I've been exploring my brain alot. I noticed today social situations like groups, parties, attending events, being misunderstood can active my stress response and send me into an anxiety spiral.
In stark contrast to this I'm able to handle myself extremely calmly in situations like car accidents or helping a person who has hurt themselves etc.
This isn't well researched so I'm curious to know if this is a common pattern in Autism.
I asked Chat GPT to help me theorize some answers as to what might be going on and found it's response interesting. I'm curious to know what others thoughts and experiences are too:
Here's an excerpt:
Clear rules vs. unspoken rules
In accidents / crisis: There’s usually a clear chain of action—check for danger, call for help, follow steps.
In social situations: The rules are invisible, ever-changing, and full of grey areas. There’s no script, and the uncertainty itself is the stressor.
I want to add here: the cost of failing to read the situation accurately is high, adding to stress
Different stress pathways
In immediate danger, your system may switch into hyper-focus mode (a survival response). Many autistic people report being calm, logical, decisive in emergencies.
In social situations, the stress is chronic and ambiguous: reading faces, tracking tone, guessing hidden meanings, monitoring your own behavior. That constant multitasking overloads executive function, leading to panic or shutdown.
Masking cost
Social stress often comes from trying to mask, interpret, and perform “normal” all at once. It’s like running multiple programs on a computer until it overheats.
In an accident, there’s no need to mask—you just act. That frees up resources
Id like to ask others to weigh in with your own personal experiences. How do you respond to stressful events vs high demand social situations?
I responded... by avoiding them. Eek.
You seem like you are blessed with the power of self analysis. So I believe you will strategise your way out of every difficult situation, both real and perceived.
Hmmm. I actually don’t know whether or not I’m on the spectrum, but this is startlingly true for me. I handle actual bad situations really well and quite calmly, but large groups of people make my brain want to shut down, and I have intense misophonia so I quite often get twisted sideways by auditory stimulus that doesn’t really mean anything. What ChatGPT proposed seems reasonable at very least.