Introduction, newly diagnosed

Hello.

I'm pleased you feel glad. It is common to have whole mix of emotions.

What would you like to know? 

Mostly it comes down to knowing and accepting yourself and past, and figuring out how to make things easier in the future.

Just knowing can reduce the pressure you put on yourself, which can make things easier without changing anything externally. 

A part of me saw it coming, I was on the waiting list for a few years so I had a lot of time to think about it and if I wasn't diagnosed, I don't know how I'd feel, because I've always felt like there's something different about me.

I'm mostly just wondering what other people have struggled with and how they've overcome those struggles as I don't know anyone with autism and I'm hoping I'll have people to relate to.

Thanks, this was helpful. 

A part of me saw it coming, I was on the waiting list for a few years so I had a lot of time to think about it and if I wasn't diagnosed, I don't know how I'd feel, because I've always felt like there's something different about me.

I'm mostly just wondering what other people have struggled with and how they've overcome those struggles as I don't know anyone with autism and I'm hoping I'll have people to relate to.

Thanks, this was helpful. 

Anxiety is mostly a fear of not being in control or knowing what to expect, so new places you don't know trigger this, as well as things you can't predict. It's a nervous system response which triggers the thinking an worry.

Lowering your shoulders in particular, and a few deep breaths help. But mostly it is exposure that makes it easier. You do the thing and it gets easier because your nervous system learns nothing bad happens. You break it into smaller pieces and make each piece manageable. It is why visiting a place before an event, or looking up pictures or plans, or getting  good instructions helps. Talking is probably not going to help much because it is not a cognitive problem.

You can perhaps moderate the worry. Instead of thinking what will go wrong you can think about what will go right.

Burnout is avoided by reducing stress and making sure you properly relax sometimes. Improving sleep quality is the number 1 thing here. Masking less is a big reduction in mental load, but this means different things to different people. Allowing time to recover a rest and not feeling guilty will help. It is as a much a mindset change as anything. You need to activate you sympathetic nervous system, rest and digest, to overcome the pressure. Another way is to burn the cortisol and adrenaline off, by exercise, a walk, gym session, etc. I have a rowing machine and if I use this for 30 mins plus I feel a lot calmer and can think straight. I only just fully realised what it is doing. 

Therapy is probably going to struggle to address this, unless you have old things on your mind that are stopping you relaxing. You can talk these through.

Be aware that in burnout you thought cab be a bit awry. You feel logical, but you have distortions and logic errors, plus priorities go a bit wrong. 

Communication is a tougher one as it is personal. For me it was overthinking, not being relaxed, and masking that made it hard. If you have a glass of wine is talking easier? If yes, then you can talk, it is just too much self monitoring and worry about saying the wrong thing (masking) and over sensitivity to responses.

Therapy can help you with this. But you may find it you are relaxed with the therapist you can talk ok after you get to know them. It is a question if being relaxed, confident and not afraid of saying the wrong thing 

If you do want to get into detailed stuff about your history, not that they may get confused. Therapy is often for emotional people trying to get their emotions under control. For autistic people it is often trying to understand things, which makes the confusion, looping and worrying go. This requires going into detail, which conventional therapy tends to hold back from to avoid the emotional flooding. This is why therapy can be ineffective.

You may also want to visit the same topic multiple times. It is how the mind tidies things up and makes sure it understands before filing things away. It takes time. People can get frustrated with going over the same thing multiple times.

Hope this helps a bit. This just from my perspective, you may think differently.

I relate to a lot of these, but I'd say I struggle the most with communication, burnout and anxiety. I've started going to therapy to try and cope with these (mainly anxiety) but so far I can't find much that works for me. I guess it will be trial and error until I do! If you have any tips on how to handle these I'd love to know and try them out.

It varies by person. You also need to separate out autism issues, from trauma, relationship issues, childhood issues, general life problems everyone has.

If you are just after autism issues then there are:

• Sensory challenges, sound, light, strong smells, touch/clothing, temperature, these are made worse when stressed as in threat mode you amplify your senses,
• Movement issues, I am unusually graceful, but many are the opposite,
• Communication issues, either blunt, too wordy explaining your reasoning, too literal. Sensitivity to tone, expression, and taking things too seriously,
• Challenges in relationships, past or present,
• Overwhelm issues, short term problems in response to a certain stnulus,
• Burnout issues, long term response to a long term pressure, chronic stress overloading the nervous system,
• Sleep issues,
• Eating issues,
• Attention problems, hard to start then hard to stop,
• Anxiety, which is a nervous system mediated issue, also anticipatory anxiety,
• Executive function problems, ties to burnout and overload,
• Cognitive distortions, of which I do most at times and mode dependent thinking caused by stress and threat responses,
• Employment issues linked to all the above.
• Masking challenges, identify what it is, or is not, what you want to change. Age plays a big part in this. Masking can be stronger at work or at home.

It is then coping and mitigation strategies so that you still.live the life you would like to.

Note that ASD can make you prove to other problems, such as depression, abuse, alcohol use, and possible childhood neglect problems which causes all sorts of adult issues.

This will do off the top of my head. 

If you recognise some you can say what you are struggling with the most.