https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1177/25739581251366856
Beyond Common Reassurances of "Its OK" - The Reality of Anxiety in Autism
"For many autistics, anxiety isn’t just an occasional system alert—it’s a back-
ground process running at max capacity, constantly consuming resources, leading to overheating, and at times, triggering a full system shutdown (meltdown)... Instead of expecting autistics alone to constantly overclock their processing power just to function, we need a fundamental shift in the
base model’s architecture itself."
This article really resonated with me — it captures Autistic anxiety authentically, holistically, and compassionately. I’d highly recommend reading it (if you have access to Autism in Adulthood).
It underlines why schools so often generate anxiety for Autistic children: they function as an intensified microcosm of society, inherently anxiety-evoking in their structures and demands.
