Restarting anxiety medications

Thank you - I really appreciate that  It’s easier said than done admittedly - but I’m always learning and trying my best to catch myself and stop myself when I’m falling into old patterns that make my anxiety worse. I feel it’s a bit like how an alcoholic ‘falls off the wagon’ sometimes - it happened to me last week when I had 3 different medical related appointments - health anxiety has always been one of my biggest problems and that was a really hard week for me last week. Hugely triggering - and I was spiralling really badly into severe anxiety. I was hospitalised for a long time as a child (and had a severe illness about 5 years ago) so doctors, dentists, hospitals are so difficult for me. So last week was really difficult for me - but I’m recovering much quicker from that ‘bad episode’ than I used to do - I’ve just got that bit more awareness and more strategies etc - that gives me a bit more distance from my anxiety and a bit more space to just think: ‘ok, this is happening, I know why this is happening, what can I do to help myself get through this?’. 
So understanding is the first thing, then being kind to yourself and not blaming yourself for struggling, knowing that ‘this will pass’ -that the horrible feeling will go even if I do nothing to try to get rid of it it will pass, being patient while you wait for it to pass, finding things that bring you comfort. For me recovering involves time to be really really quiet and away from people or any demands placed on me. Kind of shutting out all stimulation apart from the most comforting things that make me feel safe. Getting outside  into nature massively helps me. Going for a walk in nature. At the weekend I also binged watched a series on Netflix with my son and we enjoyed watching that even though it admittedly was a bit daft! But it was good to just watch that together and get into a different world for a bit. 
I feel that being autistic is far from easy - lots of things that other people don’t struggle with that much can be so exhausting for us - and we need to take care of ourselves and never feel guilty for doing that. A GP can never really understand the complexity of what we’re dealing with day to day - they prescribe medication because it’s about as much as they know how to do, but we need so much more than that - we need to find a way of living that matches our needs as autistic people and allows us to actually enjoy life and not be stressed out all the time. Society is not really geared up to allow us to do that. 

I like your attitude, I need to be more like this. 

Yes - it’s a challenge isn’t it? Because I don’t like unexpected changes etc I tend to do a lot of planning and research to try and avoid unexpected things happening. However sometimes no amount of planning in life can prevent ‘curved balls’ coming our way, so if we can find ways to increase our tolerance for those times then we will have a slightly easier time of it. For me part of it is remembering that when things like this have happened in the past I have (most of the time) actually managed to cope with them - I have survived them. I remember the metaphor of how plants and trees that grow in stormier places develop stronger roots and stems, whereas plants grown in greenhouses aren’t as strong. I sometimes think that more we ‘hide’ from the stresses of life the more fragile we start to view ourselves. We are probably stronger than we believe ourselves to be. 

I was prescribed beta blockers a few years ago when I had the really bad reaction to the anti-depressants - because the antidepressants made my anxiety much much worse and to try to help ‘bring me down’ from that reaction my GP prescribed me 5 days of diazepam and about a month (I think it was about a month - this was over 10 years ago now so I can’t quite remember) of beta blockers. . I found the beta blockers quite helpful - but was only on them for a few weeks and then stopped. I didn’t have any bad side effects with the beta blockers. I remember reading that people in orchestras sometimes use them to steady their nerves  for performance so that they can physically perform even when under stress. 

I haven’t had any experience with beta blockers but I do t seem to have panic attacks either, just a slow constant feeling of impending doom and then not being able to do anything that I need to do. 

I've been prescribed beta blockers - was told to only use them if I sense a panic attack coming on 

I've learnt meditation and doing things I like help reduce anxiety

I will look into some of the suggestions you have made, thank you. Unfortunately I do find it hard to accept change or when things don’t go the way I expected. 

Yeah I just find the world quite hard to cope with most of the time so I’m hoping it will help me.  I hope you manage to ride the waves better now you’re off the SSRIs 

I had a few appointments last week that resulted in my anxiety suddenly spiking really severely. Over the last two years I’ve managed to cope much better with my anxiety by using Mindfulness and studying Buddhism and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, and just really trying to take care of myself and being careful to not push myself too far in terms of forcing myself into situations that are too much for me. But last week was horrendous. However I’m noticing that I’m getting back to feeling a bit better more quickly than I used to. I tried medication years ago but I just couldn’t tolerate the side effects. 
Mindfulness has really helped me - but admittedly it’s taken me a long time to learn about it and to practice it, and to feel significant benefits. However at the same time I think the benefits are long lasting - I still get anxiety of course but I have some really good tools to help me be less frightened of it and less panicky when I feel it worsening. I recently did a BBC Maestro course to help with Anxiety done by Owen O Kane - and I found that to be really good too. 
I don’t think there’s any silver bullet for anxiety - but I’ve found that I can do lots of things that really can support me to cope better with it. Even simple things like making sure to go to bed at a decent time and getting enough sleep, eating healthily, not watching too much News on TV - all these things help in small ways. But Mindfulness and Thich Nhat Hanh are the things that have helped the most. I needed to change how looked at things - being more accepting of things not going as planned, and trying not to feel I had to control everything in my life to feel safe. Accepting impermanence, surrendering a bit more to life. Just so many things. I’ve learned that you have to ‘tackle it’ from lots of different angles. I found Eckhart Tolle to be helpful too. The world won’t change - life will always feel challenging and scary at times (especially for autistic people) - so we can only change how we react and respond to the anxiety we experience- we cannot get rid of anxiety. Accepting that is the first step really. I hope things get easier for you soon. 

I've recently come off the SSRI's, and have certainly noticed my being more sensitive and emotional. To be fair, I went on them mainly due to work stresses (which have now resolved as I have moved on), but also because my Dad was dying and my relationship at the time was not really the right fit for me.

I'm going to try and hold out not being on them, but I would say that I felt better in my daily life, and found things easier to cope with, when I was taking them