Published on 12, July, 2020
My therapist said that I should spend time in the autistic community to get a better sense of myself as an autistic person so I can work out what is anxiety and what is autism (so I know what to bother trying to fix). I find this very hard because it's a spectrum so therefore we are all different. So how are any of us supposed to be able to define what is our autism and what's not? How are we supposed to be able to draw a metaphorical box around which bits we shouldn't waste time trying to fix? Not sure what I'm asking, but any thoughts would be appreciated.
I'm a bit puzzled by this - it sounds like the therapist doesn't know what autism is?
Autistic people are all individuals, however we do all share certain traits that are different to neurotypical people and some of these traits can cause anxiety.
For example, many autistic people get anxious travelling by bus or train. because of the overload of sensory inputs (smells, people talking on phones, being too close to strangers,the environment being too hot, etc.) But I'm pretty sure there are some neurotypical people who struggle with travelling, because of depression, general anxiety disorder, PTSD, agoraphobia, etc. And to make it even more complicated, people with autism are more likely to have those mental illnesses too.
Personally, I feel that when I get anxious it's almost always because of autism. Some.examples of this are:
Travelling by bus
Having to try to "multi-task" at work
Worrying about whether I have said the right thing or explained myself properly
Worrying that people will think I'm "strange" because I have different interests than they do
Wondering how to politely decline a social invitation
If you want to tell us what things cause you anxiety, we can give you feedback on whether we are affected the same way.