Alarm Bells

A couple of years ago I had put on weight to over 20 stone and was too reliant on food and drink to escape from life and the feelings of panic and hopelessness. I've managed over the past two years (because of a wake up call from someone close to me) to lose 5 1/2 stone and finally got assessed for Autism (not to keep you in suspense - I have Autism *gasp*!)

I'm a stranger to you so my life story isn't that enthralling I know but a bit of background is important as I want to ask for some help / opinions / stories from the community here. 

My main mental health issue is quite extreme anxiety. If things change (anything from new furniture, minor faults in the house up to moving house) I have 6/7 hour long stretches of stomach pain, panic attacks, catastrophising - the usual stuff. It makes me want to retreat back to where I was before, as that was safe at least - if miserable for me and others. 

I've tried a lot of stuff to help and it all does a bit (exercise seems to work the best), but I suppose I want to know if anyone had managed to reduce this kind of mindset to a much smaller part of their lives so they could do the things they want to. I feel like the alarm and panic, it's always there in my mind waiting to hurt me, for me to have any doubt - so it can get in there and wrench my insides. It stops me doing stuff, and I'm so tired of it's weight in my life.

Reading this back I think it's more of a post putting a hard few days into words so feel free to ignore or just read if your interested. I hope you are all doing well today and have some happy moments.