Do you have anxiety caused directly by autism?

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Anxiety in autism is often described as a secondary symptom, caused by living in an unadjusted world. But I don’t think it’s the case in my situation – I’d be anxious in almost any possible worlds. Hence the question – do you have anxiety which you feel as a direct result of some autistic traits (and not as a result of living in a neurotypical world, rejection, bullying, etc.), and how do you cope with it?

Since middle school I have various forms of anxiety – the more of them the older I get. Earlier I didn’t think of them in autistic terms, but my diagnostician said they can be to large extent explained by autistic intolerance of change, inflexibility etc. I expect the world to be stable and any larger changes, or just thoughts of possible changes, cause anxiety. With changes comes the necessity to think things through and I’m easily overwhelmed by the overload of information I have to analyze. So, even simple activities, like buying new clothes, cause anxiety, because it’s not the activity I’m doing on a daily basis, and requires thinking about what to choose, will it be comfortable in the future etc. – I don’t have any gut feeling to help me in the process. Also, I fear some sudden change can come any moment – devices breaking, family members falling sick, accidents etc. – for which I’m completely unprepared.

Then, there is something I call “life inertia” – difficulties in switching to new life situations, e.g. being slow in adjusting to new workplace, new home etc.; feeling anxious / uneasy / “not quite right” while thinking about any life changes, even if the current situation isn’t good; or generally assuming that current lifestyle can last forever (and thus for example, having troubles with transition to adulthood long after the “appropriate” age for such transition).

So, anxiety is my default attitude towards anything outside of my narrow comfort zone. It isn’t very severe in any particular moment, but it is constant and shaping most aspects of my life. You could say I’m not a person with anxiety, but an anxious person – anxiety makes a large part of who I am and if it were suddenly removed, I would be either a completely different person, or I just wouldn’t know what to do and become overwhelmed in some other way.

I happen to have GAD in addition to ASD, and so distinguishing what is the source of my anxiety can get tricky. People on the spectrum disproportionately have GAD and other anxiety disorders, but they also may be misdiagnosed with such a disorder when the autism goes unrecognized (I've heard this is particularly true about autistic women). Disturbance of routine and sensory overload can lead to apparent anxiety attacks in autistic people. What I think indicates broader anxiety problems in my case, apart from being autistic, is that I continue to have anxious thoughts even when I'm comfortably in my safe spaces.

As the previous poster explained, autistic people may or may not realize that they are on the spectrum as they grow up. But if they determine that they are on the spectrum, retroactively then, one knows that they were always on the spectrum. The reason is that you cannot "become" autistic. It is not catching, or something you develop or grow out of.

So if you are autistic and have anxiety at any level, it is hard to say to what degree being a different kind of person influences or causes that.

Imagine that you have a bird on your head. You weren't aware of this, but he's always been there. People have always looked at the top of your head. They don't do this to anyone else. It makes you feel anxious that people stare at the top of your head. One day, you realize that there is a bird on your head and that's why people stare. So one could say that you feel anxious BECAUSE you have a bird on your head OR because PEOPLE STARE AT the bird on your head.

Not as much as when I was younger but negative thought loops a repetitive behavior anxiety.

No I have anxiety caused directly by humans. Humans are naturally cruel, selfish, bigoted and destructive.

My social anxiety is caused by the knowledge that I'm bad at social interactions. Before I realized I was bad at it, I had no anxiety. Now, with practice, I've gotten much better than I used to be, but the anxiety is still there.

No. Because anxiety is rarely my otherwise human reaction to my own living autistic experience.

Not even the cognitive basis over uncertainty and unpredictability.

Not even sensory issues; overwhelm by quantity, by intensity, pain or discomfort.

Not even any implications that results from the two statements the above.



But I am certainly very stressed out very often with several triggers both external and internal.

Yet it never results a resemblance of nervousness, racing thoughts, worrying, hypervigilance, full of what-ifs, survival mindset, and other physiological symptoms like higher blood pressure and heart rate...

And said stress response goes away as soon as stressors go away.
The problem is that removing my source of stress is very tricky. But when it happens the effects are very immediate.



I do not mistake my easily stressed out system for anxiety based reactions.

It takes more to make me anxious, and even takes something complicated to give me full blown anxiety that can last but otherwise to me, solvable.

And I can never seem to relate to anyone who experiences varying levels of anxiety.
Many will conflate and associate it with fear and panic -- I don't.

I experienced levels of anxiety rather differently to a point that I might as well seek something that can induce anxiety from time to time.



I have a serious problem with the term anxiety and how much of it is conflated with stressful responses.

I don't even have issues with deliberate relaxation itself. Not even with a very sensitive interoceptive system dealing with too many ails more than my already limited executive function is ought to handle.

And I already knew how disruptive anxiety can be when it came to relaxation and sleep.
Whatever disturbs my sleep isn't the same way over how anxiety typically disrupts said relaxation and sleep.

Anyone can mistake me for having anxiety all because of having too many stressors.
Most of said stressors isn't even mental or imaginary. Most of it is physically demanding because my immune system is a fricking enabler.


Most of it is rooted by my damnable chronic upper respiratory issues and the complication it causes.

... Heck, even that caused me more anxiety, uncertainty, pain, cognitive issues, social and emotional trouble than autism itself ever did.

Tried to relate to anything that resembles an overactive sympathetic nervous system or an underactive parasympathetic system...
... Instead, I found myself relating to what resembles to an overactive parasympathetic nervous system instead.

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I have not just anxiety but actual fear almost all the time. It's because I know that if something happens that I need to deal with, I don't know how to handle it. I used to be better at things and I think that was in part because I felt less alone and more supported, but now I feel adrift and afraid. It's become overwhelming and constant. I'm at home alone almost all of the time and I always feel uneasy. My ASD is very mild so I don't know if it's related to my fear.

Yes, I have anxiety caused by autism, and it is largely caused by a permanent situation of managing sensory overload.

The only place I can escape from sensory overload is whilst being alone, in a dark-ish room, and if I don't spend enough time there, and instead become a normal part of the neurotypical world, my sensory overload levels reach maximal proportions very quickly and I live in a state of high anxiety at that point, which is unsustainable over a period of years, for example.

Yes, my anxiety is strongly related to my ASD and sounds substantially like yours. "Life inertia" is a good term to describe what I've experienced before and right now. I discourage or proscribe myself from things I'm able and would like to do because they aren't routine, even if my routine is unproductive or destructive and needs changing. Sensory overload also increases my anxiety, so I've begun to meditate in dark rooms with little sound to some success. Writing out and planning my days and weeks with notebooks has been helpful as well; I need to concretely picture my duties so they're not buzzing in my head as some amorphous hydra of things to do.