Autism with depression and anxiety

I'm sorry to hear this.  I also suffered with depression for a long time, as well as social anxiety.  I was diagnosed with autism last year aged 37.  I found that just getting my diagnosis helped a lot with the depression, although not the social anxiety.  I no longer felt like a failure.  I hope your mental health will also improve given more time to adjust (it took me about a year for my diagnosis to fully sink in).

Possibly a stupid question: have you tried therapy?  People on the spectrum seem to do badly with CBT (the usual go-to therapy for depression and anxiety).  Autism-adjusted CBT is available, but very hard to get hold of.  I find psychotherapy useful to vent and get new perspectives on problems (I can get stuck with one way of looking at things), but it didn't cure me and some people don't like it at all.

It is also possible that part of the depression is autistic exhaustion or burnout (I think this was a factor in my case).  If you work, that may be exhausting you.  There may be adjustments you can ask for in the workplace that will make things easier.  Even if you aren't working, just navigating the environment around you may be a draining experience and building up into exhaustion or burnout over time.  I don't know if I'm getting old or if the world is getting louder, flashier and more over-stimulating (possible, now there are moving screens everywhere), but I find just doing shopping a difficult experience.  I try to shop online and, if I can't, avoid long shopping trips and just buy what I need and leave as fast as possible.

I'm sorry to hear this.  I also suffered with depression for a long time, as well as social anxiety.  I was diagnosed with autism last year aged 37.  I found that just getting my diagnosis helped a lot with the depression, although not the social anxiety.  I no longer felt like a failure.  I hope your mental health will also improve given more time to adjust (it took me about a year for my diagnosis to fully sink in).

Possibly a stupid question: have you tried therapy?  People on the spectrum seem to do badly with CBT (the usual go-to therapy for depression and anxiety).  Autism-adjusted CBT is available, but very hard to get hold of.  I find psychotherapy useful to vent and get new perspectives on problems (I can get stuck with one way of looking at things), but it didn't cure me and some people don't like it at all.

It is also possible that part of the depression is autistic exhaustion or burnout (I think this was a factor in my case).  If you work, that may be exhausting you.  There may be adjustments you can ask for in the workplace that will make things easier.  Even if you aren't working, just navigating the environment around you may be a draining experience and building up into exhaustion or burnout over time.  I don't know if I'm getting old or if the world is getting louder, flashier and more over-stimulating (possible, now there are moving screens everywhere), but I find just doing shopping a difficult experience.  I try to shop online and, if I can't, avoid long shopping trips and just buy what I need and leave as fast as possible.

Thank you so much for your response. This makes so much sense to me and is a perspective I hadn't considered before now. I teach in a primary school therefore the sensory overload, as well as work life balance can be difficult. The demands of teaching nowadays, due to changes in the children, is hard and high expectations and targets place lots of pressure. I also bring work home and juggle my own kids while marking and planning. Burnout seems totally plausible. 

I really identify with what you said about the world becoming more draining in general. You're right - technology, phones, pressures are all worsening and I think it is more difficult to get any sort of 'peace'. I have only been medicated so far but really want to try other therapies. Was considering CBT but as you say it isn't good for the autistic mind, may have to re-evaluate.

Thanks x