Published on 12, July, 2020
I've been recently diagnosed with ASD after troubles with anxiety, depression and concentration.While the diagnosis has improved the depression, I feel like my anxiety and concentration problems (sensitive to conversations and loud/lots of sounds going on around me) have become worse.
The things that are worse are that I sweat all the time I'm around people and most of the time I have a headache (even when alone), which gets worse when there are conversations happening near me.
I tried telling my parents but they seemed as if they didn't believe me at first, saying that it sounded weird.
Did anyone else have this?
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.
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.
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.