Intolerance of Uncertainty and Managing Emotions

I’ve been thinking about it some time ago when I realised that a lot of my problems stem from intolerance of uncertainty. I worry a lot about what’s going to happen and what should I do, how and when. As soon as I’ve got detailed step by step plan I’m fine.

Actually no, I’m not. I keep worrying that something might change along the way and that’s why I need plan B and C as well. 

But then I’ve got problems with coming up with all those plans and possible solutions and ways things might go wrong. 

So I’ve developed severe anxiety that something unplanned is going to happen and I won’t be prepared for that, because I’m unable to predict every possible way the situation might develop. Too many variables. 

I’ve tried to accept uncertainty but all I’ve managed was to make myself withdrawn and numb. I’ve distanced myself but it felt wrong because I started to care less, talk less, move less and more slowly and engage less in life. Because what’s the point if I don’t know what’s going to happen? Why invest myself in something that might not be here tomorrow?

As soon as I try to get out of this torpor my anxiety is back.

I know I need to find some balance, some middle ground but haven’t found it yet. But then I doubt some course can teach me that. But then maybe it’s worth trying, no harm in trying.

Hi Ladybird,

Many thanks for this and I think I get where you're coming from. I'm also skeptical that the course will be a silver bullet but as emotional awareness and management is something I'm just cr*p at I'm hoping it'll give me a few additional pointers/skills to make things easier. The last blip (11 hours of mania and just sheer all round psychological and emotional unpleasantness) I had, I unpicked my reaction - and it wasn't just frustration at a work issue, it was a fight or flight response because I could't get the information I needed (thought I needed!) to manage the uncertainty and all the questions about the situation. 

Just out of interest I notice you've had a pretty rough time with CBT (I did too, if I did the whole analysing my thoughts thing I'd never have time for anything else). Have you come across "The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris? It's based on Acceptance/Commitment Therapy - and I found it really useful to help me grow in self-management and set me on a course (as did my therapist) of learning to recognise, engage with and sit with how I was feeling. 

Recommended to me by my GP. He suggested the illustrated pocket book which at the time I found a lot easier to digest. 

Some free stuff to get an idea of Harris' thought https://thehappinesstrap.com/free-resources/

I've always found CBT is complete BS for auties - and the only reason it's still used is because we are bullied into telling them we feel better afterwards.    Our natural naive, people-pleaser nature makes us comply with these con-merchants.

Interesting reply there Dawn. especially paragraph 2.

We are not alone it seems.

Drugs don't work. Well they do...

But there's always hideous disadvantages as well as the wanted effect, and we want a spectrum of effects anyway. The only drug Ive been able too tolerate and function reasonably well and safety under the influence of is illegal... But NT's DEFININITELY find me more acceptable of I'm a bit "baked".

I've done a lot of on/off studies of many of that substances effects on both me and my interactions with the outside world.

Prozac actually makes me more "classically evil" and dangerous. (But I felt great!)

Benzodiazepines, seem to just put reality further out of reach.

300mg of Methylone PLUS 200mg of Mephedrone taken an hour later made me stupid but happy for several weeks, tailing off into months, and completely broke a period of suicidal ideation that I was going though, for it "never to return" about 15 years ago. Probably worth someone looking into that one.

I wish I could get a clinically supervised course of adderal. I once tried amphetamine as a kid and felt "super normal", but given the dangers of amphetamine use, (and it's a way of going bonkers where you are the last to know, just like with cocaine) I'd only want to explore the benefits of that drug under supervision.

Remember Kids: People like me did things like this, so that you don't have to!

Seriously: Take heed, for every one like myself who has successfully experimented with drugs without getting engulfed in disaster there do seem to be more people who have come to grief. I've had the same experience with motorcyling I've got friends who have lost limbs trying to do the stupid things I seem able to accomplish.

Having said that, I have been struck repeatedly by how much more accurate and informative the "underworld" is when you go and by some drugs compared to your doctor or pharmacist, and how much easier it is to access timely warnings and plain english information about side effects etc, compared to teh medicinal drug pushers.

IN contrast to the illegal experience, No doctor I have ever described my prozac experience to has ever "validated" it, yet the internet is full of ex-patients who went berzerk in an orderly manner (like I did) on the stuff...

But to be fair, I've only ever participated at the recreational end of drug dealing, I understand that for the people who wish to use the really expensive and habit forming drugs the experience is very different, and much more like how it is portrayed on the T.V.. 

I underwent a course of one-to-one CBT for depression and anxiety with a NHS psychologist in the 1990s (which was about 20 years before I was assessed for and diagnosed with autism!)  After several months, when it was obvious we were getting nowhere, she refused to continue unless I agreed to take anti-depressants simultaneously.  I wouldn't, so she and her boss (who interviewed me separately) washed their hands of me.

I did try two antidepressants, prescribed by my GP, a few years later and neither of them worked any better than the CBT.  In fact, all these treatments made me feel worse.  Writing out and analysing all my problems, as CBT homework, only seemed to magnify and complicate them.  And the psychologist's recommendation that I relieve my anxiety in social or outdoor situations by silently counting in my head only made me feel I was losing my mind!

I underwent a course of one-to-one CBT for depression and anxiety with a NHS psychologist in the 1990s (which was about 20 years before I was assessed for and diagnosed with autism!)  After several months, when it was obvious we were getting nowhere, she refused to continue unless I agreed to take anti-depressants simultaneously.  I wouldn't, so she and her boss (who interviewed me separately) washed their hands of me.

I did try two antidepressants, prescribed by my GP, a few years later and neither of them worked any better than the CBT.  In fact, all these treatments made me feel worse.  Writing out and analysing all my problems, as CBT homework, only seemed to magnify and complicate them.  And the psychologist's recommendation that I relieve my anxiety in social or outdoor situations by silently counting in my head only made me feel I was losing my mind!

Drugs don't work. Well they do...

But there's always hideous disadvantages as well as the wanted effect, and we want a spectrum of effects anyway. The only drug Ive been able too tolerate and function reasonably well and safety under the influence of is illegal... But NT's DEFININITELY find me more acceptable of I'm a bit "baked".

I've done a lot of on/off studies of many of that substances effects on both me and my interactions with the outside world.

Prozac actually makes me more "classically evil" and dangerous. (But I felt great!)

Benzodiazepines, seem to just put reality further out of reach.

300mg of Methylone PLUS 200mg of Mephedrone taken an hour later made me stupid but happy for several weeks, tailing off into months, and completely broke a period of suicidal ideation that I was going though, for it "never to return" about 15 years ago. Probably worth someone looking into that one.

I wish I could get a clinically supervised course of adderal. I once tried amphetamine as a kid and felt "super normal", but given the dangers of amphetamine use, (and it's a way of going bonkers where you are the last to know, just like with cocaine) I'd only want to explore the benefits of that drug under supervision.

Remember Kids: People like me did things like this, so that you don't have to!

Seriously: Take heed, for every one like myself who has successfully experimented with drugs without getting engulfed in disaster there do seem to be more people who have come to grief. I've had the same experience with motorcyling I've got friends who have lost limbs trying to do the stupid things I seem able to accomplish.

Having said that, I have been struck repeatedly by how much more accurate and informative the "underworld" is when you go and by some drugs compared to your doctor or pharmacist, and how much easier it is to access timely warnings and plain english information about side effects etc, compared to teh medicinal drug pushers.

IN contrast to the illegal experience, No doctor I have ever described my prozac experience to has ever "validated" it, yet the internet is full of ex-patients who went berzerk in an orderly manner (like I did) on the stuff...

But to be fair, I've only ever participated at the recreational end of drug dealing, I understand that for the people who wish to use the really expensive and habit forming drugs the experience is very different, and much more like how it is portrayed on the T.V..