Lately my autism spectrum disorder has been giving me increasing issues with heightened and nearly always present anxiety, elevated and near constant stress, low frustration tolerance and easy panic, even by small problems or unexpected situations.
This has bothered me several times at different zoos I have visited in the last month or so, but has also increasingly been an issue outside of zoos, for example on public transport.
Actually the vast majority of my recent zoo visits - and of my regular days - have gone quite well and have been quite enjoyable, but these little moments of negative thoughts, panic and meltdown stick quite a bit more in my mind and continue to bother me.
I worry rather greatly about personally getting into some kind of trouble for these brief periods, which have sometimes included societally undesirable behavior like panicked yelling or inappropriate reactions or expression of irritation or anger to situations, and also about the influence of this behavior on the perception of, tolerance for and inclusion of neurodivergent people and people with mental health issues by the general public. Also as someone who generally despises the amount of public nuisance behavior in today's society I feel guilty about having contributed to that myself. Generally I have been quite upset and angry with myself over my behavior lately.
I'm having a hard time being really optimistic about me continuing to visit zoos, and I have already realized an at least temporary ban/break and cancellation of my remaining plans for 2024 are necessary. I do want to continue, but substantial change will have to occur for that to be a realistic option. I am going to try and solve some things with my doctor and therapist, but I am not terribly hopeful about saving the zoo hobby for myself right now.
I used to have similar issues, but of course there are many different forms of autism and further factors that come to play, so my experience and lessons I have learned might be able to offer some help or maybe not. Hopefully in the later case somebody else migth offer their advice.
Forgive me if I read something into your statement based on my personal experience, I dont mean to project.
What I read is that you put a lot of pressure on yourself, what might create a sort of loop back loopback/spiral. Like mentioned did I have the same issue the year I had my break down that lead to my official diagnosis. Until that point I was perciefed as relatively normal functioning, but that was so called mascing and all of that extra work to constantly pretend to be an entirely different persona lead to a burn out that consequentialy also lead to the development of an anxiety disorder and ocd. Both got better once I found a psyachtrist who, I felt was pretty much the first person in my entire life who wanted to help me instead of thinking the only thing I needed was to fit in. Medication might not work for everybody and should self speakingly only be concidered when monitored by a professional, but in my case did it not just have positive effects on my depression, anxiety disorder and ocd but also symptoms of my autism in the form of the brain fog and generaly overstimulation. Important note this might have been a placebo effect, but the specific type of antidepressiva even the brand had impact on the functionality.
The extent of autism and mental health issues can result from different conditions, some are geneticaly, some are products of a disfunctional enviorment, either way dont pressure yourself, dont tell yourself that you would be the one in the wrong. Us autistics found ourself in a world thats transitioning, but is not there yet. Its not a lack of empathy and will in others rather than a lack of familiarity
A lot of neurotypical people are just blind to a lot of the disfunctions in society, or just dont bother because the system was created in a way that kept them compliant. The issues autistic or mentaly ill people uncover challenge the system and a lot of people dont react all too positive to that for several reason, might that because they fear the change could negatively impact them. Theres that false attitude of I went through stuff and so should you. Some feel as if autistic would get too many benefits they envy, but the issue did not lay with the disabled but a system that forced them through stuff nobody would have to inherently face. All of this is complex, but does have an impact on some autistic individuals. A family member of mine works in the autistic treatment center of a hospital, we often talk about the many factors that impact the lifes of neurodiverse individuals, I mean I can also add my experience first hand.
Dont view the revelations and informations as burdens, sometimes it can feel as if more knowledge could lead to less satsifaction, because not knowing left room for alternative solutions, but in the end would only reality apply and one thing I can tell there are a lot of solutions that are just not known yet.
Just because there is not much understanding and support yet does not mean it would never come. Every single day does society make progress, I can confirm this first hand. I can confirm this first hand, when I was diagnosed there was very very little understanding seemingly no knowledge in other people. I had friends parents of friends, family, more distant relatives, neighbours, teacher, other students, even random people along some professionals claim utter nonsense just because they could neither admit that they lacked information nor reflect on the prejudices.
Another fundamental aspect was a therapist who despite not being especialy trained for autistic, made the specific effort to educate themself on the topic so that they were able to draw the line between what I could genuinely not do due to my disability and what things I just needed to get more used to.
In beginning did I also start to lose controll of my masking and the disorder I have developed due to false treatment started to get through, and people did look scared because I was visibly in disstress. I suddenly kept standing in the middle of the path because I was so overwhelmed that my body froze and no then I could not just go to the side.
A break can be emotionaly challenging but necessary to allow your brain to sort out it self in my experience. There had always been a problem with me thinking I could and failing to read the signals of my body. Generaly speaking have I always felt as if my brain had always that much going on that signals from my body like hunger thirst over heating pain and general stress did not get through and therefor have I unintentionaly caused both physical and mental trauma to myself.
There is no fixed schedule of how to do what when and how, we are the pioneers of these things and this can be unpleasant but since we could not change the state we found ourselves in we might as well also be a proud of ourself that we dare to persist. Mean outlook is complex, sometimes people tell you how to view things, but neither are they always right nor is that even an option in some cases.
I did not went to any zoo for seven years when previously I never went without a visit for longer than a month max. Not that it would always take that long, but rather had to do with a lot of other stuff I needed to sort out first. But I can tell this break has helped so much, that I no longer
Cant tell if this is also the case in your home country, but in germany are people with severe mental health issue and disabilities entitled to bring a support person along with them. Something I have made use of since I would have two tendencies that could bring me and others into danger when stressed, either standing still or at least mobing slowly whilst I fight sorting all the stimulation out or walking suddenly much faster to get away from the situation was has caused me to even falsely read a read headlight as green and walking on a then empty street what had me almost run over several times.
It can be very benefitial to plan your day out ahead in the sense of memorizing calm corners of the parks. Some institutions have more of them some less, so you might want to adapt your plans temporarily to be able to further create positive experiences that can strengthen your confidence and therefor capabilities to tackle going out into more or less crowded spaces.
Some aspects of your autism might stick around but are not to be read as negative even if they would make things a bit more difficult but its your disability its not you letting go of yourself, other parts are enviormental and can happily get trained and be patient. I was very upset when both the medication and therapy did not work within weeks and months. I know years can sound horrible but to have the chance to see a light at the end of a tunnel is already a lot, remember it does get better even if you cant sense that yet. In many cases have I only realized the progress when I forgot to focus on it that much. You are strong even if you cant feel that yet. You also seem to be not as deep in the maze as I was when i recieved my diagnosis so your outlook is even better. Dont give up hope, dont allow the intrusive thoughts get to you. Ask yourself what are the sources you might feel stressed that would lead to such disorders. There can also be nutritional problems, but just because the spectrum would offer several explanations would not mean your solution would not be among them. Get well soon.
We autistic do already a lot to fit in now its time for the neurotypicals to do their half meeting us half way.
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). I never have really struggled with food however. Of course, I still do suffer from some sensory issues such as incredibly loud and crowded spaces, but they are not as big an issue as to say I cannot walk around out and about like everyone else. While with a bit of a closer look most people can tell I am autistic to some degree, I do not feel like it gets in the way of my life as much as it used to. 
