Medication

Does anyone here take medication to deal with anxiety and burnout?  I was on an antidepressant for years but stopped about 4 months ago. However it has been suggested by my gp (via a psychiatrist) that I take venlafaxine.  However when I took the first tablet I felt terrible so I decided not to take any more. Apparently venlafaxine can help with social anxiety and similar stuff which I thought might help me to be more social and less awkward. All this was suggested before I got diagnosed too, so I am not sure it still makes sense to use - however I had a diagnosis of GAD which may have been caused by the autism and associated problems. 

I don’t feel any better or worse off the antidepressants so I am not sure they were doing much anyhow. I use diazepam for anxiety at the moment which are useful but doctors seem to think they are as bad as heroin so getting them regularly is almost impossible (but there are ways). I have also tried pregabalin which did nothing at all for me, literally. 

I try to manage the anxiety via exercise- I have a dog so I do a lot of walking and I also like cycling and running. But occasionally I get breakthroughs of anxiety- especially if I have to go somewhere new or use public transport. I used to self medicate with alcohol but that ended badly. 

has anyone had success with anything?

Parents
  • Dear Judetheobtuse,

    Thank you for sharing this with the community. You may like to have a look at the mental health section of our website which has useful links to information and advice about a range of mental health issues: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/mental-health  

    The information on this page may be of particular interest: Anxiety https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/mental-health/anxiety  

    Just kindly remind about the Community Rule 6: No medical or legal advice. Do not offer medical or legal advice. Always seek professional help for these matters. Treat any medical or legal information shared as the opinion of the user who posted it and meant for general discussion purposes only. 

    Thank you. I hope this helps!

    With all good wishes,

    Eunice Mod

  • Eunicemod: I'm not sure whether what I feel is really the same as the anxiety that Allists feel. As an autistic person I tend to overthink which results in considering too many outcomes for a planned action. As such, I feel the trigger us internal and nit due to an external stimulus. Does thus make sense?

  • Since diagnosis I've thought about things in a different context, also helped having some therapy.

    I try to see anxiety as the symptoms, the cause being my autism. Sounds daft but separating them helps me to see where the issue is and what I might be able to do to fix it. For a sample, if I feel anxious, look to the trigger, maybe it's overthinking, then realise stopping the overthinking will reduce the anxiety, I then try and distract myself away from the thoughts.

    It helps me to break things down this way as often the cause is something different but the anxiety or my reaction in general is the same.

Reply
  • Since diagnosis I've thought about things in a different context, also helped having some therapy.

    I try to see anxiety as the symptoms, the cause being my autism. Sounds daft but separating them helps me to see where the issue is and what I might be able to do to fix it. For a sample, if I feel anxious, look to the trigger, maybe it's overthinking, then realise stopping the overthinking will reduce the anxiety, I then try and distract myself away from the thoughts.

    It helps me to break things down this way as often the cause is something different but the anxiety or my reaction in general is the same.

Children
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