Everything's got worse since my diagnosis

Hopefully you found some help since you posted this. There's a lot of information on this website and many others, I've found it helpful while I've been waiting for post diagnosis sessions.the key thing is to try and stay positive, it seems like diagnosis commonly causes people to feel worse and a lot of that will be from focusing on it too much. try and distract yourself with hobbies, work or other things if you can and take care. There's some good free self referable stuff the NHS do in the UK for anxiety, mainly online guided CBT, I found that helped a lot. I hope you find the help you need!

Just been diagnosed age 49 and feel a bit all over the place in terms of how to handle it, this makes so much sense and is really relatable. Especially on how there's no option now to fix myself and become what I've always seen as "normal" (neuro typical)

Hiya, I have just recently been diagnosed with ASD and Auditory Processing Disorder I thought I would have felt relief but my anxiety has got worse, I have also been diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder.  The way I am feeling at the moment is this desperation for someone to help me, but I haven't got anyone.

Yea. YOu become more aware of something and it can create a feedback loop. You’re aware you’re sensitive, you become more sensitive. 

A bit like how anxiety becomes a feedback loop. FOr example I go through phases where I become hyper aware of how i’m Breathing, how my heart is beating. I literally notice every single heart beat. I then become anxious because of nothing my heart beat and breath and then i’ll Feel a palpitation and that further makes me anxious making my heart palpitate more often (or me perceiving it to be palpitating more often) and the loop of anxiety goes round in a feedback loop. 

I’ve found personally, that I’ve spent my whole life trying to fit in. Getting diagnosed as Autistic has made me realise that I don’t need to fit in. BUT alongside letting go of trying to be ‘normal’ comes realising all of the eccentricities/oddities/anxieties that I’ve buried for years. Because I don’t feel that I need to bury them anymore. But oh wow that is going to be one hell of a lot of stuff to sort through and I will need support from services of some description to sort through it. Have you had any post diagnostic support?

So I could be unmasking the things I've just automatically masked over time?

Would it make sense to say that I'm more aware of what I'm sensitive to, and this just makes me more sensitive? I find myself focusing more on things that irritate/affect me, I wonder if that's because I now know the diagnosis and in turn I end up with worse headaches as a result.

I do agree with what you're saying about the anxiety too.

Here are my three theories based on my own experience and reading posts on this forum (The three theories could be all lumped together and it's a bit of each one) 

There is an element of 'unmasking' that comes after diagnosis. The diagnosis itself seeming to peel away at the mask. 

Almost like your anxiety and issues around concentration finally feel able to release themselves. It doesn't feel that relieving to have your anxiety feel like it's worse though. But one way to look at it is if you imagine your anxiety is a cloud, before the cloud just let little drips of rain come out here and there. I guess one way of describing that would be to say the cloud was somewhat constipated. Now it's sighing a big sigh of relief and letting go, but it's still anxiety so it still feels pretty horrible. 

Another element I believe is people with autism seem to hyperfocus, ruminate much more than NT's and so after diagnosis we become hyper-aware of the fact the diagnosis has been confirmed. And so we may watch ourselves more for our autistic traits and that could make some traits hyper enhanced for hopefully a temporary period. 

And another element to it is even if you've long held suspicions you had autism and to some extent even self -diagnosed yourself, the confirmation could still cause a sort of mourning. At least for me it did anyway, in a weird sort of way though. I wasn't shocked at being diagnosed, I expected to at least be told I was mild with autism. But I was told I was 'moderate' which I think was the more shocking thing for me personally. However, since coming to terms to it to some degree I find moderate makes sense of a lot of things that 'mild' just wouldn't cut. But even though I expected the diagnosis I still found myself going through an odd period of what can only be described as mourning as before the confirmation I guess it was easier to flit between "Yes I think I'm autistic," To  telling myself on good days, "Nah i'm just anxiety prone and if I just push through these things I can become a much more normally functioning man." 

The confirmation of the diagnosis meant I couldn't really flit back and forth between those ideas. 

In theory getting a diagnosis gives us a sense of relief and lots of answers to why we are the way we are. It does, but it also gives way to lots of ASD/anxiety symptoms that we’ve learned to mask and bury to try to fit in and appear ‘normal’. Have you tried speaking with your doctor about this?