depression with autism

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How many of dyou are depressed? What do you do to make the bad feelings go away? What about anxity? don't feel when I write it's good I. Feel very depressed lately and don't know what to do a i'm feeling very anxious to I just started school on Thursday and don't even feel like i Can read wright or do any work. I don't even feel good enough to wright my autism book and don't feel my writhing Is good , and I don't even feel like being in the special Olympics anymore. I want to be happy again and I want to have friends of my own disability

I am unconfirmed but I feel I have depression. Managing it may not be easy sometimes but if you do things you like to do then you may not feel so depressed. Have you had an evaluation done to see if you have depression?

You'll be fine, you're only 16. You have a good life ahead of you.

Being sad is very common. I'm sorry you're sad, Jenni!

Can you focus on something you like?

I have depression in the sense of the disorder, certainly not a simple as feeling sad....that would be preferable. But anyways yeah I do not think its uncommon for people on the spectrum to suffer from depression. Also though is it that something specific has got you down? If so its normal to feel/sad depressed about it and you'll probably start feeling better when finding a way to cope with that or improve that issue....but if its something like clinical depression like I have you might need more help with it like therapy, there are meds(but none have really done me any good) and like alternative treatments but point is its more than just being sad/depressed over a specific thing.

In the moment when I feel bad, it helps to escape. Reading is hard to focus on upset, swimming, running, drawing, painting, dancing, singing, writing music are some things that help in the moment for me or people I know.

If schoolwork is stressing you, finding someone to help break the tasks down, either at home over the weekend or Monday at school may help. Sometimes finding a place to start feels too difficult. Or you could pick the easiest task if you got homework. Or you could post what your homework was if that would help, maybe we could help you break it down.

Along with Aspergers, I have been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety, and mild depression, although sometimes it doesn't feel so mild.

I am diagnosed with all three...Once my medication is irregular just a bit, meltdowns happen easily again.

I have depression and anxiety. I'm sorry you also feel this way Jenni, and everyone else.

Yep, depression and anxiety are the way of life.
Physical exercise and exposure to light does help me some.

The psychologist who diagnosed me last year, described me as having an ongoing, underlying, mild depression that gets worse during periods of stress and change bringing on major depression.

I think the best things to deal with depression are exercise and art. Long walks with a dog are great, take your note book with you. In fact just having a dog helps with depression - "Will a game of ball help, or should I just lick your face?"

I like to draw in bright colours with oil pastels, as the colours can suggest emotions, it's like finger painting and I can loose myself for hours in my mind. I also like metalworking, alone in my shed shaping steel and making sparks fly - anger release and precision with a hint of danger. A 1000 piece jigsaw is good too. Basically something that you can concentrate on for hours, helps clear you mind.

But of course saying that I know it can be very hard to do anything when your down.

I've struggled with depression and anxiety for a long time, and I find that they often feed into one another. The best way I've found to get past them is to distract myself, and keep myself occupied with things I like doing. It's really hard to find the motivation to do these things though. I want to get a job some time in the near future so I can have a reason to get up in the morning, and so I can afford to do things like pursue hobbies, go out with friends, go back to school, etc.

Yes, I suffer from chronic, lifelong depression, but there are coping methods.

- First, make sure you are getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep can cause or worsen depression.
- Next, start taking B complex vitamins. They help lessen depression a little.
- Get some moderate exercise, as this generates mood boosting endorphins.
Eat healthier, and the right amounts. Both too much and too little food is bad. People who are underweight also have health issues, and being too hungry from not eating enough makes people cranky, snarly, and depressed, so don't starve yourself--just eat plenty of healthier types of food.
- Read and watch funny stories. Like exercise, humor is mood boosting.
- Play pleasant upbeat music--like band music, march music, even Polka music. Any kind of fun type music will help--and yes, I have a Polka CD as part of my music collection.
- Find things to do to keep your mind occupied, so you have less time to focus on being depressed, and on whatever may be causing it. Some good methods are:
> Work
> Hobbies
> Charity work
> Community involvement--politics, library, community theater, local community organizations
> Take courses, either in person, or online

All of the methods listed above do help to some degree. There is no magic cure-all, but better some help, than none.

Hope you feel better soon!

Hiya Jeni - when I was a little child, for the first three and a half years of my life, my mother's maternal grandfather, Grampa, used to babysit me from 5:30 in the morning to 9:30 in the evening, each and every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, except a fortnight in August each year, as both of my parents worked in daytime and attended evening classes straight from work every night before coming home. It was wartime, so I didn't have any toys I can remember - but I had 10 secret, invisible, friends, whom Grampa introduced me to, namely, his divine trinity, Gaia, Zeus, and Hermes (look these up in Wikipedia if you don't know who they are; my parent's divine trinity, Yahweh, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (look these up in Wikipedia too if you don't know who they are); my namesakes trinity, David the biblical king of Israel, Adrian the first Romano-Celtic son of Emperor Hadrian Caesar of Rome, and Thomas who was also sometimes called Didymus or the twin, one of the favourite disciples of Jesus, some say his twin brother; and the keyholder of the Pearly Gate into Heaven, Grim Reaper, or plain Grim, as I used to call him.

These were such close friends of mine that whenever I was lonely, or frightened, or depressed, I would 'go' to visit them in my mind, when I was with Grampa or later, after he and I were separated when I was three and a half, and I continued doing so throughout my infancy, childhood and early teens, until I lost my memory at fifteen and a half after a head injury.

I didn't have many opportunities to get lonely, or frightened or depressed after that, as I was nearly always surrounded by adults that I liked and admired and respected and looked after me as if I was a precious jewel and I had a wonderfully fulfilling life, married my teenage sweetheart, and we had a little girl in our mid adulthood, who is now grown up and has two children of her own. I am now 69 years old, retired from my 50 year career, and am a bestselling author on Amazon and featured blogger on the Huffington Post - and you can do all those things too if you never stop believing in those secret, invisible, friends you had when you were very, very, little - because they will never leave you, never hurt you, never lie to you, and never talk about you behind your back, like ones with real bodies do.

I had a dreadful time at school - on my first day at Nursery School I was treated as a celebrity because the headmistress had taught my father and all his younger siblings when she was a young teacher and they had all been autistic in one way or another, so she had studied their family history, all the way back the 16th century, and found they were offspring of a famous pirate - but from day two onwards I spent every day locked in a storeroom because I used to have meltdowns into near death comas to goo visit my secret, invisible, friends in heaven when I got bored with whatever work the teachers used to give me to do, as I always did, as my Grampa had pre-schooled me using a Children's Encyclopaedia that I had learned off by heart, as it would get me a university place on an external degree course when I was old enough for that.

It was the same in Infants School, but in Junior School, the head master called me "Witchcraft" in morning assembly on my first day and reminded the rest of the school that the bible says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.." so they all tried to kill me for the rest of the week and I ran away on the evening of the Friday, tried to kill myself and ended up in 48 hour coma frozen stiff in an industrial cold store at the local Coop Dairy at 30 degrees below zero - so my parents withdrew me from state education and I was home-schooled and special-educational-needs-schooled until I qualified at age fifteen and a half.