Why do autistic people often catastrophise?
I've been thinking about this deeply. I've had this habit since I was a child.
Lying in my bed at night thinking, “what if…?”
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#ActuallyAutistic #Autism #Neurodivergent #ADHD #AuDHD #Autistic
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@KatyElphinstone because we need to have a plan of action for every eventuality. And we need that because we have to react "correctly" i.e., as a neurotypical would.
@akamran @KatyElphinstone last night my son was literally asking me about how to tell an adult there is a fire at school. it wasn't about being afraid of fire, it was how to navigate the rigid social protocol ("do I raise my hand?") and where it's boundaries were.
Better yet: how to stop doing this? I find it exhausting.
I have two methods when I need to sleep and can't because of whatever is going on or the doom planning. Don't know if it works for you but perhaps worth a try. I am perpetually stressed out and an insomniac, yet most of the time at least one of them works for me.
1) The same audio book. I use Alice in Wonderland despite being sick of it. Pick whatever but a book you know and gives you zero surprises. Every time the same one. You both listen and are completely bored. Somehow this does wonders.
2) The perfect scenario. Again, this is about repetition and zero surprises but this time in your head. Create a scenario that makes you happy but not excited and play it out in your mind. A short story with a simple narrative. Mine involves a meadow, a rainbow and a teddy bear. Add a lot of detail. Sounds, scents, the way something moves. This forces my mind to focus on something else and I tend to fall asleep quickly.
3) Ok, I said two but this one has worked as well a few times. There's an album called Sleep by Max Richter. It's beautiful and genuinely lives up to its name. It's over 8 hours and designed to aid sleep. I'm not into this kind of stuff but love Richter's other work and so I gave it a try. There's actual neuroscience behind the album.
Hmm, the audio book, I have to try that. I'm normally not that into audiobooks, but I guess this might work. The perfect scenario seems hard, I think I've tried it before. Without something external like the audiobook my mind will just wander off into the dark distance within seconds.
I'll check out that album. I do use mynoise.net as well to fall asleep from time to time, mostly because of a sensitivity to low-frequency noises (that might or might not be in my head, I'm undecided). It has some more musically-inspired options as well, that I use from time to time. Repetitive without being repetitive, it's really clever. I also use the 'train' noise from them often, it kinda wraps in with your second suggestion: I imagine I'm being on a train on my way to somewhere unspecified and just idly sit and watch the landscape float by.
CC: @KatyElphinstone@mas.to
@KatyElphinstone thank you for posting this thread. I have an ADHD diagnosis, and anxiety is one of my biggest sources of discomfort. Though I think at this time anxiety is becoming quite normal among everyone.
In any case, your observation about thinking at large scale and in patterns is spot on. This is how my brain works, and it’s most definitely a contributor to the anxiety. It’s comforting to read your thoughts about it.
Yes, I'm glad you liked it, and what I haven't covered very much is just how much the two things are related - high levels of anxiety, and things like acute observation and pattern recognition.
@KatyElphinstone that was one of my key takeaways from your thread. So at least one person got the gist of that.
I've just been reading a book about climate change.
In it, the author talks about how people find it very difficult to grasp things that are outside their lifetimes; what they know.
“It'll never happen.”
I haven't got enough fingers to count on them, how many people have said that to me.
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So, back to why we might catastrophise.
Of course it could be to do with high anxiety levels. Meaning you worry about a lot of things.
And autistic people definitely have those.
But besides that, I think there could be something else at work, too.
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An ability to think large-scale, and in patterns.
As well as noticing the small details of something we become really interested in. The data.
I call this, “zooming in” and “zooming out.”
(In fact, I don't seem to have the medium range lens in my kit!)
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@KatyElphinstone honestly the task of switching a lens on an SLR camera seems a good metaphor for monotropism.
whether or not a question is appropriate when viewed through a different lens is a bad answer when we're looking through this lens, right?
"switching lenses takes time, so can you just address what I'm looking at now, please?"
