If you learn to cope with or disrupt the anxiety you experience, you'll experience less anxiety. Otherwise, anxiety becomes a vicious cycle. This is true whether or not you have autism.
argyle wrote:
...yes. I'm a pretty happy camper.
Stuff that helps:
1. Being born towards the emotionally muted end of the spectrum. (it must suck to have lots of emotions...)
2. Accepting, at least close to the spectrum, family. (oh, so restful)
3. Feynman: What do you care what other people think? (really...people don't matter that much)
4. Just accepting that you're different and planning around it (memorize a few cues, exclude unsafe topics, stop trying to read faces, set boundaries on the amount of interaction you do, just don't go places that involve sensory issues (admittedly, depends on the level of sensory issues...but not giving a s*t helps a lot.))
5. Choosing an occupation that doesn't demand a ton of personal contact. (ah, laboratories...)
6. Screening your friends - if they need coherent conversations, they won't be your friends. (friends need to make your life better...watching every word is more trouble than they're worth.)
7. Believing that other people care very little about you. (seriously, even if they care, s'not like I can do much about it. Some will speak up - others will get really angry and make things clear - I deal with things then.)
8. Not trying to be someone you're not. (There's lots of things I'll never do competently. Oh well.)
9. Not caring too much. (Really, the worst case outcome involves dying horribly. But, you're going to die anyways. So...why worry...it won't improve your life.)
Btw, high school just sucks. Nasty little NTs practicing social warfare. Either work out a lot or spend time in the library. It gets better.
--Argyle
Everything you said helps to make things better, but unfortunately, there's a lot of people who have to deal with bullying their whole lives.
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Living with one neurodevelopmental disability which has earned me a few diagnosis'