By Kaye Inglis, Writer.
Long before I knew I was autistic, I knew I was a very anxious person. Much of this anxiety I could trace back to my parents moving house – from the idyllic Isle of Skye where I was born to a small town in rural Perthshire – when I was six years old.
My early years were spent playing in and exploring the breathtaking landscape of the Hebrides, with only a handful of other children of similar age, and just two close friends. I also spent a great deal of time content in my own company; raised in a creative, writing, and storytelling family I was never bored or lonely with my imagination and pets for company.
Much later in life I was to realise that this contentment in solitude was a common trait in many autistic people. Moving to a new town, a vastly different environment and a much bigger school was daunting to say the least. It is here that I remember my first experience of anxiety attacks, recorded in my mum’s diary at the time as feeling “a bit of me is wobbling” – a young child’s way of describing a racing heart that I could feel in my chest.
Of course, relocating is likely to cause some anxiety for anyone of any age, autistic or not. It’s a natural response to different, alien situations and circumstances. The feeling of not fitting in is common to most people at first. However, for an autistic person fear of sticking out can pervade all aspects of life and be a cause of constant worry, which is exhausting to deal with whether adult or child.
As a child I quickly learned and accepted that not everyone I met would be as into my passions as I was – various fascinations included fish, space, horses, and ghosts. This didn’t bother me; I was more than happy playing or reading on my own and found other children’s games frequently bored me. However, as my teenage years approached and another school change to secondary education moved my grounding parameters once more, the feeling of “otherness” and desperate desire not to stick out increased further, at times causing me to miss classes, hobbled by physical symptoms of panic attacks and a general air of dread about not fitting in, being outed as “different” or “weird”.
The National Autistic Society reports that between 40 and 50 per cent of people with autism experience a clinical diagnosis of anxiety about fitting in in situations from work and education to leisure, hobbies, and relationships. I didn’t find out I was autistic until well into my adult years, prompted to seek answers after realising my dad – who also suffered severe social anxiety – had many autistic traits, though he was never officially diagnosed. This encouraged me to explore my own experiences with the help of medical professionals.
Over time, I learned that my anxiety triggers included much more than not fitting in to social groups or situations. One of my biggest triggers was a fear of being laughed at, of being seen to be no good at something other people could do, which in turn made me wary of trying new things unless I had the chance to perfect them on my own. Sensory overload – in particular loud or repetitive noise, strong smells, and having other, unknown people in my personal space – also played a role. Not just the physical and mental effect of beingoverstimulated, but also fear of what might happen should the stimuli cause me to have a meltdown. Again, this is a common anxiety for those on the autism spectrum.
Improvising through life
What helps an autistic person cope with and manage such anxieties will vary from person to person, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Mindfulness, counselling, CBT and medication are just some of the tools I and my autistic friends have found helpful to lessen anxiety. Speaking with a doctor or counsellor who specialises in autism is a good place to start. Often, help coping will come from a combination of many different things. For myself, I found some helpful skills in what may be considered a slightly strange environment: improvised comedy. Growing up in the 1990s, I was a huge fan of the out-of-the-box thinking on the comedy show “Whose Line is it Anyway?” A couple of decades later, having moved to Bournemouth for work and not knowing many people, I mustered up the courage to look for some new hobbies where I might meet like-minded folk. An advert for an improvised comedy for fun group immediately caught my eye and, after a couple of weeks working up the courage I emailed the group organiser and went along for a trial session, reasoning I could just leave if I didn’t like it.
As it turned out, I loved it. The people in the group were friendly and many in a similar situation to myself. Over a few months our improvising for fun turned into performing our own improv shows around the Bournemouth and Dorset area. I soon began to realise that my class skills could be used in real life, improvising through situations that used to terrify me. Autism and the anxiety that surrounds it often require masking, which in a strange way I found helpful in improv. The “yes and” ethos of improvised comedy in turn helped me to mask a little less and deal better with situations that took me out of my comfort zone. Though I still experiences challenges with the anxiety surrounding my autism, I feel more equipped to cope improvising my way through the “real” world.