Autism/Aspergers people. How are you coping?

[ofwarren]

It's obviously a very trying time for everyone, but autistics especially so.

I feel like my life is in a tail spin.
I thrive on routine and planning and knowing what's coming but now everything is up in the air and the huge uncertainty is making me so anxious.

I've prepped as much as I can with food and supplies but I'm struggling day to day .

There are 5 of us in our family and we are all home for the foreseeable future, due to our son's liver transplant.

How are other autistics/Asperger's people (or your autistic children) feeling at the moment?

@ofwarren Its definitely helping me to have a plan. I'm going to move the spare bed mattress into the master bedroom so that if we all get ill at the same time we can just snuggle in with netflix, if its just one or two of us then whoever is ill will be in there. I'm also following the news, I find I need to know everything about a topic, especially as there is so much uncertainty!

@OldLace I am glad it helps! Everything is very all over the place at the moment, DH is also working from home so that means my space in the office for retreating during the day for 30 mins has gone! I'm going to end up hiding in the bathroom with the laptop at this rate!

@JohnMcCainsDeathStare I agree, at least if we went into lockdown everyone would have to follow the rules and we would know where we are in terms of kids, school, etc.

DS2, HFA, is at home with me, self isolating. He’s very happy; everything is quiet and he can spend all day with his favourite one of our dogs.
We WILL have fireworks when it comes to doing some home school type work though.

my ds has a restricted diet and pasta is one of the things he will eat, can;'t get any so he will be disappointed
He thrives on the routine of school so it is going to be bloody hard once the school closes. I guess he will do his online gaming on PS$

Hello hope u dont mind me adding to thread, i have 3 year old who has recently been diagnosed with autism, she is non verbal and limited understanding of language , we have kept her home as i have asthma and high risk category, its been day 2 and she is coping ok but im worried about overall effect to not having routine for her. Im worrid we will have more and more meltdowns , having a lot of hyper manic moments at the moment, currently having one now!

I am loosely following a schedule but obviously its not same

Trying to stick to routine as much as I can. Toddlers at nursery and I'm studying from home. When his nursery shuts is when it will become difficult. I find being inside with him very testing. I usually break the day up by visiting playgroups, parks, libraries ext. also on another note, worry about that aside. I'm loving being at home on my own. Think I'll struggle going back to the business of college and social interaction

I don't like the uncertainty, not being able to predict what will happen. I've had to stop obsessively checking, it kinda seems pointless now anyway. My eldest is also autistic and for the first time ever kinda wants to go out now she shouldn't! Ha!

I have no choice for my little one to he home her speical needs nursery has closed for the 12 weeks as lot of high risk children! So she is at home thankfully i am SAHM with 1 year old too

I find being out to different thinge also helps massively unfortunately not able to

I’m not coping . Started washing my hands in bloody flash last night so both hands burnt . GP and MH team been phoning multiple times a day and told me if I didn’t calm down, start eating again and drinking and sleeping I’d find myself sectioned very quickly . Finding I’m getting an immense level of support thankfully but bloody hell, it’s hard .

I’ve turned off the news and I’ve stopped googling as it’s frightening me . I think I might actually be phobic of Boris Johnson now, which might not be a bad thing ...

Dsis is severely autistic and she’s coping a damn sight better than me oddly , she’s very relaxed - but she’s in residential care which is being very strictly controlled .

Imterrified , im sorry to hear ur not coping, continue to listen to gp and mh team. Its important and the situation is temporary, obviously dont know how long but do know life will get back to normal. As u probably know lack of sleep food and drink will make feels worse. Wish u well

@Imterriified I’ve turned off the news and I’ve stopped googling as it’s frightening me

I'm Aspie.
Last week at work I ended up in a state crying/shaking/hyperventilating. I went off sick on Friday.

I've decided shortly after to quit compulsively watching CV news as it was making me ill.

I had been watching and prepping since mid January which is a long haul of anxiety.

My advice is step away from watching the news. It's working for me.

So sorry @imterrified
I haven't got any advice because I'm not coping so well myself but just wanted to respond and say I'm thinking of you.
This will get better and we will get normality back soon.

Now I'm going to have to think of ways of inserting HomeEd into standard household stuff - and not forgetting modern languages

I'm not coping well at all with the changes. I'm feeling very anxious from the moment I wake up each day. I work in a shop that sells non essential items. If we had safety gear and/or limits on how many customers could enter at one time then I'd feel much safer. Currently feel like I'm putting myself and my family at risk, with no ability to mitigate that risk and all for absolutely no reason as nobody needs the things we sell, yet our customers are not staying away. I feel like I'm doing something that is wrong by going into work at this time, and I struggle with that in my mind. I'm thinking of handing in my notice soon and setting up a nice routine at home, even though I was so happy when I got this job and do need the money.

I just want everything to go back to normal. I am sure everyone does though.

I’m ok mostly. Waves of panic sometimes. Change of routine hasn’t been a huge issue so far other than a few things I’m missing, but mostly I’m seeing the positives of life being much slower and quieter. But we are in the oddly fortunate position of already being unable to work at present for health reasons and thus are already on UC (and I have PIP) so we aren’t facing the worry about work/wages. Never thought I’d be so grateful for that!

The unpredictability and unknown is what is getting to me most.

Not well. The complete suspension of routine has me really stressed out. I burst into tears yesterday and screamed so loudly I actually scared myself. Not being able to control anything is terrifying.

I'm not diagnosed but I score very highly on self-tests.

Also, I normally obsessively watch the news but I've realised that it's giving me such anxiety that I've switched it off. But that's changed my routine and my background noise so that's adding to the anxiety. Gah!

Ds is 15 and has a recent diagnosis of ASD. He's just found out tonight that he won't be sitting his gcses that he's been so anxious about. That has made him feel even more anxious in a way as he sees all his time in school as a waste.

As far as the coronavirus goes he doesn't really watch any TV or keep up with current affairs, so he's not as anxious about the whole situation as he could be.

His whole life is self isolation so that's not going to change much for him. I will be interested to see how he copes as its unlikely he will return to school before September.

Anxiety was building all last week and I had a bad meltdown on Saturday, could barely function Sunday. Then when I'd finished getting stocked up for a few weeks and started self isolating (no symptoms but it's the right thing to do) on Monday I started to relax a lot more. My toddler is driving me nuts but I got some new wireless noise cancelling earbuds and I've been listening to white noise on them while he watches stuff on his tablet and that's helping. It's become my new special interest and I'm obsessed with checking for info so will have to watch out for anxiety creeping up on me again.

I've got 12 bottles of decent wine and a good stash of decent CBD oil to see me through!

So anxious today.
I went to my dentist appointment yesterday and now today I have what I think is acid reflux.
I do suffer from this anyway and I have pain in the middle of my shoulder blades and my throat feels a bit scratchy.

I know rationally it's not the virus because I have only been out yesterday, for the first time in 17 days and I wore a mask etc, but I still feel so on edge that it may be the virus 😭

For those with health anxiety, this is absolute torture.

We're actually doing largely okay here. Main problem today though is that the kids were up at 5 and are both overtired. So one meltdowns/panics, while the other whines and cries. Fun.