Medication

I found it helped me very much.  I am now coming off setraline after three years. 

Personally I won't take them any more, especially now that I know that I am autistic and that my anxiety mainly results from sensory issues. Simply not enough research has been done about the effect they have on autistic brains.

I've always been against medication, due to observing the severe impact they had on my mum throughout my childhood. Years before I was born she was hospitalised with a 'nervous breakdown' and prescribed both antidepressants and benzodiazepines for anxiety. She remained on high doses of both for many years for anxiety (which I now believe was part of undiagnosed autism). I believe that I was born suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from the benzodiazepines. Back then nothing was known about how addictive they were or the effects of taking them during pregnancy. 

Years ago I was reluctantly persuaded to take SSRI antidepressants by my GP. He assured me they were good for anxiety, but that they might make it worse at first. What followed was absolutely horrendous. Whilst taking them the anxiety became so bad I was in a constant state of sheer panic, suffering major panic attacks multiple times every day, unable to sleep. That's normal I was assured by my GP and urged to continue taking them. It continued to get worse for several months, until I couldn't take any more and became suicidal (even though I hadn't been prescribed them for depression). I was switched to a different one but the side effects I suffered from those were horrendous, probably partly withdrawal effects from coming off the first ones. I was then prescribed another type, but they didn't help either and also had horrendous side effects.

Finally I happened to see a temporary locum GP, who recognised that being on antidepressants was not helping me at all and was actually making my anxiety much worse. I came off them but when my own GP found out he wasn't happy at all, and kept trying to persuade me to try another type. 

I'd be interested to know if there are medications, other than antidepressants, which autistic people have found helpful. I've been offered benzodiazepines, but obviously declined those due to my early experiences. I've also been offered beta blockers but I didn't like the sound of those at all.

I wouldn't touch the stuff, but others must make their own minds up.

Basically, doctors have been trying to peddle anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds to me for years. I'm a medical phobe and not one of them seems capable of bending their heads around the fact that logically you can't give a medical phobe a prescription for something with potentially horrible side effects and necessitating more contact with doctors without giving them another very real reason to worry and actively increasing the anxiety. Doh! Nevertheless, my resistance results in further deterioration of my relationship with them because I won't jump into the box they want to put me in. And that was before I knew the source of my 'medical anxiety' problem was actually my sensory system, not my thought processes or my brain chemistry.

Now that I know, I am so glad I was so intransigent in the face of the bullying of the medical profession. As others have said, no one understands enough about how these things affect the autistic mind. We're not wired the same way. All the research appears to be telling us is that many autistic people report no benefit and many autistic people report more side affects. I haven't thus far found an explanation as to why. Is it because our anxiety isn't always to do with brain chemical imbalance in the first place, or because a healthy brain chemical balance means something different for us, who knows? I'm not pretending to have an answer and I don't think anyone has one yet.

But meanwhile, personally, the medical profession can shove those things where the sun don't shine, because they actually have no more clue than I do as to what they would or wouldn't do to me as an autistic person, let alone the inevitable exacerbation of my medical fears.

I once had morphine, It worked on tooth pain, and migraine caused by it, and as anxiety relief when the pain was gone

I once had a course of sertraline, it just triggered the most awful migraines for me. I did not notice any effect on my mood, but the migraines were making me feel bad anyway.

From what I know and have read and from others I've spoken with, unless you're mis-diagnosed, anti-depressants most likely won't help. I started a thread a little while ago on why this is: https://community.autism.org.uk/f/health-and-wellbeing/26018/anxiety-stress-vs-depression

Since then I've found a new medical paper which basically proves the Autistic brain, with it's higher percent of Gamma Waves (higher oscillations of brain waves responsible for making connexions, a flow-state / eureka state) will induce physical anxiety far more often than non-autistic peers. A thought is these oscillations can become out of control. But it accounts for full-brain reasoning. 

Personally, I've experienced I just need to shut them down with a medical aid. I don't need it daily. But health is important and this degree of stress is unhealthy. 

Autistic and allistic react differently to meds, autistic usually have higher tolerance and some autistic might have sensitivities preventing them from taking certain meds, and anxiety is triggered for different reasons as well

I’m about to start taking a antidepressant for my anxiety so l will interested if it will work on other people.

Have you tried posting something like that on other forums? what was the reaction? I'm curious.