"Living with anxiety is like being followed by a voice. It knows all your insecurities and uses the against you. It get to the point when it is the loudest voice in the room. The only one you can hear."-Unknown
Most of my life, these two things have been hand and hand. Now I am older, I stop hiding my autism from the world and instead found some of the gifts that come with it. The type of Autism, I have I pass for neurotypical most of time with the occasional autistic moment. But with passing for neurotypical most of time, I am almost more anxious to make sure I am passing for "normal".
As long as I can remember I was the anxious child. There were many meltdown had over situation I was anxious in. I would get upset about something that made me anxious. One of my parents' solution was to yell at me for being upset. This works about as well as the "you need calm down" when you are fighting about something in a relationship. Sadly, this person and a teacher in high school would get made and yell at me for being anxious. On top of being yell at for being anxious, I will bullied by other child for being different. Now that I am older know that being yell at for being anxious lead to actually to my anxiety.
Early this weekend, I was listening to a podcast about anxiety and I was thinking about what are my triggers for my anxiety. My biggest trigger actual have do with the fact that I am autistic. In many social situation, I feel like I must past for "normal" because of my autism is hidden from most people unless you know me. Even those who have known me for years, still do not believe that I am actually autistic. I feel like I must be as close to "normal" instead actual being the way I actually am. This add more anxiety on someone who was always anxious person to start with.
"Sometimes, autistic brains are neurologically more susceptible to anxiety issues. But sometimes they are not. Sometimes, anxiety is just a standard human reaction to growing up being made to you are WRONG. That your way of experiencing the world is WRONG. That we need to find a cure, because your very existence is WRONG. Personally, my anxiety issues are not some kind of neurological child of my autism. My anxiety was done to me believe I was not good enough."-Autistic Not Weird
I did not want to make this about blaming others for my issues with anxiety but those situations lead to me actually have anxiety instead of being anxious or have a meltdown in a situation. Over the last couple years, I have made more effort to not actual cover up my autism and if others are not comfortable with that is on them instead me pretending to neurotypical. But in a few situations, I still anxious because I know I have be more neurotypical because I am not allow to actual have a meltdown if I am anxious about them.
"Realize you are a human. And you make mistakes. And you can not control everything. You need to understand that you are doing the best you can. Do not blame yourself once again. You are trying. And that is enough."-Unknown
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Autism, From Someone Who Is On The Spectrum
Non-FictionAutism from the perspective of a woman on the spectrum
