Anxiety and Control
May 25th, 2007You see, an old (or at least a 30 year old!) autistic can learn new tricks. I’m still learning about my emotions.
I feel the subtle emotions, but I don’t always realize that’s what I’m feeling or know how to describe it. A couple years ago, I would have described my current emotional state as “depressed”, although it’s not, as I know it will soon be gone unlike depression which seems to stick around a bit. So I’ll say I’m grumpy and unsettled. I’m probably not a great person to be around today.
I’m unsettled for a few reasons. The biggest one is that I’m preparing for a trip, and the trip has a tight schedule without a lot of room for problems to come up. I’ve also had a long day at work, where my work was affected by another coworker – and I had no control over the process. My systems were less reliable than I’d like because of the actions of the other coworker in a system I don’t manage. So that bothered me. Usually I can fix problems that affect the users of my systems. Today I can just stand back and watch.
One of the things autistics are famous for is “not liking change.” However, I don’t mind change – in fact, I seem to adjust to major change better than many NTs do (I’ve been laid off several times, for instance). Change isn’t the issue, and it is not an issue of routines. It’s a bit deeper than that. It’s an issue of control.
I suspect a lot of autistics share this with me – we need to feel some control over our environment and life to be comfortable. Everyone, NT and autistic has this desire, although it manifests differently in different people. In an autistic, our desire for control is seen as “manipulative” and “strong willed”. I suspect when a lot of things around us make no sense, because they are built for NTs, we try to find something to grab onto wherever we can. We try to find something that we can have an influence upon. So, some might grab a favorite item – they can control that item, and can touch it whenever they want. Others might stim – they are in control of their body. Yet others may self-injur, because at least they have control over that. Now, I’m not saying these are the only reasons people do these things – they are not – but it is one reason.
A lot of parents have noticed, for instance, that an autistic person who is perseverating – which is often also a form of gaining some control – can tolerate sensory input they normally could not tolerate. That makes sense to me, as when I’m in control I have less anxiety in general. When I’m not in control, I have a lot of anxiety. Everything about me becomes “more autistic” when I’ve lost that control. I can no longer tolerate what I could tolerate while not anxious.
It is a frightening world indeed when you don’t understand what is happening and can’t exert any influence upon events. While what I’m going through right now is relatively minor (or I would be depressed!), it’s still very distressing and uncomfortable. Right now, I can’t see how things will work out, and I can’t bear to think about what might happen. So I try not to, I try to just press on, I try to do what I have to do. I try to remember to take care of the things I can take care of – I will need to go to bed early tonight, so I get plenty of sleep. Being tired won’t help my anxiety any. I will listen to music that I enjoy tomorrow, music that I know, music that I can predict – I’m in control of the sound I’ll hear next. I’ll probably perseverate a bit tonight on something that I enjoy, trying to lose myself and break the cycle of thought that traps me in anxiety. I’ll try to eat, since not eating lowers my ability to cope with things. But I’ll still, at the end of the day, be anxious.
When I was younger, this type of thing was much more painful to endure. I didn’t have the life experience that I have now, I didn’t know that this wasn’t the state I would be in down the road. This is temporary. I know that now. That’s what lets me go on in spite of anxiety that literally makes me shake right now. I wish I learned that before I got to college.
I better cut this short, as it’s probably best if I find some food.
I have the same issue- not with change, but with needing to have, or at least feel like I have, some degree of control over things. I also have a huge problem with unexpected change: if I am expecting things to happen in a certain way and even the slightest thing changes, it throws me off balance for the rest of the day.
I hadn’t thought about the relationship between change and control before. I’m not so fond of change myself, but I hadn’t previously tied it to how much I don’t like feeling helpless when things are out of my control. It makes a lot of sense to me that when I’m in a familiar environment or I have a routine, I expect to only come up against things I have control over, problems I have already solved, and this reduces my anxiety greatly.
This is definitely food for thought. Thank you for posting it.
I often feel myself get anxious when things are going wrong, and I have no control over fixing them.
It’s good that you recognise the emotions you’re feeling and can see that you will be on the up again. Collating the awful statistics on attacks against autistics, surely will have taken a toll on you.
The serenity prayer sums up for me, part of the issue of fighting for control versus resigning myself to what will be.
‘…the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference’
I hope you can get lots of rest and that your trip goes well.
I wonder if that’s part of the reason why I don’t have a problem handling the sound level at demoparties.
Fascinating and very insightful. I have a child with autism, and while I am NT myself, I have my own anxiety and sensory issues. I also have a family history of addiction. It had not occurred to me that feeling a lack of control might be something that links my son’s autistic behaviors, my husband’s addictive behaviors and my own anxiety issues, but I can see what a deep common thread it is in our family, even though each of us has a different way of expressing it. Definitely something I want to think more about. Thank you.
Not recognising the more subtle/lesser emotions reminds me of how I am with chronic pain. Sure, it flares up sometimes, but it’s not until I’m having anxiety attacks all the time that I finally realise that I’m having more pain than usual. (That’s the only reason I got physio last spring when my tendonitis flared up.)
I have control issues, too. And I find that when my antidepressants are working, I am much better at coping with change. When they’re on the fritz (or I’m not taking them), little things can send me over the edge, I get much more obsessive/compulsive, and I start looking for things about myself that I can change, just so I can feel in control.
Bingo.
thank you very much for the small part of this post about how you could have confused anxiety with depression. that was useful to me just yesterday.
(the rest is good too)
PS: spot-on about change vs. lack of control. i think i had already figured that one out at some point, but it was a good reminder.
Hmm, maybe this is why I refuse to own a motor vehicle with an automatic transmission? And why I am annoyed at the people who programmed the fuel injectors in my present vehicle who’ve made it hard for me to double-clutch my downshifts?
Dammit, when I close the throttle, I want the revs to go back to idle speed instantaneously, I don’t give a poopy doo-dah about some stupid emission-control nonsense!
I’m trying to save the synchros and make the gearbox last longer!
This is all very astutely observed, and I think it applies to the human condition generally, as much as it does to the challenges of autistic people specifically. Look around you, everywhere you can see the physical results of human desire for control. In combination they make up what we call civilization. The fact that the world cannot be perfectly controlled has been a source of anxiety for as long as mankind has existed.
There’s a phenomenon called “learned helplessness” which I think you might want to investigate, too. I think I had it taught to me, a bit, and I do resent that.
VAB, it is not possible for me to control the world, and I don’t have a whole lot of anxiety about that.
I just want to control my truck, and that I can’t do that is a source of anger, not anxiety, for me. Effin’ EPA!
Now, the unpredictable uncontrollable behavior of my fellow humans does cause me some anxiety, from time to time.
I doubt they’d elect me dictator, and I don’t want that job anyway.
Well, this certainly fits well for me.
I think it’s key to understand that while I can tolerate sound/sensory issues that I normally can’t when perseverating, that doesn’t mean those sounds are not a problem for me. I’ve had the problem in the past of having this misunderstood. Heck, when I’m really perseverating I don’t feel pain, hunger, the need to go to the bathroom, etc.