Anxiety and Processing
Anxiety is an emotion that is extremely common amongst those with neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and ADHD for a variety of reasons. Anxiety is like fear in that it involves inner turmoil and feelings of dread, but fear is regarding a present threat whereas anxiety is regarding a potential one.
Navigating the unpredictability of everyday life is a significant challenge for someone with processing issues. When something does happen the individual will struggle to process what has happened and why it has happened in real time. This can create panic or an inappropriate reaction. The person has no mechanism for working out what to do in this situation. As a consequence individuals will try to anticipate what might happen in order to plan for every eventuality. This leads to overthinking and can lead to an overwhelming state of anxiety, which may become chronic.
There are two key areas where processing and anxiety can be a particular issue, these are change and social interaction. Actual difficulties vary depending on the type and severity of the processing issues experienced by the person.
Change
Planned change is often not too difficult for someone with processing issues to cope with, as long as they are notified in advance. This allows time for the person to get used to the idea of the change and to plan for it. However, sometimes the resulting plans are too detailed, leading to stress when things don’t go exactly to plan or anxiety when there are many eventualities to plan for and no way of knowing which will happen.
Sudden changes can cause panic, and this is especially the case when it is a kind of change the individual has never experienced before and therefore does not know what to do. If no support is available, the situation can spiral out of control to the detriment of the person involved. The situation may trigger what is perceived to be challenging or aggressive behaviour or in an attempt to meet what they were trying to do, the person may endanger themselves or others.
So for example, someone is walking a familiar route and they are stopped by the police because of a bomb scare. At this point the police officer may be confronted by someone trying to insist on going that anyway and getting increasingly distressed that this is not possible. The situation could get out of control if the person runs off directly into danger, or behaviour results in the person being detained.
Unfortunately, when something like the above happens, the person’s ability to communicate will also be less than normal. How can you communicate what is wrong when you are struggling to process the situation? The stress and distress of the situation will further impair communication ability.
Clearly if this kind of thing is likely to happen, then the person will not be allowed out without support. Serious issues can arise when someone appears to cope with unexpected changes. Many people with processing issues learn to cope with the sudden changes that happen with some frequency and which have been experienced on several occasions before. Things like a new instructor at a regular exercise class, meetings or appointments being cancelled at the last minute, being asked to go somewhere at short notice, or an item being sold out. It appears that they are coping with every day life. But then when something completely unexpected happens and they are at a complete loss as to what to do, serious situations can result.
Of course once something bad has happened once, this will increase anxiety and the person will take extra steps. This is when anxiety can spiral out of control and if not dealt with can result in the person refusing to leave the house.
Transitions can be particularly challenging. Transitions such as the change from primary to secondary school, leaving home, starting to work for an employer, changing jobs. For some people the thought of changing jobs is so anxiety provoking that they would rather put up with bullying and victimisation in their job.
The transition form primary school into secondary school can be very challenging. Not only will there be the new surroundings, new teachers and new children to familiarise themselves with, but the classes will go from being in a single room at primary school to different classrooms for different subjects. For someone with processing issues, this transition is extremely challenging because of the amount of information that needs to be processed in a short period of time. If the child makes this transition with a friend, it can be easier.
Social interaction and communication
Social interaction can be very challenging for those with processing issues, especially when processing issues are around understanding of what is being said. Generally if someone has processing issues, they are not able to process beyond the literal meaning of what is being said. This leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding of intent. It is normal for most people to read a lot into what is said to them. This can lead to frustration on both sides. Frustration on the part of the person with processing issues when they struggle to make the person understand and the person appears to have completely misunderstood both the intent and the content of the intended communication. Frustration also arises on the part of the other person because context is ignored, hints are not picked up on, and communication just isn’t working somehow.
For the person with processing issues, this leads to a lot of both frustration and anxiety - social anxiety. Many people who struggle with processing issues find dealing with strangers difficult except in the simplest of transactions. Worse, there can be a lot of anxiety after the event around whether they did get their point across, whether they said something they should not have said, whether they accidentally offended the other person without realising it. This anxiety is worse if the person is also struggling with exposure anxiety and thinks they might have exposed something about themselves they didn’t intend to. Even if they exposed something intentionally, there is still an anxiety backlash.
All this, before we even consider the emotional side of social interaction - something that can cause even more anxiety especially in those who process the emotion after the event.
Social interaction is about making emotional connection. If this cannot be processed, the person with processing issues can come across as cold and uninterested and this has an impact on the social interaction event as a whole. If the person with processing issues is emitting but not returning emotion, this can result in a certain amount of confusion on the part of the other person.
Strategies and Consequences
Many people who experience processing issues will try to adhere to their routines and may be averse to going to new places or having new experiences without support because of the challenges of dealing with new situations and new people. In some cases, this can lead to escalate into a refusal to leave the house, because of because of extreme anxiety about what others might do or think, or what might happen more generally.
Others learn to cope or at least get by in most situations but then become extremely vulnerable when something unexpected happens that they don’t know how to deal with. Vulnerable because they can become extremely distressed and unable to respond effectively - and this can be misinterpreted causing the situation to escalate.
The long term consequences of such events depends a lot on the character and determination of the individual. Will they withdraw or accept that such distressing situations are part of their experience of life and continue living their life to the best of their ability?