Anxiety a new perspective
I’ve had anxiety all my life and worked hard to manage it.
I’ve thrown myself into all the treatments and therapies offered and dedicated myself to them. Always with limited results.
Now I think I understand why.
All those therapies and techniques assumed my anxiety was the result of an overreaction of my sympathetic nervous system based on perceiving a non threatening modern situation as a life threatening situation in the primal parts of my brain.
When asked what made me anxious, I could never give a clear answer, which now I realise was a clue!
The important word here is ‘overreaction’
It was seen as a problem, a glitch that could be rewired using the various therapies and techniques to teach my brain that actually I was safe and all was well. Basically training me to ignore what my brain was telling me until it went away.
But with the added knowledge that I am neurodivergent I now see that it never was an ‘overreaction’ but it was a correct stress response to the overstimulation I was experiencing in the modern world.
The reason I couldn’t pinpoint a precise situation that caused my anxiety was because it wasn’t the situation nessecarily but a combination of stimulus around me, and often also the result of things that had overstimulated me earlier in the day, or yesterday even, or other factors lowering my tolerance at that particular time and place.
When the anxiety alerted me to the fact it was too loud, too bright, too much information, etc, I would practice the techniques I’d been taught. Maybe I’d remove myself from the situation to do so. And yes breathing techniques do work, meditation is helpful etc. But then I’d be right back in the situation that triggered it all, and guess what, my brain would go! Whoa! Alarm bells again, it’s still to bright, still too loud, still overwhelming!
I was being taught to push anxiety away and ignore it, and never achieving that for any length of time. Everytime I failed I’d beat myself up for not trying hard enough. It became a matter of masking and suppressing it instead, in order to convince myself that what I was doing was working, because I wanted so badly for it to work and I thought just trying hard enough would make it work!
I needed to prove to everyone around me, the professionals, my family and friends that I was trying to get well, that I was doing what was asked, so they wouldn’t worry.
But this only works for a while, and then it all breaks apart. Because by trying hard I was working against myself. The harder I tried the harder I was working against what my brain was so desperate to make me realise! Ignoring, rather than listening to and heeding the signals of stress my brain was rightly giving me, by forcing myself to continue to socialise, to appear normal, to be managing, I was just compounding the internal pressure until it couldn’t be contained anymore. Trying hard is exhausting even when it actually works, when it doesn’t even work, something has to give.
my brain gave me another warning, this time in the form of fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue. It said, if you won’t listen to the anxiety then I’ll make you stop!
Except the same problem was still at the root. And now I’d been taught that you just have to keep trying and push through even when it’s hard! So I did. Until eventually the brain couldn’t do it anymore, nor could the body. The only way it could make me see was total shutdown.
What I now know is autistic burnout!
And then finally the ASD diagnosis and then the learning and slowly now understanding of the implications in relation to my past struggles.
And now finally I hear you brain, when I feel anxious, stressed, exhausted, you’re telling me to step away, be aware and realise what you’re telling me. Don’t ignore the message!
It’s too loud in here!
Ok I hear you, let’s use ear plugs or headphones.
It’s too busy! Ok we’ll come back another day when it’s quieter.
You need more time to process what was just said, ok we’ll ask for the information in writing and time to process it.
No amount of deep breathing is going to help if you immediately go back into the overstimulating situation and while all the former techniques still have a use in the right situation, they are secondary tools to awareness of what my brain is telling me is the problem.
The real solution is being aware and making accommodations to either create ways to make the situation manageable or remove myself from the situation.
So I’m sorry brain, that I wasn’t listening to you! We didn’t know! And even when we sort of knew we didn’t know enough. And even now we know it’s still going to take a lot of time to learn to hear you and understand what you’re telling me as I’m so used to suppressing and masking your message.
I’m sorry it took so long that it came to what it has, and I know I blamed and hated you for a long time when you were trying to help me understand.
I’ve thrown myself into all the treatments and therapies offered and dedicated myself to them. Always with limited results.
Now I think I understand why.
All those therapies and techniques assumed my anxiety was the result of an overreaction of my sympathetic nervous system based on perceiving a non threatening modern situation as a life threatening situation in the primal parts of my brain.
When asked what made me anxious, I could never give a clear answer, which now I realise was a clue!
The important word here is ‘overreaction’
It was seen as a problem, a glitch that could be rewired using the various therapies and techniques to teach my brain that actually I was safe and all was well. Basically training me to ignore what my brain was telling me until it went away.
But with the added knowledge that I am neurodivergent I now see that it never was an ‘overreaction’ but it was a correct stress response to the overstimulation I was experiencing in the modern world.
The reason I couldn’t pinpoint a precise situation that caused my anxiety was because it wasn’t the situation nessecarily but a combination of stimulus around me, and often also the result of things that had overstimulated me earlier in the day, or yesterday even, or other factors lowering my tolerance at that particular time and place.
When the anxiety alerted me to the fact it was too loud, too bright, too much information, etc, I would practice the techniques I’d been taught. Maybe I’d remove myself from the situation to do so. And yes breathing techniques do work, meditation is helpful etc. But then I’d be right back in the situation that triggered it all, and guess what, my brain would go! Whoa! Alarm bells again, it’s still to bright, still too loud, still overwhelming!
I was being taught to push anxiety away and ignore it, and never achieving that for any length of time. Everytime I failed I’d beat myself up for not trying hard enough. It became a matter of masking and suppressing it instead, in order to convince myself that what I was doing was working, because I wanted so badly for it to work and I thought just trying hard enough would make it work!
I needed to prove to everyone around me, the professionals, my family and friends that I was trying to get well, that I was doing what was asked, so they wouldn’t worry.
But this only works for a while, and then it all breaks apart. Because by trying hard I was working against myself. The harder I tried the harder I was working against what my brain was so desperate to make me realise! Ignoring, rather than listening to and heeding the signals of stress my brain was rightly giving me, by forcing myself to continue to socialise, to appear normal, to be managing, I was just compounding the internal pressure until it couldn’t be contained anymore. Trying hard is exhausting even when it actually works, when it doesn’t even work, something has to give.
my brain gave me another warning, this time in the form of fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue. It said, if you won’t listen to the anxiety then I’ll make you stop!
Except the same problem was still at the root. And now I’d been taught that you just have to keep trying and push through even when it’s hard! So I did. Until eventually the brain couldn’t do it anymore, nor could the body. The only way it could make me see was total shutdown.
What I now know is autistic burnout!
And then finally the ASD diagnosis and then the learning and slowly now understanding of the implications in relation to my past struggles.
And now finally I hear you brain, when I feel anxious, stressed, exhausted, you’re telling me to step away, be aware and realise what you’re telling me. Don’t ignore the message!
It’s too loud in here!
Ok I hear you, let’s use ear plugs or headphones.
It’s too busy! Ok we’ll come back another day when it’s quieter.
You need more time to process what was just said, ok we’ll ask for the information in writing and time to process it.
No amount of deep breathing is going to help if you immediately go back into the overstimulating situation and while all the former techniques still have a use in the right situation, they are secondary tools to awareness of what my brain is telling me is the problem.
The real solution is being aware and making accommodations to either create ways to make the situation manageable or remove myself from the situation.
So I’m sorry brain, that I wasn’t listening to you! We didn’t know! And even when we sort of knew we didn’t know enough. And even now we know it’s still going to take a lot of time to learn to hear you and understand what you’re telling me as I’m so used to suppressing and masking your message.
I’m sorry it took so long that it came to what it has, and I know I blamed and hated you for a long time when you were trying to help me understand.