Anxious 16 yr old- what might help her?

I talked to my daughter today about what I've written here (and she was very wise, and full of advice about the online autistic community!).  

She said that perhaps I wasn't clear enough that we are talking here about her becoming very anxious whilst trying to live the life *she* wants to live, and do the activities *she* wants to do (for example, she's been reassured over and over that a full set of A-grade GCSEs is *absolutely* not necessary, but she knows she's capable of that, and so she expects it (or demands it, even) from herself).

What we really all want to learn is not how to avoid anxiety, or anxiety-provoking situations (she said to me today that if she starting doing that, she considers that she would end up getting bored, and in the meantime it would've become harder to do things as she'd be out of practice)- we are looking for techniques she can use to help her manage the anxiety when she starts to feel it, and to control it rather than having to live with it, if that makes sense...  Is that just not something she/we can realistically aspire to?

What missykat says about her daughter is just like me. I was an adult in my twenties berfore I was able to express coherently what was causing my anxiety.

If your daughter is worried about the future, and you have told her that nothing needs to happen now, she need not (for example) go to University until she is 30 and it makes no difference, success is just as likely. She maybe just needs a really big time out, but that does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Having loads of time to sit and think is not so good. If her special interests are other than passive ones (you menyioned TV) she can concentrate on those.

You mention you have Asperger's but cannot understand panic attacks, do you not suffer from the crippling anxiety usually present in people with autism? Panic attacks are just an expression of this in some people. Turning things over and over in the mind is a very common way of dealing (or not dealing) with stress and anxiety, and of course this will go further into a panic attack in some people with autism. Of course every person with autism is different.

Just generally, one thing that strikes me with a lot of posts on here about children and teenagers is thier lives seem stuffed with things. If I had had to live these kind of lives with multiple out of the home interests I would have had a big problem as a child. I would not have known how to express it but would have needed most of it to stop, then regroup over a period of months. I have also noticed that a lot of special interests of adults with ASDs are solitary and quiet, but again everyone is different.

In practical terms a cup of pure camomile tea (2 bags, small amount of honey) can be used as a natural calmative, I have never used more than 2 cups in a day, and they only work to lessen the anxiety and do not do much when it is very severe. Moderate (like walking) and repetivie exercise (like swimming, ballet or dancing). Pets, they are wonderful. Quiet special interests in which the brain is engaged, such as reading (fantasy, non-fiction), maths, science. These take up the extra stimulation in the brain. Musical instrument playing, again is takes up brain power, is repetitive, and if it is the special interest it can be done for hours on end and you get really good at it. 

Maybe reading about autism, or meeting other young people and young adults who are similar would help.

Thanks for the replies.

Our daughter is absolutely free to pursue her special interests all of the time when she is at home (as many of these are currently TV-based and we're a 1 TV household, the whole family engages with her interests as well).  She has a number of out-of-home interests with which she is supported and encouraged also.  She makes her own decisions about what homework/revision to do and when.

She is free to spend as much time in her own room as she wants to, and to set her room up however she wishes.  She has a weighted blanket and noise cancelling headphones which she can use in any room at home, though she mostly does so in her own room.  We also don't restrict her "stims" when she is at home- though we do encourage her to avoid doing them when she's out - our thinking being that the world is geared up for NT people and it's going to be easier for her to be accepted in it if she practices.

The panic attacks happen at home just as much as anywhere else, and quite often begin when she *is* sitting in her own space doing her own thing- they are triggered by her thoughts and seem mainly to be due to her own internal "fretting"- a lot of the time she talks about whether she will ever be a success or get the sort of work she wants; and how she will afford a home of her own etc.  We always emphasise that she will always be able to stay at home, or return home, and therefore, although work and success would be nice, they are not essential.  She has ambitions and hopes for the future, which are her own and come from her- they are not something that's been pushed on to her, and I don't feel as though it would be helpful to tell her to give them up, however anxious she is about them.

School have organised for her to have 25% extra time for her exams, and to take them in the quieter room with specially trained invigilators. She also has something called "supervised rest breaks" in exams, so that if she feels overwhelmed, she can leave the room with an adult for as long as she needs before going back in and this time wil be added on at the end.  She has a "time out card" which she can show a teacher at any time she needs to leave her classroom and this gets her time to collect herself.  She also has a "pupil profile" all her teacher see whuch outlines her problems and the strategies she has told the school she finds helpful.

For context, I also have Asperger's, although lately diagnosed. I find it particularly dififcult to understand the panic attacks because they don't make sense and aren't rational.  However, her dad is NT and is at as much of a loss as I am, so we still need help and can't seem to find any.

Hi Panda's Mum, 

I haven't any advice but I'm going through a similar period with my 13 yr old and everything that Daisygirl is saying makes sense.  My daughter has had a lot of change in the past 10 months (we moved house twice and she had to change school) and she reached the point where she could no longer cope.  If I'd had her diagnosis earlier (and the knowledge from these boards), the transitition to her new school might have gone smoother but I didn't so now I'm dealing with the aftermath.

School should be able to put special measures in place to help your daughter to help her cope with her gcse's but if she's like mine, she may be unable to express the exact reason for her anxiety.

We're waiting for CAMHs but she's seen them before for her anxiety and although talking to someone helped, she could never remember to put the actions suggested in to place!

Firstly, why is your daughter having panic attacks? Does she know the underlying cause?

Secondly, unfortunately having autism means life gets harder for you the older you get. I am an adult with Asperger's, in which my autistic triats are very very pronounced.

For a lot of people with autism they need a lot more time than NTs to get used to new situations (even small things you might not think of as new situations), being in the NT world is like being on an alien planet and we need a long long time to get used to things. Rushing into things just because school/parents/NT world says NOW is the time to do things is no good for autistic people. Things must move at her pace, and there is absolutely no subsitution for this.

You say she has a life to lead, yes this is true, but she has an autistic life to lead not an NT life to lead, and so things have got to go the autistic way. If you force an autistic person to act and seem NT they will have a mental collapse because if they seem to be acting NT the anmount of mental effort it is taking to do the NTact is so immense that they cannot take it.

Things have to go slow, she needs to feel there is a safe place for her where she will be supported and protected (usually this is home), and a place to immerse herself in her special interests (these also serve to calm the anxiety that people with autistism have).

Because there has been so much emphasis put on children with autism and their school needs it has sometimes been missed that these interventions in school do not mean that the autism goes away, it does not, and it is lifelong. At times when there are a lot of pressures, or when experiences are very traumatic for the autistic person (what counts are traumatic can be very different from one autistic person to another) the autistic traits will be much much more pronounced, but just because at calm times they are less does not mean they are not there.

So, I would say, find out what is causing the panic attacks and remove the cause (whatever it is), she can easily come back to it later if she wants to. Maybe look at some of Tony Attwood's talks on you tube.