I’m 20 years old and was diagnosed with level 1 Autism a few months ago.
At uni I spent a lot of time on my own watching YouTube and reading as this is my comfort activity but it was balanced with seeing my friends for at least a couple hours, 4 days a week in lectures/seminars etc, and then we’d see each other more throughout the week for film nights, walks around town, pub nights etc. I would go to my lectures, meet with my friends, sort food shopping etc, then come home and go straight to chilling in bed with YouTube or a book from 4/5pm until I’d go to sleep at 11pm. On the 3 days a week I didn’t have lectures/seminars etc, 2 of them I would spend relaxing in bed all day usually and the 3rd I’d go out into town, walk around, go to a cafe or something like that, sometimes with others and sometimes alone.
Since the uni year finished and I moved back home at the end of June for the summer I spent around 6 weeks spending literally all day in bed watching YouTube and reading as I live in a small village with no friends around. I was starting to feel really restless and like I needed to do more than just this but I have nothing to do here. I think this then led to the issues I’m facing now.
About 2 weeks ago I started feeling extremely anxious and I have felt this way since. It was triggered by multiple different things in my life at the moment, such as feeling isolated after being home from uni all summer and also anxiety about starting my first 9-5 office job while living in a new city on my own (it’s a 50 weeks placement as part of my university course).
I have experienced periods of extreme anxiety multiple times before, but usually it is linked to events or time periods, eg exams, driving test, something I’m new to etc. This means that I get anxious leading up to the event and during the event but after it’s over I usually get back to myself a week or two later. Even after a month long period of really bad anxiety I was enjoying things again after a week or two. This time it’s made it hard to deal with as there doesn’t feel like there’s an ‘end’ to this anxiety, especially as my job doesn’t start until September and then when I start the job I fear that the anxiety will just get even worse and last for months.
When I get anxious like this I can’t enjoy watching YouTube or reading books. This is so hard for me as these two things are my only comforts. They play a big part in my routine and are how I would chose to spend my free time but when I get anxious I have to replace them with being constantly active and doing something distracting. This is okay for a short period of time when I know I can go back to what I like soon, but with this anxiety I can’t see an end in sight or if I can it’s months away, so I feel so mentally exhausted because it feels like something so important from me has been taken away.
It’s especially hard in the mornings, as I would usually wake up around 7 and spend my morning watching YouTube or reading, making me happy and relaxed for the day ahead. Now I wake up at 5 with anxiety that I can’t get rid of and can’t watch YouTube or read, so I either have to get up and do things around the house or fall into doomscrolling. This makes every day miserable and I’m so scared that I won’t be able to get back to what I used to do, I want to be able to feel how I used to feel.
Will I be able to feel normal again and fully relax? What can I do to fix this?
