Tendency to suffer more from Anxiety and Depression

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Hi everyone. This time, I'd like to talk to you about Tendency to suffer more from Anxiety and Depression caused by High functioning Autism.

To be honest, this tendency is real. I feel anxiety and depression alot more than normal people without high functioning autism. In the past, I thought I'm just a paranoid person in generally or have a tendency to be so, but as years passed by, I started to realize, this tendency to suffer more from anxiety and depression was always been caused by High functioning autism. In fact, it seems, people with a normal Autism tend to suffer from these things less compared to people with high functioning autism. Maybe its because they are less aware of their surroundings because their Disability is more serious and they need other people to help them with their problems with their life all the time and need people near them most of the time, so this lack of awareness means they have less things to worry about, be anxious about, or depressed about. But I dont really know exactly, it just seems that way. Other than that, this anxiety and depression for me, have always been a big problem. Sometimes I cant even focus on basic things like working or studying because of that. About medications, medications which have helped me with anxiety and depression include Promethazine, Codeine, Paroxetine, Alprazolam, and so on. Can you share what you think about all this in generally, and can you also share please what medications, have helped you, with your anxiety and depression? Thanks, waiting for your replies.

Is the common ASD comorbids of Anxiety and Depression caused by Autism(ie. an Autism symptom) or caused by how most others react to your autism? I think a combination of both but that is just my theory. I agree that amoung the "high functioning" awareness that one is not fitting in can cause these. I would caution against thinking the "low functioning" autistics having violent meltdowns and stimming endlessly suffer less from these comorbids.

One might expect that a condition resulting from a neurological variant that presents with a more complex, faster, or sensitive neurology would tend to amplify neurological sensations such as anxiety and depression.

One might try to dull the sensations with drugs or alcohol. One might try to focus attention into a special interest or activity. Still others might try to diminish self-focus through something like volunteer work or religious faith.

I've always pinned my hopes on carefully minimising the stressful and depressing experiences that my environment might throw at me. So every time I'm considering doing anything, part of the process is to muse over whether my comfort might be challenged. Doesn't mean I never take on anything painful, just that I'll weigh up whether it's likely to be worth it in the medium and long term. In fact if I didn't take on hard challenges I'd soon get bored.

I also don't ruminate over past failures, bad experiences and future dangers. I think about them, but usually with a view to coming to terms with them and adapting my working methods to mitigate any bad effect.

Medication would be a last resort, as it once was when I was very stressed out, but fortunately the source of the stress was removed and as soon as that happened I felt much better. I can't remember the name of the stuff I took (some beta-blocker), only that if it did help it was a pretty marginal result, and that I ditched the tablets as soon as I was feeling like my old self again, which was only a few days after the onset. I'm scared of the side-effects of a lot of medications. For the rest of my life I've preferred to wing it and just do things like a bit of fresh air, exercise, and healthy lifestyle habits. I've also found counselling vaguely useful from time to time, but its good effects have rarely done much in the short term. It's been more like a bit of help here and there in my search to find out who I am, and somebody to talk to when the right kind of friend wasn't there for me at the time. I like the notion that a problem shared is a problem halved, though I bottle a lot and yet don't seem to come to any harm from doing that.

I certainly feel that I'm prone to anxiety and can find myself worrying too much about small matters, but as long as I can eliminate those causes to a reasonable degree, I'm usually fairly stress-free. Depression hasn't come my way very much.

Of course I realise I've been lucky to have a relatively easy life and that not everybody has it so good by any means.

Been a while. Does anyone have something to say / add about this subject ?

Where did you get the idea that people with "normal Autism" (not sure what that is ... ) are less aware of their surroundings because their disability is more serious?

I'm Level 2 ASD and I'm extremely aware of my surroundings, primarily because of hypersensitivity to sensory-social stimuli, and difficulty with adaptive flexibility regarding people, places, and situations. Over-awareness leads to difficulty managing or filtering stimuli and actually differentiates Level 2/3 from HFA, in terms of support needs.

As you can imagine it's very easy for this type of overwhelm to lead to anxiety or depression for many people. It's also common for L2/3 to be less adapt at masking, which makes it very difficult for them to fit in with peers or be treated like an NT.

I'm not saying L2/3 always have more anxiety and depression, or any at all. HFA might not either. I just wanted to point out that our "awareness of surroundings" is acute. The supports we need aren't always other people, either. My supports are things like tinted glasses for bright light, noise-cancelling headphones, sensory kits for stimming, and occupational therapy so I can manage SPD and social outings. Again these issues relate to my heightened awareness of environments rather than the opposite.



They're a big problem for me too. I don't take SSRI or antipsychotics anymore but in the past I've tried many including Zoloft, Remeron, Trazadone, Trintellix, Risperidone, Quetiapine, and others. I can't take Codeine. They were all short-term solutions for long-term problems, which is never sustainable overall.

had anxiety and depression all my life due to combo of autism sensory processing problems and misunderstanding everything plus trauma and abuse before I could even speak (as an infant til about age 30). I got diagnosis as autistic at age 68 and suddenly could make sense of so much of my past. I have done a lot of "emotional homework" in the past 3 years since diagnosis and my depression is much milder, anxiety is easing. There are many studies "out there on the internet" which do confirm autistic folks are much more likely to have anxiety and or depression than the general population average. I think knowing my diagnosis gave me a lot of self understanding and helped me understand the past and other people (my abusers especially) better , so diagnosis can be very helpful in healing hurts of the past and making accommodations to do better in the future. Meds and therapy can be helpful in their place, there are so many alternatives to help especially with depression these days, people who are fighting depression don't have to do it alone and suffer neeedlessly. Reaching out for therapy and medical help long before I got my autism diagnosis saved my life and sanity. You are not alone!

I've heard about this tendency, but I've never read any research or articles. My doctor told me once that high-functioning autism can cause depression or anxiety. And it can be true, but as a person with chronic anxiety, I can't say what causes it. But it's actually an interesting research topic. And I need to ask my professor about it, because he is really good at psychology, and maybe he knows something. And I also need to write a paper on depression and will do some research, and I hope to find something useful. I've already found this source https://eduzaurus.com/free-essay-samples/depression/ with different samples on that issue, and I need to see if there is something related to autism. If not, I'll use them as inspiration and look for something else. I'm sure that it has to be something online, and it is also a good topic for further research.