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Sandwich_Dan said:

I'm hugely depressed.

This is perhaps the crux of your situation. If you are actually clinically depressed then I think you should try and get help via your GP. Typically, people with ASD don't respond to anti-depressants but CBT is available through the NHS. There are ways to try and help yourself and the other contributors have mentioned some but perhaps you may need outside help?

There are potential solutions but no easy ones I guess.

I think we do this because the need to analyse social situations makes us more attuned to "chewing over old bones". Also we don't have recourse to social re-inforcement from the kind of social exchanges non-autistic people have, so you cannot so readily find solutions. 

It sounds like you have a number of anxieties each interacting to worsen the worry cycles. You could try to get help to resolve any easily remedied worries.

Write down all the issues currently running round in your head. Go through the list and see if any could be resolved simply be asking someone else for advice or just getting medical help for that one thing. If you can reduce the list a llittle it might help.

Also look through the list for common elements. Sometimes worry issues are strangely connected, because anxiety spirals tend to remove themselves several conceptual stages away from the original concern. So there may be one underlying issue for several worry spirals.

You could try to interrupt the worry cycle. Initially this wont be much good, but if you try to do it regularly it will gradually give you longer pauses. Flick your ear lobe, or snap a wide elastic band round your wrist against the more sensitive underside, or just pinch yourself hard. The little pain episode interrupts the train of thought enough to  have to start thinking about it again from further back. In time you may be able to interrupt by just telling yourself to STOP NOW.

You could give yourself some rewards for being able to reduce the anxiety a little while, like a cake or a chocolate.

As classic codger says it is familiar ground for many people on the spectrum. However some of what you describe sounds like serious depression developing - so really you ought to see a doctor. But I appreciate your concerns about doing that - sadly few GPs are either informed, or making any serious effort to be informed, about autism issues, and often you do have to do it on your own.

Hi Dan. This has been happening to me all my life, it's normal for an AS person as I'm sure you know.

Another thing that I'm noting is the number of people, me included, who think it gets worse as we age. That's certainly how it feels to me, and I get maddeningly frustrated by it. Once one thing gets to me, I start to think of all the other 'wrongs' in my world and suddenly it all becomes overwhelming - I think of it as a tangle of wool in my head with string after string of negative stuff all intertwining and every brain cell firing off at once, and no matter how much I try to get it to shut up, the noise it all makes just gets louder and louder.

Once I'm supersensitised by all of this, it takes one, tiny thing to set it all off, like it puts the fuse into the bomb and fires it. I could give numerous examples, I'm sure most of us can, so for instance, I've gone over the edge before because someone left a bit of food on the underside of a plate after washing up. Shortly afterwards, I needed new plates.

I'm sorry, I can't offer any strategies to deal with it. I've tried telling people that what they're doing is giving me major problems, but I don't get listened to and after a while I just stop trying. If anyone objects to me having a meltdown, they'll eventually get a full, scathing description of what their contribution has been, and I won't be kind or diplomatic.

The only thing that ever worked any kind of effect for me has been to avoid people and switch things off, telly, phone, computer etc, anything to reduce the number and type of inputs I'm getting. Athough there are things that I do that are just for me, I avoid those too as I know what will happen if something goes wrong with them whilst I'm feeling like that.

I'm sorry Dan, I wish I could say something that hits the spot for you, but all I can offer you is understanding. If you're in that particular place where the crap just keeps piling up, you won't believe me or anyone because 'no-one understands'. The worst is that you feel isolated, you have to go through it alone, but you are not alone because we all know what's happening for you right now. It will pass, you'll get back in control, please try and hold onto that thought.

Hi, I hope you are feeling somewhat better since you posted. I have no words of wisdom for you; only wishing you well and replying so you dont feel alone in it. :)