Bad anxiety today

NAS18906 said:

You clearly have Depression, the illness rather than the short term emotion. A lot of other autistic people have this too. I think that my depression was also the real thing. It didn't disappear when I met with friends, it didn't disappear with chocolate, gin or anything else. It built up over weeks and I resembled eeyore - I slowed down and was just plain miserable for long stretches. I however am comfortable that it was exogenous and due to the chain of events that I described before.

My father was depressed and treated with drugs which never actually addressed the underlying issue that I now believe to be Aspergers. He, his siblings, his father and grandfather all appear to have been eccentric, difficult, awkward people. These traits I now take as Aspergers and I expect that they all had miserable, conflictful lives because they didn't work out how to deal with the world. We have the benefit of being able to understand our condition. We can work out strategies for having less conflict and less stress and, I believe, less depression.

So true that drugs "skirt the issue" - honestly, they help you deal with your symptoms better but of course there are no magic pills that tidily deal with the problems. Asperger's is an unbelievably depressing and often degrading thing to live with - but I find it even more degrading that people think it's OK that people on the spectrum don't get help because they should be miserable. That, to me, is the height of degrading. My communication skills are apparently not too badly affected, and actually, recently, I have found ways to accept that I do have friends; my relationships are just less conventional because I get too tired/too overwhelmed/too emotional/too moody/too obsessive/too many racing thoughts to maintain an NT-style friendship. I have people who like and accept me and have never seen it as an excuse for being anything less than a lovely person. I don't mean to boast but people often tell me what a lovely person I am. I'm hyper sensitive to other people's feelings because I can be empathetic by nature and I have also learnt over the years what it is like to suffer at the hands of insensitive people. Therefore, you're right that we can manage this. It's also good in lots of ways to have a diagnosis. That aside, when I was little, before I knew that anything was wrong, I suffered from childhood depression. Like, when I was eighteen months old. I would have excruciating headaches and my entire body would hurt according to my parents; I'd fold into myself, would cry and not even want to see my grandparents. My mum took me to the doctors' because, naturally, I was her first and she was concerned, and the doctor said that it could be because I was suffering from low mood. This was before bullying, before understanding that I was different, before any sort of knowledge based on experience. This seemed to be intrinsic. So...I don't know. I hope your father found a way to manage his depression in the end. 

BTW - I love Eeyore! 

NAS18906 said:

You clearly have Depression, the illness rather than the short term emotion. A lot of other autistic people have this too. I think that my depression was also the real thing. It didn't disappear when I met with friends, it didn't disappear with chocolate, gin or anything else. It built up over weeks and I resembled eeyore - I slowed down and was just plain miserable for long stretches. I however am comfortable that it was exogenous and due to the chain of events that I described before.

My father was depressed and treated with drugs which never actually addressed the underlying issue that I now believe to be Aspergers. He, his siblings, his father and grandfather all appear to have been eccentric, difficult, awkward people. These traits I now take as Aspergers and I expect that they all had miserable, conflictful lives because they didn't work out how to deal with the world. We have the benefit of being able to understand our condition. We can work out strategies for having less conflict and less stress and, I believe, less depression.

So true that drugs "skirt the issue" - honestly, they help you deal with your symptoms better but of course there are no magic pills that tidily deal with the problems. Asperger's is an unbelievably depressing and often degrading thing to live with - but I find it even more degrading that people think it's OK that people on the spectrum don't get help because they should be miserable. That, to me, is the height of degrading. My communication skills are apparently not too badly affected, and actually, recently, I have found ways to accept that I do have friends; my relationships are just less conventional because I get too tired/too overwhelmed/too emotional/too moody/too obsessive/too many racing thoughts to maintain an NT-style friendship. I have people who like and accept me and have never seen it as an excuse for being anything less than a lovely person. I don't mean to boast but people often tell me what a lovely person I am. I'm hyper sensitive to other people's feelings because I can be empathetic by nature and I have also learnt over the years what it is like to suffer at the hands of insensitive people. Therefore, you're right that we can manage this. It's also good in lots of ways to have a diagnosis. That aside, when I was little, before I knew that anything was wrong, I suffered from childhood depression. Like, when I was eighteen months old. I would have excruciating headaches and my entire body would hurt according to my parents; I'd fold into myself, would cry and not even want to see my grandparents. My mum took me to the doctors' because, naturally, I was her first and she was concerned, and the doctor said that it could be because I was suffering from low mood. This was before bullying, before understanding that I was different, before any sort of knowledge based on experience. This seemed to be intrinsic. So...I don't know. I hope your father found a way to manage his depression in the end. 

BTW - I love Eeyore!