Diagnosis has made things worse

Not all sport / physical activities mean team games and contact sports.

Some things can be slightly more individual sports around fewer other people.

Two examples:

1) for a couple of years, I had an excellent Tai Chi Tutor.  He helped each student within the class to benefit from the class within their capabilities and boundaries.  If people preferred to stand in their own space and hone their form movements - that was fine.  Those who were interested were shown how to practice the combat moves in pairs.  Anyone who wished could participate in the moving meditation and Qigong exercises (through which I found some useful strategies to help address anxiety).

2) an Autistic work colleague was a keen and proficient long-term member of his local Archery Club.

Your diagnosis does not mean you have ceased to be "you" - the person.  What hopefully it does begin to change; is you now have the opportunity, (as and when you are ready to do so), to start to learn more about those aspects of how you experience your environments and some of the adaptive strategies which you might experiment with deploying in support of your Autism.

On days of higher energy and enthusiasm - that is a good day to try and be bold with trying out a new adaption to give you confidence to: explore a new place, activity or meet new people.  Once you start to find things which aid your participation (on your terms of thrive ...not just survive or avoid) you might become more confident about e.g. giving the sport or activity organiser an advance courtesy briefing about what it takes for you to be able to take part well (and please would they be so kind as to not draw attention to the tactic in front of the group).

On those days of lower energy and outlook - be kind to yourself, do life's essential things but consider rescheduling your "nice to have" tasks for another day.  (Don't admonish yourself about it, just learn how to find ways to rebuild your reserves ...ready for the next higher energy day of activity).

Anxiety is a word which can cause a lot of misunderstanding for Autistic people, their healthcare professionals and those friends, family members and work colleagues. 

It can be helpful to try and distinguish between general anxiety and social anxiety (because you might find a) people understand a bit more about the general kind versus very little about the social kind, and b) you might find quite different tactics are personally helpful to you depending on whether a trigger activates general or social anxiety.

Whichever type of anxiety presents a challenge; beware that non-Autistic people (even loved ones) often fail to appreciate and understand how long an Autistic person can experience anxiety.  Your typical non-Autistic person is likely to associate anxiety with something the feel in the moment of an event such as giving a presentation or attending a job interview.  By contrast, it is not uncommon for an Autistic person to experience layers of anxiety before, during and after the similar event.  This is your clue to, at your own pace, start to explore what support strategies might work for you to address coping better with each of those three phases (before, during and afterwards).

Many, but not all, Autistic people experience alexithymia (not easy to identify and refine to a more granular level and describe what emotions and the depth of emotion they experience).  Hence the term "anxiety" may not always map onto your current experience nearly.  For example, if someone asks me am I anxious - I might say "no".  At the same moment, if the same person had asked me am I stressed - I might likely say "yes".  Therefore, in my conversation with a non-Autistic person it would probably have been helpful had I a answered "yes" to the anxiety question (you might begin to see how what people ask an Autistic person, combined with an Autistic person's reply can easily lead to misunderstanding / miscommunication and how much both parties need to learn about interactions with one another).

When considering social anxiety: this is likely the area where an Autistic person risks becoming frustrated with how poorly other people (including Clinicians) understand, empathise with and support your needs, coping strategies and reasonable adjustments.  I am still educating myself about this topic and the options for me to explore.  That said, what I have realised so far; other people cannot be telepathic about your social anxiety experience, people do need education about it, you can deploy mitigation tactics which better support you, there is plenty for each us to learn, good people will become your social anxiety wing-person once they understand you are trying your best in facing a challenging situation or environment.

Learning about and adapting to suit your personal Autism presentation is a journey.  You don't need to work on it in isolation.  You remain in control of both the accelerator and the brake pedal.  You can take a rest stop when life's demands a pause and regroup.  You can navigate through achieving acceptance for yourself, finding your purpose and bolster your resilience ...all at your own pace  (nobody should judge you about that - it is not a competition - and the "right" answer is only that collection of approaches which you assess as working well for you). 

There is hope. 

You can harness the energy of your internal battle, learn how reframe things / apply some learning to be able to view a challenge through a fresh lens, and with that knowledge: find what suits you (as you explore the benefit to be derived from understanding more about your Autism and what it takes to enable you to thrive).

Welcome to our Community.

Not all sport / physical activities mean team games and contact sports.

Some things can be slightly more individual sports around fewer other people.

Two examples:

1) for a couple of years, I had an excellent Tai Chi Tutor.  He helped each student within the class to benefit from the class within their capabilities and boundaries.  If people preferred to stand in their own space and hone their form movements - that was fine.  Those who were interested were shown how to practice the combat moves in pairs.  Anyone who wished could participate in the moving meditation and Qigong exercises (through which I found some useful strategies to help address anxiety).

2) an Autistic work colleague was a keen and proficient long-term member of his local Archery Club.

Your diagnosis does not mean you have ceased to be "you" - the person.  What hopefully it does begin to change; is you now have the opportunity, (as and when you are ready to do so), to start to learn more about those aspects of how you experience your environments and some of the adaptive strategies which you might experiment with deploying in support of your Autism.

On days of higher energy and enthusiasm - that is a good day to try and be bold with trying out a new adaption to give you confidence to: explore a new place, activity or meet new people.  Once you start to find things which aid your participation (on your terms of thrive ...not just survive or avoid) you might become more confident about e.g. giving the sport or activity organiser an advance courtesy briefing about what it takes for you to be able to take part well (and please would they be so kind as to not draw attention to the tactic in front of the group).

On those days of lower energy and outlook - be kind to yourself, do life's essential things but consider rescheduling your "nice to have" tasks for another day.  (Don't admonish yourself about it, just learn how to find ways to rebuild your reserves ...ready for the next higher energy day of activity).

Anxiety is a word which can cause a lot of misunderstanding for Autistic people, their healthcare professionals and those friends, family members and work colleagues. 

It can be helpful to try and distinguish between general anxiety and social anxiety (because you might find a) people understand a bit more about the general kind versus very little about the social kind, and b) you might find quite different tactics are personally helpful to you depending on whether a trigger activates general or social anxiety.

Whichever type of anxiety presents a challenge; beware that non-Autistic people (even loved ones) often fail to appreciate and understand how long an Autistic person can experience anxiety.  Your typical non-Autistic person is likely to associate anxiety with something the feel in the moment of an event such as giving a presentation or attending a job interview.  By contrast, it is not uncommon for an Autistic person to experience layers of anxiety before, during and after the similar event.  This is your clue to, at your own pace, start to explore what support strategies might work for you to address coping better with each of those three phases (before, during and afterwards).

Many, but not all, Autistic people experience alexithymia (not easy to identify and refine to a more granular level and describe what emotions and the depth of emotion they experience).  Hence the term "anxiety" may not always map onto your current experience nearly.  For example, if someone asks me am I anxious - I might say "no".  At the same moment, if the same person had asked me am I stressed - I might likely say "yes".  Therefore, in my conversation with a non-Autistic person it would probably have been helpful had I a answered "yes" to the anxiety question (you might begin to see how what people ask an Autistic person, combined with an Autistic person's reply can easily lead to misunderstanding / miscommunication and how much both parties need to learn about interactions with one another).

When considering social anxiety: this is likely the area where an Autistic person risks becoming frustrated with how poorly other people (including Clinicians) understand, empathise with and support your needs, coping strategies and reasonable adjustments.  I am still educating myself about this topic and the options for me to explore.  That said, what I have realised so far; other people cannot be telepathic about your social anxiety experience, people do need education about it, you can deploy mitigation tactics which better support you, there is plenty for each us to learn, good people will become your social anxiety wing-person once they understand you are trying your best in facing a challenging situation or environment.

Learning about and adapting to suit your personal Autism presentation is a journey.  You don't need to work on it in isolation.  You remain in control of both the accelerator and the brake pedal.  You can take a rest stop when life's demands a pause and regroup.  You can navigate through achieving acceptance for yourself, finding your purpose and bolster your resilience ...all at your own pace  (nobody should judge you about that - it is not a competition - and the "right" answer is only that collection of approaches which you assess as working well for you). 

There is hope. 

You can harness the energy of your internal battle, learn how reframe things / apply some learning to be able to view a challenge through a fresh lens, and with that knowledge: find what suits you (as you explore the benefit to be derived from understanding more about your Autism and what it takes to enable you to thrive).

Welcome to our Community.