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A few weeks ago I was having a chat with my psychologist and he joked that with my Asperger’s, severe social anxiety and depression, I’m a certain kind of special.
I was thinking about while watching my Mac’s “spinning beach ball of death” on my computer moments ago when I had a morbid thought.
If you add in my stroke fifteen years ago, I’m a quadruple threat! But not the theatre/dancer kind. A type all my own.
My whole life I’ve been a type all my own and I will be until the day I die. And I’m sure, just as I have been for over a half century, that I’ll be reminded by someone or something just how profoundly different/weird/quirky/strange I am.
And that will happen today. And tomorrow. And the day after that.
With Asperger’s, as with other forms of high-functioning autism, I stress a lot. Anxiety is a very common companion with autism and, even though medication helps, I still stress about things way more than I should.
In my case, I truly believe that a lot of the stress will disappear, maybe not for good, but will at least go away for periods of time, if I can only learn to rid myself of the memory of a lifetime of words and phrases like, “weird, stupid, lazy, not living up to potential” and my personal favorite, “F****** autistic.”
Yes, I am proudly autistic, but no, there’s no sex involved because of it, or at all if I’m being honest. I’ve found women aren’t into guys with service dogs. Shocking, huh?
Anxiety affects my Asperger’s in ways that I see, but that others don’t often notice. Of course, if I got out of the house more that would probably change. I’ll have to work on that.
When the anxiety hits I start dropping things, my hands shake a lot and I make many typing errors, and most important to me as a writer, my brain turns into something that feels like the brake lines were cut and it’s out of control and I’m powerless to stop it.
When I can’t think straight, I can’t put coherent thoughts together. You may be asking yourself, “not coherent as in right now?” No, these are actually supposed to be coherent thoughts. Supposed to be…
Anxiety affects my autism when I have social interactions with people. Since my brain is on a different wavelength than most, getting my thoughts across to whoever I’m communicating with can be a very stressful situation.
It’s not always a bad situation, but when the miscommunication happens, I freak like you can’t believe.
Once I try to explain or say something and the other person doesn’t get what I’m saying, I start to panic as I realize that I’m going to have to take extra time to try and put my words in an order that can be understood by them, though not necessarily by me, and that panic breeds more panic.
For those of us old enough to remember the Herbal Essence shampoo commercials from years ago, it’s the same concept. The shampoo users tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on.
In my case, the anxiety starts to mount and then double, then doubles again and so on and so on. Maybe it’s not the best analogy, but it’s how I see things.
Even things that seem as simple to handle as working on projects that you know are needed and will help people are impacted are majorly affected by anxiety.
As I want to start working on one of these projects, my brain starts to speed up and as much as I consciously tell it to stop, it keeps coming up with scenarios about how what I’m working on is stupid, so why bother since I’m going to fail at it anyway.
I’ve got two books mostly finished that need some more attention from me before they hit the publisher, but do you think the anxiety of turning out a book that doesn’t sell makes me feel good about writing and finishing it?
Just the opposite. I put it away and tell myself that I’ll come back to it when I’m more relaxed, but the reality is I haven’t touched either book in months. And that knowledge leads to more anxiety, which is what I don’t need.
I get panicky over things others would never panic about, but that’s just part of the deal. You take the good with the bad, ya know?
Aspies (those with Asperger’s) and other high-functioning people on the spectrum deal with anxiety in different ways, some productive and others not so much.
Personally, I’ve tried meditation and I desperately want it to work, but I can’t get past the whole clearing of the mind thing, which is kind of important if you’re to meditate properly.
I’m going to keep giving meditation a shot and hopefully one of these days my brain will get with the program and allow me to meditate. Fingers crossed.
If you have someone in your life that is high functioning on the autism spectrum, keep in mind that they too probably suffer from anxiety. Is it to the same level as I suffer from? I don’t know. I’m all kinds of special, remember?
Seriously though, as you deal with your family members, friends and co-workers that are on the spectrum try and be cognizant of their anxiety and stress. Knowing that those close to us understand what we’re going through and want to help things go smoothly is a blessing like you can’t imagine.
Let me leave you with one final thought. Music. I don’t know what it does for your brain, but it helps me a lot. I have several play lists on my phone that I access often.
Alternative, Indie, and Folk is for when life is cool and I’m cruising down the road in my Scion.
Meltdown Music is for when I feel an autistic meltdown coming on and I need to come back to “normal” quickly. It’s not meant to cause me to go into a meltdown.
Creatin’ Music is mostly loud and gets my creative juices flowing.
Skanktakular Ska is just happy music that gets me in a better place. It’s a playlist I should use a lot ore often than I do.
So that’s my story. What about yours? I’d love to hear how you or someone you know on the spectrum deals with the panic and anxiety. Please use the comments section to let us know.
Those of us on the spectrum need to stick together and help each other as much as possible!
This is a song that really helps my brain come back into focus and lets me work a bit more effectively. I hope it helps you.
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Photo courtesy Pixabay