Okay, so more on autistic anxiety, or anxiety that has specifically to do with autistic brain wiring and nothing else.

I’m going to give one example in this video and keep it pretty short, but I have more coming.

So if this is of interest to you, you should definitely stick around.

Okay, so here’s an example of how this distinct anxiety shows up for me as a Level 1 autistic person.

The way that my brain reacts to information that it perceives of as incorrect is that it must correct that information.

It is not about being right or wrong.

It’s about getting the correct information out into the world.

So I will literally get extreme anxiety if I see someone or hear someone saying something that I believe is incorrect.

That is my distinct anxiety.

That is tied to my autistic brain wiring.

The aspect of my autism that that is associated with is the restricted repetitive behavior aspect of autism, specifically that focuses on rigidity.

Okay, so this is not about right versus wrong. This is about rigidity.

My brain’s need… rigid need… to make sure that correct information exists… and that incorrect information is corrected.

So just the other day I was having a conversation with my husband and he said something that did not feel precise to me.

In that moment I felt like I had to correct the information.

And it actually led to a misunderstanding.

And he took my correction to mean something that it didn’t mean and it actually created a problem for us in that particular moment.

And after some moments of both of us taking a little space from the conversation, I went back to him and I said to him “I think we had a misunderstanding. I think that there was a miscommunication here.”

“You said a certain thing that my brain felt like it had to correct, and when I did, you took my correction to mean something that it didn’t actually mean.”

And I apologized for feeling like I needed to do that in the moment. And I did actually apologize. You can ask him. Don’t ask him. 😅

But I did actually apologize.

I said, “My brain just needed to do that in the moment. I was getting anxiety from that piece of information that felt incorrect to me. And so it led to this misunderstanding.”

And so we got on the same page after that.

But the point is that I had a moment of extreme anxiety where I felt like I had to say something.

And this comes up all the time with autistic people when it comes to “rigidity” or their “black-and-white thinking.”

It appears as though we are being argumentative. Or it appears as though we are just needing to be right.

But really it’s not that.

It’s distinct anxiety.

It’s autistic anxiety specifically and directly related to autistic brain wiring differences.

So that is one of a million examples I have.

And I will come back and talk more about different ways my distinct anxiety shows up.

But I hope that this example brings it to life a little bit more for some of you as you work through your understanding of distinct anxiety.

And I promise to come back and continue talking about this because to me this is the underpinning of autistic existence for a lot of us.

Now interestingly, the researchers who did this study did not find distinct anxiety in all autistic people.

But it’s worth noting that they had a pretty small group of people that they tested.

I believe it had 71 autistic participants and 55 typically developing participants, is how they referred to them.

So it was a very small group and much, much, much more research is needed.

The group was also not evenly distributed when it came to girls versus boys. These were kids. Girls versus boys. The ratio of girls to boys was very low. It was something like 20 percent girls to 80 percent boys within the autistic group.

And then within the typically developing group it was much higher, it ws like 40 percent girls to 60 percent boys.

So all this to say that the research is not perfect. A lot more work needs to be done in this space, and is in the process of being done, I believe.

But in the meantime, I think this conversation is so important to have for people who are autistic and trying to figure out their own brain wiring and trying to understand their own existence.

Particularly as it relates to anxiety, which is such a huge aspect of autistic existence for a significant number of us.

So that’s what I got today.

It was a little bit rambly, but I hope that you guys found this valuable.

Stick around if you’re interested in hearing more about the research and hearing more examples from my personal life as a Level 1 autistic person.

Alright, take care everyone.

Bye.