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Part of living as a neurodivergent is dealing with the ingredients that make up something like autism. This is no exception to someone like me who deals with sensory processing disorder, one of several ingredients that make me neurodivergent.
But as you know, one of the key areas that I struggle with greatly is anxiety and one the worst is anticipation anxiety. Lately, I have found myself being more and more anxiety when it comes to anticipating something whether its a doctor’s appointment, a meeting with my personal advocate/life coach or something like a NFL game. Even something that I look forward to I build up anxiety about because I don’t know how it is going to go.
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Now, I put in the picture of Pikachu from “Pokemon: Concierge,” at the top of this blog for a specific reason. There is a scene where he is about to go on a zipline, and he ends up shaking in fear and anxiety. When I look at this picture, I often put myself in the electric rodent’s feet and see that what Pikachu is experiencing is anticipation anxiety. He’s afraid of what he is going to experience if he gets on the zipline. Will he stay on? Will he fall off?
That’s the kind of feeling that I sometimes get on account when I am anticipating something. Just the idea of not knowing how things are going to go is enough to make me feel clammy and nervous. Is what I am about to experience going to make me at ease or make me feel like Pikachu in the picture?
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This is something that as a special education student that I had to experience on a frequent basis as an example. I always had that anticipating anxiety of how my day was going to go, how the environment was going to be, will there be that unexpected school safety drill that is sensory provoking or going into the cafeteria in middle school knowing that the environment in there can be loud and unpredictable. All of these are what makes up my own anticipation anxiety during my time in the Seekonk Public School system.
What’s more is that I tried to not show my anxiety to others around me whether it was at school or during my nearly 20 years in retail. I had to mask my anxiety which only made the problems worse for me on a mental health level. The sad thing is that with the diagnosis ratio being at 1 in 36, neurodivergent individuals are often turned away when it comes to their anticipating anxiety as most will probably view this as a form of weakness or regression.
To me, having anticipating anxiety can be overall crippling and as much as I try to show that I don’t have it, it’s hard and will continue to be a part of my identity as a neurodivergent. It’s just something that I have to live with, I’m afraid.
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Catch you all later!!
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