Autism and Anxiety/PTSD.

[JayD210]

I did a lot of reading up on Autism’s relationship with Anxiety and maybe even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder/PTSD. Something like 50% of people with Autism also have some level of Anxiety Issues, but it’s believed to be much higher due to those undiagnosed with Anxiety like myself. I have a friend of mine who is on the Autism Spectrum who has PTSD from being a Victim of a violent crime at a Skateboard Park years ago. He is battling Alcoholism as a result.

I myself have been battling Anxiety issues since I was 7 years old. An abusive Father at home combined with bullying in the Neighborhood and at School is one source of my Anxiety. The Stalking by my Dad after the Divorce and seeing him break in, pinning my Sister to the wall, getting a Shotgun pulled on him by my Mom in order to protect us, that’s another cause of the Anxiety. It led to my Sister turning to Alcohol and that addiction lasted 23 years until she died in 2021 at the age of 37. My Mom has PTSD from being on the frontlines with my Sister as she slowly faded and then died in her arms. That’s anxiety inducing. Then you count the 21 years I have doing different types of Security. I’ve witnessed and experienced many things that are best left to imagination, some of which I shared but others I will never share. I still work in this field so it’s ongoing.

Anxiety Issues from all these combined, they’ve led me to not trust anyone outside of a select few. Those select few being my Better Half and her Family, who I am fiercely protective of. My Mom and a few others too, but most of them are on the opposite side of the Country.

So yes, I am part of that huge percentage with Autism that live with Anxiety but that Anxiety isn’t related to Autism. The only reason I don’t have full on PTSD is because of that ability to compartmentalize. Some I work with have told me they think I have PTSD but I don’t have the constant nightmares and I don’t freeze when presented with the hazards of my job that have almost cost me my life prior. I still go for it. I just don’t trust anything or anyone because too much has happened.

Any of you deal with the same?

 

[lunarious]

...
Any of you deal with the same?

I read everything you said here, and based on this question i thought of the movie Gladiator I from 2000. The Gladiator says: "A wise man once told me, death smiles to us all, all a Man can do is smile back."

I Believe we can only love the world and protect it, because ... anxiety is just a word on something bad. We need to Love the world but not in a gay way.

Edited: I crossed out the text above because I said but. There are no butts. I talked with someone about we can have colored belts but not colored pryde flag. However we can't have buts.

There's come Gladiator II? Have you seen it?

 

[Outdated]

All I ever wanted was to live without stress. I've achieved that for most of my life but I think I had to live through a few horrors first in order to get there. My whole childhood was pretty traumatic, I grew up in a dysfunctional family in a dysfunctional society. There's been huge changes in my society since I was a kid but my family never got any better.

Trust is slim with me. I appear to trust people, everyone deserves a fair chance, but it's always with the side thought that I'll give them enough rope and see if they hang themselves. I don't form emotional connections to people, I haven't done since I was a young man. This isn't a deliberate act on my part, attachments just never form, it doesn't affect me if they disappear again, this is a result of emotional trauma and betrayal.

Ever since then I've been a lot more emotionally stable though, things simply don't have as much impact on me as they used to. That doesn't mean that I don't care or that I lack passion, and seeing a bully picking on someone triggers a heavy response in me every time, but I don't suffer anxiety very often.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I probably have PTSD but mine is not diagnosed either. Hearing almost daily screaming, my Dad doing things to hurt my Mama eg.(crushing my Mama's finger under his boot and telling her she should be grateful he didn't grind it, trying to hit her over the head with a flashlight while she slept but thankfully hitting the headboard instead), taunting me eg.(joking about rubbing my face in cat litter, taunting me with a stun gun, threatening that something bad might happen to my pets if•••), bad fits where things get broken, having to watch my back because he tries to flirt at me (has grabbed my thigh before and said it was my fault for not being observant enough), having to watch our drinks because if you leave them unattended around him, it seems like you usually end up severely tummy sick, random weird pranks that are often destructive. I do have nightmares regularly.

 

[Xinyta]

I did a lot of reading up on Autism’s relationship with Anxiety and maybe even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder/PTSD. Something like 50% of people with Autism also have some level of Anxiety Issues, but it’s believed to be much higher due to those undiagnosed with Anxiety like myself. I have a friend of mine who is on the Autism Spectrum who has PTSD from being a Victim of a violent crime at a Skateboard Park years ago. He is battling Alcoholism as a result.

I myself have been battling Anxiety issues since I was 7 years old. An abusive Father at home combined with bullying in the Neighborhood and at School is one source of my Anxiety. The Stalking by my Dad after the Divorce and seeing him break in, pinning my Sister to the wall, getting a Shotgun pulled on him by my Mom in order to protect us, that’s another cause of the Anxiety. It led to my Sister turning to Alcohol and that addiction lasted 23 years until she died in 2021 at the age of 37. My Mom has PTSD from being on the frontlines with my Sister as she slowly faded and then died in her arms. That’s anxiety inducing. Then you count the 21 years I have doing different types of Security. I’ve witnessed and experienced many things that are best left to imagination, some of which I shared but others I will never share. I still work in this field so it’s ongoing.

Anxiety Issues from all these combined, they’ve led me to not trust anyone outside of a select few. Those select few being my Better Half and her Family, who I am fiercely protective of. My Mom and a few others too, but most of them are on the opposite side of the Country.

So yes, I am part of that huge percentage with Autism that live with Anxiety but that Anxiety isn’t related to Autism. The only reason I don’t have full on PTSD is because of that ability to compartmentalize. Some I work with have told me they think I have PTSD but I don’t have the constant nightmares and I don’t freeze when presented with the hazards of my job that have almost cost me my life prior. I still go for it. I just don’t trust anything or anyone because too much has happened.

Any of you deal with the same?

I can definitely relate. Though my tramas and anxiety was evolved into paranoia based schizophrenia. Alot of it was my own bad attitude, though my parents not being the best possible parents didn't help. Granted. They tried. But it just never got through to me that they were trying. I eventually just felt the whole world was closing in on me to torment me.

I never had something consistent to keep my mind off things. I have a bad habit of giving up on anything I try, and it's sabotaged me really having a life at all.

I do think I developed PTSD, from my own stubbornness and my parent's being less and less available to me emotionally. Granted. My issues are NOTHING compared to what you've been through.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

Sometimes I think that high functioning presentations of autism are simply that
1. An individual has either an above or below average IQ or a bit of both depending on subject combined with having different interests than their peers.
2. They get bullied and isolated which leads to social awkwardness and potential anxiety and/or depression.
3. A professional calls it autism.

 

[Outdated]

2. They get bullied and isolated which leads to social awkwardness and potential anxiety and/or depression.

My father wasn't all that different to yours, except he had very little control over me or my sister, we were too strong willed and always fought back. When I was 12 I got cocky enough to threaten him physically and it turned out he was a complete coward. I've since found out that most bullies are.

My sister and I both left home before we turned 18. As soon as my sister turned 18 she moved to a different state and ever since then she has refused to live in the same state as him.

3. A professional calls it autism.

By the time I was in my early 20s I was past all my childhood trauma, that's a lot easier when you are no longer submitting yourself to repeat trauma. Autism is not stress and anxiety. These things are not related to autism but are something we need to learn to cope with in addition to our autism. Autism complicates our responses to trauma but the two are not related.

I have tried to avoid the topic with you because I figure you don't need everyone else rubbing your nose in it, but you really need to get out of that house and learn to live your own life. You are not responsible for your parents, not for their attitudes or for their decisions. You are only responsible for yourself.

 

[Richelle-H]

I suffered from a great deal of anxiety in my youth (sans anything to alleviate the symptoms well into my late 20s) which gradually lessened in frequency as I moved into my forties. I also have a bit of PTSD from a medical nightmare in 2012/2013, which leads to high blood pressure every time I enter a medical facility for any reason, even a routine one. So, I still have a prescription for clonazepam for use if and when it becomes necessary, which at this point in life is rare.

We individually manufacture our anxiety, social or otherwise, and I found that as my view of life and my situation in it changed, my anxiety levels begin to decline as well. Familiarization with situations can inure one to the things that once stirred up the anxiety (at least that is my experience of it). The natural reaction is to avoid those situations that stir it up, but I kept throwing myself into those situations and eventually I learned to deal with them, to some extent.

Now, whenever I start to feel even a little bit anxious about something, I just stop thinking about whatever is instigating it and focus my thoughts somewhere else. It works most of the time nowadays, but there is still the odd occasion where I have to resort to my prescription.

I hope your wife and daughters come to understand your different way of looking at the world and that you all become closer in the end.

 

[Aspychata]

My life is always been anxiety and fear based. My marriage left me with battered women's syndrome. When l read about it, l realized that was indeed me. I have nightmares which are triggered by ongoing trauma that l seem currently stuck in. However, l find working on boundaries, and emotional regulation daily is required

 

[gigi1919]

I did a lot of reading up on Autism’s relationship with Anxiety and maybe even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder/PTSD. Something like 50% of people with Autism also have some level of Anxiety Issues, but it’s believed to be much higher due to those undiagnosed with Anxiety like myself. I have a friend of mine who is on the Autism Spectrum who has PTSD from being a Victim of a violent crime at a Skateboard Park years ago. He is battling Alcoholism as a result.

I myself have been battling Anxiety issues since I was 7 years old. An abusive Father at home combined with bullying in the Neighborhood and at School is one source of my Anxiety. The Stalking by my Dad after the Divorce and seeing him break in, pinning my Sister to the wall, getting a Shotgun pulled on him by my Mom in order to protect us, that’s another cause of the Anxiety. It led to my Sister turning to Alcohol and that addiction lasted 23 years until she died in 2021 at the age of 37. My Mom has PTSD from being on the frontlines with my Sister as she slowly faded and then died in her arms. That’s anxiety inducing. Then you count the 21 years I have doing different types of Security. I’ve witnessed and experienced many things that are best left to imagination, some of which I shared but others I will never share. I still work in this field so it’s ongoing.

Anxiety Issues from all these combined, they’ve led me to not trust anyone outside of a select few. Those select few being my Better Half and her Family, who I am fiercely protective of. My Mom and a few others too, but most of them are on the opposite side of the Country.

So yes, I am part of that huge percentage with Autism that live with Anxiety but that Anxiety isn’t related to Autism. The only reason I don’t have full on PTSD is because of that ability to compartmentalize. Some I work with have told me they think I have PTSD but I don’t have the constant nightmares and I don’t freeze when presented with the hazards of my job that have almost cost me my life prior. I still go for it. I just don’t trust anything or anyone because too much has happened.

Any of you deal with the same?

PTSD is different form CTPSD - - COMPLEX TRAUMA that many autistic people have simply bc living in this upside down world as a sensitive person. I had both complex trauma, diagnosed and treated with EMDR and various body based techniques like TRE.
At the same time I was diagnosed with PTSD that was more recent and acute.
The complex type is due many traumas, many betrayals, bullying, rejections and chronic stress that practically all of us experience to some extent.

No need to have nightmares or the freezing to smell etc- stereotypical stuff that you see on movies. Trauma is body-mind inability to process something. But it may look like in many ways.

I recommend EMDR (I did online) for both and somatic- body based techniques.
But finding someone good who is patent and understands neurodiversity especially