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Fear over the challenge of ‘just achievable’ goals

NAS73935

I feel sad and frightened of my future because I think I may have wasted opportunities in life through shirking challenges from hypersensitivity to fear.

I used the book ‘feel the fear and do it anyway to get me through a seemingly impossible fear block but the message of that book lost potency on repeated reading.

Is seemingly unbearable terror - on a seemingly unreasonable level -  an autistic trait? 

  • in reply to Jenny Butterfly

    Wonderful reply. 
    I really appreciate what you have written.

    Thank you so much.

  • Yes, my anxiety was always at an almost unbearable level and, before I realised that I'm autistic I spent a correspondingly ridiculous amount of time reading self help books like the Susam Jeffers one.  They helped up to a point but always left me searching for better answers, which I somehow imagined would be in the next book I read! 

    What actually helped? 

    - Understanding that i'm autistic (finally, at age 55!) and that this won't change. 

    - Reading books and attending webinars that relate to autism and specifically autistic anxiety.  Various versions of exposure therapy did sometimes help but I also think they might have reinforced my mask, at great cost to my authentic self.  Sometimes I even went so far with exposure "therapy" that I traumatised myself still further so I'd be careful with this one and choose to go at your own preferred pace, with the goals that are most meaningful and motivating to you.

    - Choosing jobs that suit my personality, strengths and limitation rather than simply going for jobs that match my education level.  Bear in mind that sometimes what is considered a weakness in one workplace might be a strength in another.   My "hypersensitivy", for example, has been very useful when working as a counsellor or support worker, but rather less so in a fast-paced office environment with lots of deadlines and noise. 

    - (If and as affordable) moving to part time work to give me plenty of time out to recuperate

    - Meditation, yoga, tai chi and breathwork/visualisation techniques to generally lower my anxiety levels

    - Cannabis-based medications, incl. OTC CBD and prescribed THC.  I have to be careful with those, though, because they can make me drowsy, which means I won't be able to drive.     

    - Bearing in mind that some of my fears are realistic and some of them quite understandably relate to negative experiences in childhood and beyond.  This means I go easier on myself and avoid negative self talk as far as possible (some of it is automatic and entrenched so is best seen as a work in progress).  

    - Seek out like-minded individuals either online or in person.  It was absolutely pointless trying to explain my difficulties in a fast-paced office environment or in any other place where the dominant culture was very extravert (work hard/play hard with no other autistic people).

    - Indulging my natural interests which seem to migrate towards activities which are low-arousal, relaxing and without pressure of time.  For me gardening is a good one but, after years of reading self help books, it's also good to read a bit of fiction for a change. 

    Your list will be different, of course, but I would encourage you to think about it and also perhaps to reframe some of your experiences - "shirking" is, to my mind, not really an accurate term to describe someone who is struggling with severe anxiety and in my experience more self-compassion helps.