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Question for other #ActuallyAutistic people and also #ActuallyADHD:
[Long post due to lots of context]
When there is a change to my routines - even if it’s an expected change that has been planned for days or even months in advance - I can feel something like “anticipation” until I’m back to familiar routines. This is also true when starting a new routine until it feels familiar.
The “anticipation” is strange as it manifests as if it’s anxiety with all the physical signs, but the word “anxiety” does NOT feel right to me at all.
I know it is definitely related to “uncertainty”. And that’s true even when I have a very good idea of how the change in routine will pan out (i.e. I have low levels of uncertainty, not always high). So this also excludes catastrophising MOST of the time because I already know nothing awful will happen.
If I can’t predict how the change of routine will unfold then I find my brain tries to calculate ALL the possible outcomes - good, bad or indifferent - and try to prepare for as many of them as possible. This response seems learned; I’ve been in situations when I’ve had an unexpected routine change in the past and been unprepared which led to awful outcomes. After those events, I have often reflected and seen that it might have been possible to predict what happened and prepare to a reasonable degree. So that’s what I do now. If this is catastrophising, then it ALSO includes the BEST possible outcomes and everything in between. So it’s not straight forward, anxiety-driven catastrophising which is focused only on the negative.
I really wanted to learn more about autistic “anticipation” as it relates to routine changes, or even “anxiety” in response to routine changes (even though anxiety doesn’t sound like the right word for me), but I couldn’t find much online.
So, do any of you have any good online resources that could help me understand myself better when it comes to this? (I may want to share a resource with a neuro-affirming therapist in future so an online resource would be great.) Could be blogs, articles, videos, etc. I’m not great with podcasts unless there is a full transcript.
Or, do you have any personal insights that you could share with me that might help me understand this better?
Key to note here: I can understand the anticipation or anxiety if something potentially bad might happen (classic anxiety / catastrophising) but I ALSO feel this way when I KNOW the routine change should bring about normal life things, just slightly differently. I.e. nothing bad and there are even benefits to the routine change! So this is the part I am most stuck on and wanting to change… if it’s even possible.
Phew! Long post. Please feel free to ask any clarifying questions. Alexithymia is common for us autistics so this question might not be easy to understand, and that’s okay 
@AnAutieAtUni@beige.party@actuallyautistic Going to attempt to clarify my query from the above post!
Ultimately, I want to know why I feel this kind of stressful anticipation when my routines change, even if everything is fine and I know everything will be fine.
I know anxiety is common for autistic people, but this does NOT feel like anxiety. I can’t even say what I would be anxious about. But it does feel stressful, and that level of stress can be high even when there is a pre-planned routine change and I’ve even experienced it before (just not routinely).
(Also - why can’t my ADHD side take over and see this routine change as an ideal opportunity for some fun novelty?!)
**Why do autistics even feel stress at ALL when routine changes happen?**
@AnAutieAtUni From my personal experience and readings (I searched a lot about the why we feel stress) it’s because we live in a world not made for us. It’s a defence mechanism, and why the ADHD doesn’t take over, sometimes it does for me, but it depends on a lot of factors mostly related for me to exhaustion, sensory overload, bad sleep.
I don’t have anymore in mind all the resources, except the one I mentioned in a previous comment. But I guess if you look online about autistic anxiety, by autistic authors, you may find some.
@adelinej Thank you! This all makes sense.
@AnAutieAtUni This is a common thing for me. From what I can tell, it feels like discomfort with not having a reliable routine to use anymore. After the new routine clicks, then I settle down. When you're in this mental state, are you pre-ruminating or catastrophizing a lot on what might happen? I think that's a common autistic reaction to change. I'm learning to let myself use that reaction to pre-process any stress about an impending change and work through things, so when I get to the big day or whatever I'll have already gotten most of the fretting out of the way. Sometimes that even works.
@joshsusser Thank you! Helps to know I’m not alone in this! I definitely relate to what you described of taking a while to settle down in a new routine. I do wonder why that is even a Thing for me as well - I can’t figure out what is unsettling or why.
I can certainly have pre-anxieties / catastrophising. But in one example, I got all of that out the way 2 months beforehand, got plenty of plans and preparation in place, and the actual routine change lifted pressure off me and even went better than planned… there was no bad scenario possible, and it even went better than planned… And yet! I was still stressed. 
I can’t figure out why that would be. The only thing I can think of is that maybe there is some relevant past trauma that’s subconscious and making the particular new routine stressful, I just haven’t realised this yet.