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Whenever I am doing something new or meeting a friend for lunch I always get nervous before the event. Can this be part of the condition? Can you do anything to stop it?

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I do think a degree of anxiety is part of ASD. When you have difficulty with social situations, sensory processing, and change, it's inevitable you would feel anxious about them. But I think we are also prone to developing more serious anxiety disorders which can become disabling in their own right. These can be treated if you can get a professional who understands the real and genuine difficulties we face. For example, it's not going to help you if they're trying to convince you that you're never going to make a social faux pas, but if they can help you develop social skills to help smooth things over when you do, then you're less likely to be ruled by fear of this happening. With the right help, I do think that anxiety can be kept down to manageable levels, but it'll never totally go away.

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yep im like that especially if u arrange something and then they dont turn up whenh they said they would. i had this done to me and i went home 4 hours later because she didnt turn up and then started telling people the opposite and because of that doesnt want to be my friend.

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Well, you've made a big step forward if you've pinpointed something that makes you anxious about meeting with friends.

 

The next step could be thinking of practical solutions to help in this situation.

 

Maybe you could think of some interesting topics before you go out. Think about interesting things you've done recently, or an article you read, especially if the topic is an interest your friends share.

 

It's important to remember that if these people are already your friends, they must already like you. Therefore, you can't have been going too far wrong so far.

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I think it's worth adding that NT people can feel that way too. I get nervous when I'm doing something new - I think a lot of people do - it's fear of the unknown. I also get nervous meeting friends if I haven't seen them for a while.

 

Lynne

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Lynne really good point.

 

I think sometimes we are in danger of using a diagnosis such as Asperger's as a point of call onto which we attatch many elements which are pretty normal aspects of life. I like one statement I once read and that is people with Asperger's 'are like everyone else even more so'. I can think something like anxiety falls into this category for many people, I would tend to ascribe it as being a personality trait which might simply be magnified as a result of being on the spectrum.

 

In reality I think we simply should deal with many of the issues life presents as seperate entities. I think one of the potential issues with Asperger's and other spectrum conditions is that they are lifelong conditions. If think the problem with attatching things to this label is that we can often see them as lifelong issues and something we might not be able to do something about, which might simply not be the case.

 

I know personaly I have lots of well developed strategies to deal with my own anxiety. That does not mean at times I do not get anxious, nor does it mean my AS often magnifies the emotional aspects of such mental states. But seeing anxiety as a personality trait I can deal with and work on is a different mindset to seeing it as being an AS trait which might be fixed as an element in my life.

 

Just a few thoughts not sure if they will make sense.

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i used avoid social situations (make up an excuse - like i was poorly) i hated myself for making stuff up all time at the last minute just got scared anxious fear try and face fear and anxiety head on these days however difficult/hard i see it as a challenge now but still don't find easy at same time of being officially diagnosed with depression & A.S discovered i have Social Anxiety Disorder which adds pressure strain double of A.S some social anxiety is common feeling in AS but when it becomes more than that good luck i used to sweat physically shake get in right mess/state i prefer pre planned social events/situations rather than unexpected surprise last minute social situation with people hardly know or trust there!

 

XKLX.

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all in all, i think at times we call all be as nervous as each other, asd or not. i think sometimes in life you have to perfect a good poker face.

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I agree that many people without ASD also suffer from the same anxieties that people with ASD do. But I still think the nature of ASD makes it much more likely that we will suffer from certain anxieties. I also think the approach to dealing with them should be slightly different. In a person without ASD, for example, a therapist might want to get the person to see that their social skills are actually OK. But in ASD there has to be an acceptance that socialising is never going to come easily, which leads to a slightly different approach of teaching practical skills to deal with social situations.

 

Not that there aren't NTs with poor social skills, I've had most of them as bosses, but it's unlikely one particilar NT is going to have the full range of anxieties stemming from the real and genuine difficulties people with ASD face. Otherwise they wouldn't be an NT, right?

 

I'm sure that there are many NTs with the same anxieties that Robert mentioned, but they would probably have different root causes, and in a person with ASD, the root cause is probably going to be AsD.

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But in ASD there has to be an acceptance that socialising is never going to come easily, which leads to a slightly different approach of teaching practical skills to deal with social situations.

 

That's depressing yet ever so slightly hopeful ;)

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