A Bit Of Confusion

Thank you for sharing. It does feel good just to put things out there. I used to be incredibly confused which led me to become suicidal (do I want to live or not?). However, I have been very proactive in changing my life over the last few years. I was lucky to come out of that dark place alive, literally. 

The primary issue you have is that you are trying or attempting instead of doing and completing. 

1. attempt to understand myself
2. try to help myself with anxiety
3. try to make a positive change
4. try to make a decision
5. trying too hard

Don't think about trying. Just do things. It's like the Nike motto, Just Do It. It's a legitimately good motto to live by. 

1. Do things, and you'll understand later why you did it. Maybe you won't understand right away, but someday you will. Have faith in yourself, and never try to understand before you do, for that is impossible. 
2. Help your anxiety by following a comprehensive recovery plan for anxiety. It will work. Again, trust yourself and the process. You can get a professional therapist to help with that recovery. 
3. Make a positive change. There is nothing to worry about if you get negative thoughts. Don't fight the negative thoughts, they are there to guide you. You do need to know the difference between a positive thought and a negative thought, however. That is important. 
   1. (example) tell yourself you love yourself when you wake up. That is a positive change. Negative thought could be, "why do I need to tell myself that I love myself every morning? Doesn't that mean I just don't love myself? Isn't that depressing?". But those are fine questions to ask. Nothing wrong with those, even if they are negative types of questions. The answer to those could be: because its a positive thing to do... maybe right now I don't but that's why I'm telling myself every morning that I do, because I want to be able to love myself unconditionally... and maybe it will be depressing for a bit but that will change.
4. Just make a decision. If you can't make a decision that means the decision is too big for you right now. Think about smaller decisions to make until the decision is so easy for you that you make the decision. Those smaller decisions will lead to clarity for bigger decisions. 
   1. lets say someone is so indecisive that they can't get out of bed because they don't know what they will do first thing out of bed. They can't get out of bed because they are skipping steps. First they need to just get out of bed. But if they can't even do that then they need to think even smaller. Move an arm, stretch your fingers. Take a deep breath. Make tiny micro decisions to wake your brain up.  
5. Don't try hard. Work hard. You ought to be a savage when it comes to making changes for the better. Trying harder doesn't always work. Just be. Just work on it. Break down the work into smaller things. Allow yourself to make mistakes. 

Overthinking is usually thinking in circles. Catching yourself thinking in circles is possible. And when you do, don't fight the circle. Understand what the circle is first. Then you can change the circle slightly. This is especially important to understand for autistics because they are so routine oriented and have rigid thinking structures (like circular thinking). 

You aren't destined to be a confused mess. Not unless you want to be. You have to change your perspective. You have to take charge of your own destiny, as they say. 

That advice you're talking about is called exposure therapy, and is a legitimate method to get over phobias. Avoiding something, anything, because of anxiety is what turns it into a phobia. The problem is people try to get over their phobias 'all-at-once', without taking any intermediate steps. If you are particularly sensitive to certain experiences because you are autistic, that doesn't mean you can't experience that thing and enjoy it. That would mean just giving up that experience! Is that really how one should live there life? 

A personal example:

I was terrified of going to bars in college. I tried to push myself and go, but it was just too much, so I stopped going with my roommates and friends which led to some very depressing weekends. I now know that this was a form of social phobia. I never realized this until I started reading about anxiety and phobias some years later. The first step would have been to let my friends know that I have a phobia of the bars, but I want to go with them. The next step would be to go on a slow night (monday, tuesday..) with a single friend or maybe two. From there I would just have to figure things out and work my way up to be able to enjoy a crazy Friday or Saturday night. There are also lots of exercises to do to relieve stress at any point in the recovery process that would need to be done, but I won't mention them here. 

My point is, there is no reason that one cannot get over their irrational anxieties and fears, given that they have the knowledge and motivation to commit to a recovery plan.

Thank you HP35,

That sounds really helpful. I'm still trying to live as NT, and wondering why everything is getting harder and not easier. I need to change my thinking, and then plan what I need and when. Thank you.

That is good advice. As someone who has suffered from lifelong severe anxiety all of that makes sense to me.

Like you I found all the standard approaches made me much worse. I wish I had not listened to the so called advice telling me that I just needed to 'push myself' or 'get used to it' 

I now understand that much of the autistic anxiety experience is sensory and environmental. Repeated exposure to sensory triggers will not make the experience less scary. The opposite happens and the emotional response increases as exposure increases. It amounts to sensory torture.

The standard approaches to treating anxiety all made mine worse. Particularly the idea that if you keep doing something it'll gradually get less scary. That always had the opposite effect for me.

Some things that help.

1. Arranging my life so it meets my needs as an autistic person. When I have a stable routine, plenty of solitude,a regular schedule for food and sleep, protection from sensory overload (I recently bought ear defenders and they make existing in public so much easier) and time to engage in my special interests, I exist in a much calmer state. From that baseline I'm more able to deal with anything stressful that arises.

2. Exercise. Before I realised I was autistic, daily exercise is what switched anxiety from being a constant state affecting every minute of every day to something that arose in particular situations. I was still anxious a lot of the time, but during and after exercise I would get a break from it. I like to keep things simple by walking or jogging in the park.

3. Planning and preparation. It is normal, natural, and healthy to be anxious about something happening if you have no idea how you would handle it. I've managed particular fears by making a written plan in advance for what I should do if the thing I'm scared of happens. This gets rid of the need to make decisions while stressed, as you can just follow the plan. I also find it helps to be prepared: e.g. having stockpiles of medication or essential foodstuffs so I don't panic if something is out of stock for a bit. NTs think this is weird behaviour. F*** them. If it helps it helps.

4. Listening to my emotions and leaving a situation if I feel uncomfortable. A lot of anxiety resources advise the opposite, that you should push through anxiety and stay in a situation until it abates. Maybe that's how a neurotypical brain works, but mine is perfectly capable of existing in a state of utter panic for multiple hours at a time, and forcing it to remain in that state means that going into the same situation in future will be much more difficult.

5. Never blocking out negative thoughts. They're usually telling me something important. I might decide to not act on the thought immediately but I still acknowledge it (eg internal dialogue "I want to go home." "I know you want to go home but I'm just going to do this first. Then straight home.") Noticing when I have a lot of those thoughts and scheduling fewer activities and more downtime because that's what my mind is telling me it needs.

P! I! K! L! Etc. 

Haha, same.

Pom poms at the ready!

You're very welcome. Cheerleading is all I'm capable of, when it comes to helping people.  

Hope is a blessing, thank you.

Actually, I'm terrible for over-thinking and it must make my poor friends go bonkers. But even I'm getting better at avoiding it, so there's definitely plenty of hope for you.  

Hahahaha thanks Steven, that sounds like some good solid advice.

There are days when it gets too much.

I won't pry, I just hope that it doesn't make you feel conflicted.

Your stress mght be eased if you invested in a burger van dating agency and Dr Who crisps business. Just some impartial advice there, Pikl.  :D

Pikl said:

I do feel like I'm 2 people in the same body at time

I feel like that sometimes, but in a different way.

My biggest focus at the moment is work. I'm finding it so hard, but I'm good at it, but it's not good for me. So can I adjust things, find solutions, or do I have to change job, but then what to, and how, because I panic just thinking about possibly having an interview. 

I drive myself crazy.

Sometimes it does. I'm naturally very childlike, and I kinda have to wait for my playful side to take over, and then chase wherever it leads me. Gosh I do feel like I'm 2 people in the same body at times, each at complete odds with the other.

Quite often, I later find that what I've been too focused on isn't actually tremendously important. So perhaps you could ask yourself at the time if you really need to over-think whatever it is you're focused on?

Does distraction work?

Circles. Everything seem to be made of circles. I'm sure I'm over thinking also, I so wish there was a way to make it stop. I know I'm my own worst enemy.

Definitely.