I wish I knew what to say or advise. I have those moments to when I worry about things I can't control or when the world gets so loud and irritating I can't focus. Having a nice, quiet home to go to and friends and family to talk to help me. I can make it through terrible days at work knowing I have that. Do any of those things help at all?

They do, yeah. I just wish I knew how to turn off all the noise.

I'm finding that when it comes to my autism and the parts of my brain that give me grief, it is better not to try and force my brain to work differently, but rather to learn how to live with what I've got and adapt to it as best I can.

For example: a lot of the time my thoughts/emotions/etc move very slowly. This is part of why I identify with sloths. Yet I have a lot of ambition and things that I want to accomplish, but when I push myself too hard I burn out really fast. I'm learning how to move more slowly, give myself more time to process things, and scale back my ambition into manageable chunks. I spend a lot of time just thinking, or absorbing environmental input, or whatever, maybe you can call this "smelling the roses"--although in my case it's often more like "staring at things without processing visual input." I need it in order to function but it means that operate more like a sloth than like a monkey... and I'm learning how to be okay with that.

When overloaded all I can do is either cry or sleep. It's usually best to avoid being overloaded in the first place. I had to quit one job, go to another, reduce to 32 hours per week, give up a significant chunk of social life, and I still get overloaded sometimes if i push myself too hard over the course of a day or weekend. At least now you can recognize what is happening and realize that it is a symptom of autism and that there is nothing wrong with taking it easy on yourself for that reason.

It's hard to be in tune with a body that resists you at every turn. I'm learning a lot about how to manage chronic pain and fatigue myself. A lot of sunlight exposure in the summer does help things, although not completely. I'm experimenting with medication now although unfortunately both benzos and SSRIs didn't end up working out for me. I'm trying a low-dose tricyclic at night soon, and (this won't apply to you, though) I'm going to try hormone regulation to deal with PMS.

There might be a stim that can help you when you're overloaded. I noticed when I was using the rocking chair in my sister's hospital room I felt a whole lot better in general during all the stress of seeing my sister in that much pain (childbirth). It's worth exploring...

I can't recommend enough trying to get to see a therapist who is experienced in dealing with autistics. I don't know where I'd be without mine.