Published on 12, July, 2020
I tend to use these words interchangeably.
But when speaking to medical professionals, they signal very different things.
It turns out, after gaining a better understanding of what these words mean to the medical field, I have rarely experienced true Anxiety. Most of my life I have experienced too frequent and much too high levels of unmanageable Stress, which Anti-Anxiety GABA boosting aids can relieve the biological response to, in order to think with clarity through a problem so to properly address it. Sometimes things will take a great deal of time to address.
I have never really had Actual Depression, just normal ups and (severe) downs of being human with intense emotional responses to intense sense-perception or intense sensory assault. Every lack of motivation in my life has been the result of Being Overwhelmed and this is not true depression, which is an end-of-life acceptance 'deflation', allowing the human animal to return to dust (as it were). Numbness, Withdrawal, Apathy or just the "empty" feeling one has after crying your eyes out - none of these are depression but Survival modes, trauma responses or just normal cycles.
After decades of trying to work out what is happening in the world around me and inside me, I have found that much can be solved with clarity, knowledge, engaging with a problem rather than being afraid of working through it, approaching it. Add supplements for focus and gut-health, hydration and minerals, paying attention to botany. At 50, I am still uncovering how to eat properly for my being, and science is still discovering what our gut microbiota should look like, but worlds better today than I have been most of my life.
Please feel free to add to this conversation. It's painful to see how many Autistic kids are prescribed anti-depressants, when this can only make biological function and neurological function much worse, let alone other unnecessary stressors in modern life affecting Autistic and Divergent kids. x
I was diagnosed at 18 with depression/anxiety and was prescribed a ssri that had no effect whatsoever on how I felt.
Roll on 30+ years at a routine medication review I'm asked whether anyone has pointed out that I maybe on the spectrum as apparently I exhibit several traits.
I suppose when you feel as if you don't fit into the environment you find yourself it maybe a little stressful.
Anxiety for me is feeling nervous/unsure/jittery but stress (chronic) is more physical, stiffness/pain/confusion etc.
That might just be me.
Here's the problem. If you tell a medical professional that you have severe anxiety and not stress, they won't help you properly. This is a MASSIVE problem with being Autistic. Those SSRI's can be deadly for some, luckily for you, it sounds as if they didn't have forward consequence.
There are medical definitions for Anxiety and Stress and they are very different. These cannot have fluid meanings ("what it means to me"), when the wrong diagnostic can create fatal consequences :(
What a thing "means to me" is a Neurotypical expression, and usually exchanged in such a way that a medical practitioner will recognise and understand the code. Autistics do not use vocal language the same, which is why we tend to rely on clarity and proper definition.
For clarity, Anxiety is the chronic outcome, Stress is different. Being nervous can be a stress response which everyone experiences, such as with public speaking, and confused or unsure to the point of making a bad decision or not being able to understand how to function/operate are neither. Xx
I've never really thought of myself as suffering from anxiety. I feel the in the minds of GPs depression and anxiety come as a matching pair.
A psychologist said that I may also have Alexithymia which could effect my ability to "feel" or adequately describe happiness. This should also impact my depression diagnosis.
I've also been told that CBT or CBTi has limited benefit with ASD folk.
Empathy sometimes can feel as an all or nothing experience. Mostly I'm pretty flat with the odd bit of frustration thrown in. Then I encounter something extremely positive and I feel like bursting into tears.
Ain't life just grand