Anxiety on the Autism Spectrum, Part 2: Coping

If you’ve ever traveled to a foreign country, you know how stressful it is to enter an unfamiliar environment. Everything is different: the customs, the language, the social norms, the mentality. You’re stressed and overwhelmed. The novelty makes your head spin.

This anxiety is very familiar to me–not because I travel, but because I have autism.

Social norms and cues that most people seem to grasp intuitively have never come naturally to me. I had to piece them together laboriously, and even then, I make blunders. I’m frequently overwhelmed by sensory stimuli that most people seem not to notice, and internal aspects of autism–cognitive rigidity, atypical interoception, detail-oriented thinking–make anxiety even tougher to manage.

For me, these struggles with anxiety also fit into the spiky cognitive profile that characterizes 2e learners. Twice-exceptional kids and teens are highly advanced in some areas and struggle significantly in others. In my case, learning Russian felt much easier than naming basic emotions. 

Nevertheless, I’ve developed solutions over the years. Anxiety remains a part of my life, but I’ve learned to change it when I can and accept it when I can’t. 

In my last post, I shared my experience of learning to recognize anxiety. In this one, I’ll outline the tactics that help me manage. I divide my anxiety solutions into two core categories: maintenance and coping strategies. 

Maintenance Strategies

Maintenance strategies help me stay at a steady baseline. I practice them regularly to keep overwhelm at bay. They include:

-Physical activity: Exercise is a form of sensory regulation for me, and each activity offers unique benefits. In high school, yoga helped me improve my balance and interoception and become approximately 28% less clumsy. Rollerblading provides a satisfying sense of power and acceleration, and swimming is rhythmic and calming. My latest favorite, weightlifting, is oddly similar to my weighted blanket; my muscles relax fully after.

-Meditation-like experiences: I’ve never been a fan of true meditation, but I’ve found mindfulness more palatable. Lately, I’ve been doing lots of progressive muscle relaxation, which involves systematically tensing and releasing muscle groups. Other options include deep breathing, body scans, and yoga.

-Managing my social battery: This became a point of considerable confusion before I received an autism diagnosis. Therapists and psychiatrists typically interpreted my preference not to socialize as a sign of anxiety or depression. Avoidance reinforces social anxiety, so treatment involves challenging those fears by exposing oneself to social situations. 

I do experience social anxiety, perhaps because I find social interactions so befuddling, but I also have a lower capacity for socializing. Think of it this way: everyone has a social battery. Once the battery dies, you need to recharge it. Most people’s batteries recharge to 100%, but mine never seems to go above 30%, no matter how long I “charge” it by resting and being alone.

This isn’t a temporary hurdle that I can overcome with exposure therapy; it’s an unfortunate limitation that I’ve learned to work around. I space out social activities and schedule downtime in between, and I try to notice the signs of social fatigue before my battery goes dead.

Coping Strategies

Coping strategies are targeted and tactical. They help me handle acute stressors. I think of them as tools in a toolbox: I might technically “have” a strategy accessible to me, but it takes practice to wield it effectively. Trying a strategy once usually isn’t enough to determine whether it works for me, and I’ve learned to keep persisting even if I’m not sure I’ll be successful.

Perspective-taking: In moments of stress, I try to remember past situations when I panicked over an imagined scenario that never actually happened. I also ask myself, “Will I be worried about this in a week? A month? A year?” Usually, the answer is no.

Deep breathing: Deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the body’s rest-and-digest functions. Online GIFs can help with pacing.

Sensory input: Intense sensory input, like a cold shower or a few drops of hot sauce, can provide a shock to the system that interrupts the anxiety spiral.

Music: Somebody once suggested creating a playlist that begins with one emotion (e.g., panic) and gradually shifts to another, song by song. I’ve never gotten around to implementing this, but it could be a fun project. Until then, I’ll stick with my Garden Indie Spotify playlist.

One thing at a time: When I feel an anxiety spiral accelerating, I try to set aside worries about the future and focus on what I can do in the short term. I tell myself I have plenty of time to worry about the rest, which is true, but for now, I might as well control what I can.

Dog: Canines have remarkable anti-anxiety properties. My dog seems to identify as a lap dog, so she functions as a portable weighted blanket, sitting on top of me when I need her to–and also when I don’t. She licks my hands to ground me (or perhaps because I taste like food), and she gets me outside regularly. She does, however, occasionally create enormous anxiety by eating tennis balls and requiring expensive surgery. She gets away with it because she’s cute.

Conjugating Russian verbs: An unorthodox tactic, perhaps, but it’s highly effective, and I bet you could find equivalents for most 2e kids’ hyper-specific interests (listing video game characters? naming types of trains?)

About Lucy: I graduated from Stanford in 2024 with a degree in psychology and Slavic Studies. I currently live in Boston and work as a writing tutor with a focus on supporting 2e/neurodivergent students. I've been involved in the neurodiversity world since I was diagnosed with autism at age 18. I hope to pursue a PhD in psychology and develop evidence-based interventions to help neurodivergent students write. For tutoring inquiries, please check out my website!