the Job" by Rudy Simone.

Both, I have been up since 6am and feel knackered but have had quite a few hours sleep. I even had a short nap in the afternoon as felt so tired. I'm not even feeling that depressed which causes early waking, I think it is more anxiety. I am on tablets so theoretically they could be causing/worsening insomnia.

Thank you. I've ordered that one too.

And thanks to everybody else for the comments. Very helpful and much appreciated.

I have a lot of anxiety but I don't have sleep problems.

I've recently changed my approach to try and help me communicate with 'medical professionals'.

I find it very annoying that they will interrupt you, put words in your mouth, misdiagnose you in 5 seconds flat and then spend the rest of the time smugly assured of their own superiority due to years of medical training compared to the patient who obviously has no clue what is going with their own body or mind (after all they only live there) and are obviously barely more intelligent than a slime mould.

I've found that writing things down for them helps. Give them a short letter and insist they read it there and then in front you and then present them with half a dozen well referenced research papers demonstrating just how clueless they are (while being very polite of course).

There are 36,100 academic papers on autism and sleep disorders, I'm sure you will be able to find a couple to educate your highly trained psychologist.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=autism+sleep&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=1

No kidding. I totally agree with you. That's how I have been feeling since I started reading and learning more by myself rather than just listening to him.

I also gave him some stuff to read during the last few visits, but that was before Aspergers came up. So I wrote some more from the AS perspective, sans the citations - didn't have time and energy to search - and I will present it to him tonight. If he still disagrees, then goodbye. There are thousands of others in NYC. And my CBT psychologists hinted many times that I should seek another psychiatrist. Really, at this point I only need him to prescribe Klonopin (psychologists can't prescribe meds in USA), the psychologists is more helpful than he is.

I have an anxiety disorder but it doesn't seem to affect my sleep, whereas other anxious type of people I know do seem to have it affect their sleep. It doesn't affect my digestion or my appertite either. I'm physically healthy in every way. The only thing it affects severely is the way I see myself, which is all negative ways. I have low self-esteem, no confidence in myself, severe self-hatred, and extreme self-consciousness.

Either that or it would affect my sleep, probably.

Yes, anxiety has various effects on different people. Good thing it doesn't affect your sleep.

I suffer from anxiety a lot and also had a lot of trouble sleeping for years until I found something that really makes big difference in helping me sleep (blue light blocking glasses).

I get anxiety, but only in certain situations. Number 1 for me is when I get sick. When I was in college I had a medical condition which couldn't be diagnosed for a long time and I developed a serious anxiety problem because of that. So now, whenever I am sick, I associate it with my feelings in that time.

I have sleep problems virtually every night. The only times I sleep well are when I am drunk.

That sounds exactly how I functioned all through school. I would be forced to wake up at 6 am, then I had to work after school. I got home at 8 or so and stayed up until at least 1 every night cuz I just couldn't get my brain to shut up.

When I used to work the regular 8-4 shift, I would come home and nap, then be awake until 3 am anyway. I now work the perfect job- 330-930- so I can wake up and go to bed at the time my body wants.

Most Aspies do, yes. I know that I had to quit my last job because it was too stressful. I literally went home crying every, or most every, day because my boss more than likely thought I was stupid and incompetent. Funny thing is she had an Autistic son who had I to care for and she would tout herself as an Autism expert who could recognize an Autistic person anywhere, yet she kept saying things like "Normal people like you and I don't have problems with (various problems inserted here), where as people with Autism do." Just goes to show how much of an "expert" she is. And I haven't slept normally in about 2 years. Nothing I have tried works. So yes, stress and sleeping problems, especially sleeping problems caused by stress, are VERY common.

I have problems with both.

I hope that your doctor starts listening to you or you find someone who's more helpful.