You may live with fear, fear of being anxious and that may bring about anxiety and depression. When you have Autism you get to deal with both. Fear is an emotional response to a definite or known threat, but with autism you often have little control over how you are able to deal with those. When we are faced with fear, most of us experience the physical reactions similar to anxiety. Fear causes anxiety and anxiety can cause fear.

When Symptoms Overlap

Fear and anxiety may share similar symptoms, but they are not the same. Fear is a response to a known threat, while anxiety arises from something less defined. Though their effects can overlap, our experience of each depends on the context in which they appear.

Associations with Fear

Fear is also associated with an increased heart rate and shortness of breath, followed by a fight or flight stress response, anxiety is a response to an unknown threat which comes from our mind’s interpretation of the possible dangers that can immediately arise, or that we’re uncomfortable with. Although anxiety starts with an unpleasant, vague sense of apprehension, both fear and anxiety can create a sense of foreboding. It is usually our response to both that creates the fear we feel.

In either response it is important to stand back, rather than act on the symptoms of those responses. It is fear over anxiety that is more harmful.