Autistic Am I

 Autism is a mental disorder , as it’s been explained to me , not a mental illness. My autism causes me alot of problems with communication which in turn leads me to have severe anxiety, a mental illness. This anxiety can be triggered by so many things . A tiny little thought can trigger more unwelcome and unwanted thoughts that I cannot control. These thoughts will very often grow and develop into what a typical person would call unreasonable fears. My autistic mind can’t tell the difference between what most people consider reasonable or not. During these times of high anxiety my higher cortex seems to suffer some type of negative impact that affects my ability to communicate verbally. Today my wife and children are traveling across town to visit my mother in law and help her prepare tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner. A tiny little thought crept into my head this morning. The horrible thought of my family being in an auto accident and me losing them. I know this is an unreasonable a...

 Interaction with some people can cause real grief for me. This is very difficult to describe but I will give it a try . It doesn’t seem like when a person says “that person is a real pain in my ass” like it’s just an inconvenience to deal with whomever is causing the irritation. I’m very big on rules . Do unto others as you’d have done unto you, that’s an important one for me. I don’t engage in horse play or practical jokes at work. I try to be respectful to everyone.  This is in part because I don’t want to hurt anyone else’s feelings or otherwise cause a person grief. It’s also in part because I don’t want to have to deal with my own negative emotions. Part of my autistic experience is that I have limited control over my emotions . Mole hills become mountains in short order and I find myself having to spend way too much energy on attempting to regulate my emotions. For nuerotypical people this doesn’t seem to be a concern. As a student of human behavior, as a means to survi...