Okay, so, here's the thing: I am a really anxious person by nature. Always have been, always will be.
The problem with this is that it's easy to get scared by things that, logically, I know arent *truly* as horribly horrible as I'm mentally making them out to be. I know, I'm not the only one who deals with this. And I know full well that being on the spectrum absolutely plays into it.
In my case specifically, it's usually related to medical stuff (total hypochondriac). The pandemic in particular was very scary. Thing is though, there's a lot of very smart medical professionals in/near the family, people who are in the know, do the research, learn the facts, and give advice on what to do, what not to do, and so on. And I did my own research during the whole thing too. It wasnt hard. And we took all the steps and whatnot, super careful. It's not JUST the pandemic, any time I'm getting paranoid about medical stuff, they can help me deal with that with facts and knowledge.
But, that sort of thing doesnt really help the fear go away. And worse, it could be easily aggravated by certain things. You know... things like overly excitable news articles, the sort that are very specifically designed to scare the crap out of the reader even if they're making up a bunch of stuff to do so. That sort of thing obviously appears all over the net. Standard protocol around these parts. I know this. But I still get affected by it.
Now, why is this a problem? It's not just "oh I'm feeling anxious it's unpleasant". It's because I can get really DISTRACTED. Which could lead to actual dangers. As an example, I used to have a terrible fear of storms. Tornadoes, really. Many years ago, there was a particularly ugly storm hanging overhead. It hadnt REALLY done anything yet (and indeed, didnt do a bloody thing in the end), but it LOOKED horrible and of course some people were like "OMG IT'S THE END TIMES, ALL IS DOOMED, THE TORNADO OF LEGEND IS ON OUR DOORSTEP" which really didnt help. And, that day, I needed to drive somewhere to do something. So, I took my car, went out with all the scary hanging overhead. I couldnt stop thinking about it. Was driving VERY distracted.
And then BOOM. Car accident. I wasnt hurt, but... the car sure was. It led to the frankly ridiculous situation of, a few days later, driving to the repair place. With much of the front part of the outer shell of the car (whatever you call that) sitting in the backseat. This made sense at the time. Look, there wasnt any other good way to get it there.
It taught me just how dangerous that fear distraction can be, but... the lesson just refused to sink in.
It's not just danger, either. It can get in the way of, well, anything. Like, earlier today, I got into one of those paranoia / anxiety overload moments. And I couldnt DO anything. All I could do was pace and be freaked out. This lasted for quite awhile... not fun. I wont go into exactly what triggered it, as that's really not important, but again, I'd already been through the "logic" part of it before, with the help of people who understood everything way better than I do. Plenty of reason to NOT get freaked out. Still... it happened, and I lost like a good 3 hours before critical thinking took back control. As happens every single time in this situation, I then get to spend the next 30 minutes or so feeling like a total doofus.
So, I ask of you guys: If you experience anything like this, fear taking over where logic should reign, what do you do about it? Have you ever found anything that is effective in such a situation? Honestly I'm real darned tired of this happening over and over and would love some advice. Though even as I ask that, I realize it's hard to knock myself out of mental habits of that sort... that's part of how the whole autism thing manifests for me. Exactly why I feel like I should ask about it.
Incidentally, the non-fears are just as dumb as the fears in many cases. Medical stuff? Scares the heck outta me. An actual near miss while driving? Wont even raise my heart rate. My whole reaction in that situation is "well that sure happened" with a look of mild annoyance on my face, and then I go about my day as if nothing happened. I'm like that with some things, it makes no sense.
The problem with this is that it's easy to get scared by things that, logically, I know arent *truly* as horribly horrible as I'm mentally making them out to be. I know, I'm not the only one who deals with this. And I know full well that being on the spectrum absolutely plays into it.
In my case specifically, it's usually related to medical stuff (total hypochondriac). The pandemic in particular was very scary. Thing is though, there's a lot of very smart medical professionals in/near the family, people who are in the know, do the research, learn the facts, and give advice on what to do, what not to do, and so on. And I did my own research during the whole thing too. It wasnt hard. And we took all the steps and whatnot, super careful. It's not JUST the pandemic, any time I'm getting paranoid about medical stuff, they can help me deal with that with facts and knowledge.
But, that sort of thing doesnt really help the fear go away. And worse, it could be easily aggravated by certain things. You know... things like overly excitable news articles, the sort that are very specifically designed to scare the crap out of the reader even if they're making up a bunch of stuff to do so. That sort of thing obviously appears all over the net. Standard protocol around these parts. I know this. But I still get affected by it.
Now, why is this a problem? It's not just "oh I'm feeling anxious it's unpleasant". It's because I can get really DISTRACTED. Which could lead to actual dangers. As an example, I used to have a terrible fear of storms. Tornadoes, really. Many years ago, there was a particularly ugly storm hanging overhead. It hadnt REALLY done anything yet (and indeed, didnt do a bloody thing in the end), but it LOOKED horrible and of course some people were like "OMG IT'S THE END TIMES, ALL IS DOOMED, THE TORNADO OF LEGEND IS ON OUR DOORSTEP" which really didnt help. And, that day, I needed to drive somewhere to do something. So, I took my car, went out with all the scary hanging overhead. I couldnt stop thinking about it. Was driving VERY distracted.
And then BOOM. Car accident. I wasnt hurt, but... the car sure was. It led to the frankly ridiculous situation of, a few days later, driving to the repair place. With much of the front part of the outer shell of the car (whatever you call that) sitting in the backseat. This made sense at the time. Look, there wasnt any other good way to get it there.
It taught me just how dangerous that fear distraction can be, but... the lesson just refused to sink in.
It's not just danger, either. It can get in the way of, well, anything. Like, earlier today, I got into one of those paranoia / anxiety overload moments. And I couldnt DO anything. All I could do was pace and be freaked out. This lasted for quite awhile... not fun. I wont go into exactly what triggered it, as that's really not important, but again, I'd already been through the "logic" part of it before, with the help of people who understood everything way better than I do. Plenty of reason to NOT get freaked out. Still... it happened, and I lost like a good 3 hours before critical thinking took back control. As happens every single time in this situation, I then get to spend the next 30 minutes or so feeling like a total doofus.
So, I ask of you guys: If you experience anything like this, fear taking over where logic should reign, what do you do about it? Have you ever found anything that is effective in such a situation? Honestly I'm real darned tired of this happening over and over and would love some advice. Though even as I ask that, I realize it's hard to knock myself out of mental habits of that sort... that's part of how the whole autism thing manifests for me. Exactly why I feel like I should ask about it.
Incidentally, the non-fears are just as dumb as the fears in many cases. Medical stuff? Scares the heck outta me. An actual near miss while driving? Wont even raise my heart rate. My whole reaction in that situation is "well that sure happened" with a look of mild annoyance on my face, and then I go about my day as if nothing happened. I'm like that with some things, it makes no sense.