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Thought loops and anxiety

Autismman

I wonder if it’s a common thing among autistic people to almost obsess over the past and not be able to move on from negative experiences however long ago they were. It’s like it stays with you, becomes a part of you and moulds your thoughts and actions at the same time. I’ve always suffered from rumination or the plague of “what ifs?”. Sometimes it’s hard not to really be down on myself as a human being. I’m far from perfect but guilt is overwhelming at times, I start to think the great people I have around me deserve better. I’ve never had confidence in anything, there’s never been a time in my life where I’ve felt actually confident. Whenever something good comes my way I find a way of tainting it with self doubt that I’m not worthy or that I’m not good enough for this. 

Parents

  • It definitely seems to common. A lot of people with autism have good memories, particularly long term. I don't know whether this is a factor in that we remember more of the last. Rumination is certainly something that I struggle with.

    I read once that people's memories are inaccurate because the same part of the brain is used to predict the future and the future is not certain so that part of the brain has to be flexible, meaning that memories end up being flexible too. I wondered when reading it whether that part of the brain is actually different in autism in that it isn't as flexible and so that same part gives us better, more reliable memories but struggle with uncertainty of the future and are rigid about changes with plans coming up etc. I may have completely made up science with that theory but it made sense to me.

    Unfortunately, I also think a lot of people with autism do have bad experiences growing up whether it is just finding the world confusing and overwhelming or experiencing things like bullying. These negative experiences shapes our brains and leads to these patterns of rumination. This could be another reason.

  • in reply to Expecto_Patronum

    I think trauma is more easily developed in autistic people due to lacking in what everyone else is born with when they are NT. When you are younger you lack the skills to accurately articulate your feelings and then tie those feelings to the logical cause. If you are not listened to or heard then you end up feeling very alone.

  • in reply to Autismman

    Everyone lacks the emotional maturity in childhood to articulate thier feelings NT's and ND's alike. thinking back to when I was counselling, I saw a lot of young NT people with seriously messed up lives, the one thing we all share is we have no control over the familiy we're born into, or how circumstances can change, an event/s happen. I don't think there's any logic to it or any logical way of thinking it through that provides any resolution to how we feel.

    Maybe ND people do suffer trauma more and over different things, although I wonder how much everybody gets ignored, gaslit, hurt etc, but a world that just dosen't value emotions and smacks us cruelly with its lack of care. For example I used to be on another friendship site, where we all tried to keep things fairly well behaved and pleasant, but there was one chap who would try and bring nastiness to threads, pick on people and topics he didn't like, because in his words, in the real world and on other sites this sort of nastiness and worse were commonplace and we should grow up. As you can imagine this was met with resistance and a number of members blocked him. What do you do with people who feel the need to do this sort of thing? How do you deal with the sort of self righteous justifications peole like this come up with?

    Do we just have to accept that some people are just horrible and nasty and best avoided if possible and when not try and wash off the emotional vomit they've splattered us with even though the stench of it will stay with us for a while? 

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  • in reply to Autismman

    Everyone lacks the emotional maturity in childhood to articulate thier feelings NT's and ND's alike. thinking back to when I was counselling, I saw a lot of young NT people with seriously messed up lives, the one thing we all share is we have no control over the familiy we're born into, or how circumstances can change, an event/s happen. I don't think there's any logic to it or any logical way of thinking it through that provides any resolution to how we feel.

    Maybe ND people do suffer trauma more and over different things, although I wonder how much everybody gets ignored, gaslit, hurt etc, but a world that just dosen't value emotions and smacks us cruelly with its lack of care. For example I used to be on another friendship site, where we all tried to keep things fairly well behaved and pleasant, but there was one chap who would try and bring nastiness to threads, pick on people and topics he didn't like, because in his words, in the real world and on other sites this sort of nastiness and worse were commonplace and we should grow up. As you can imagine this was met with resistance and a number of members blocked him. What do you do with people who feel the need to do this sort of thing? How do you deal with the sort of self righteous justifications peole like this come up with?

    Do we just have to accept that some people are just horrible and nasty and best avoided if possible and when not try and wash off the emotional vomit they've splattered us with even though the stench of it will stay with us for a while? 

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