Are your co-morbidly worse than your core traits?

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I was diagnosed with OCD, depression, anxiety disorder along with AS and I was told they were all part of it. Then I hear they are not and they are not symptoms of autism. Unless it's all attributed from it then that is what they probably mean. I have read a couple times how autism can lead to OCD symptoms. But I don't know.

Let's just say... autism isn't what cripples my ability to work. It might make it difficult to perform as well in work-place conditions, but it's not what's limiting my life right now. Anxiety is my big scary barrier - I've seen 2 counsellors and 2 CBT psychologists about it, and it's had no effect. Would I call my anxiety co-morbid? I dunno. But I do know that it's as bad as it is because of environmental causes.

I've noticed that just about every psych is a hammer in search of a nail. They all "see" whatever their specialty or patient history is, and know surprisingly little about the other possibilities. I'm generalizing of course, but that's been my experience over the last decade or so. I'm guessing it's partly because they are expected to study based on "schools" of therapy based on various imaginary categories & unproven theories of how human mind work rather than empirical science. Not that I'm bitter, I have had one or two who were excellent and taught me some useful skills. They completely missed several of my actual problems, but did teach me useful coping mechanisms for general use. Others tried to make me fit their worldview & in doing so (and missing/ignoring the actual problems) damaged me enough that it was years before I could bring myself to go to another therapist.

My co-morbids exacerbate my AS issues. So does stress, lack of sleep, sensory overload, you name it....

I'd say at this point anxiety is definitely the worst

Panic attacks are worse than core problems.

I will have to ask the psychologist about it. The person has 20 years of experience with autism, and has spent some years researching high-functioning autism at a major university. The psychologist also has a Phd, and now specializes in evaluating those with ASD or suspected ASD, from what I have gathered.

I'm going to need to research the traits and symptoms of autism more thoroughly to form an opinion.

I do know that I was always shy, didn't like crowds, and preferred to play alone. I did not have social anxiety, however. The social anxiety developed when I started being ridiculed and bullied for being weird or different. After early adulthood, I overcame the social anxiety and thought that I was "cured." But I was actually extremely socially awkward and unaware of social rules, I just didn't know that I was. I made countless social mistakes that kept me from accomplishing what I wanted. Now I'd say any social anxiety I have is derived from my knowledge that I am socially awkward and have poor social instinct. In this instance, it's indirectly caused by ASD.

The OCD developed in a high-stress environment, and when I decided to not participate in the behaviors and thoughts, it mostly went away. It was suggested later on that instead I may have obsessive-complusive personality disorder instead because I am extremely particular about having things a certain way, am a perfectionist, and have some other symptoms.

These symptoms are what I personally identify as poor executive functioning (in no particular order):

1. Poor sense of time
2. Difficulty moving from one task to another
3. Being unable to stop participating in activities involving special interests to move on to completing important responsibilites
4. Trouble with prioritizing tasks
5. Forgetfulness
6. Inability to focus when there are things that trigger my sensory sensitivities
7. Difficulting with focusing on "boring" things
8. Difficulties with multi-tasking
9. Inattention at times due to "being in my own head"
10. Procrastination
11. Intense focus on certain activities to the point where I ignore what's around me, lose track of time, and have difficulty stopping the activity even when I have made myself ill by not eating/drinking/resting
12. Impatience
13. Trouble with delaying gratification
14. Impulsivity
15. Difficulty with discerning which details are important, and which can or should be ignored
16. Confusion and sense of being overwhelmed when there are too many responsibilities to focus on
17. Losing or misplacing things often
18. Getting sidetracked easily

I'm sure there are more, but those are what I can think of at the moment.

I had classic OCD symptoms for a couple of years, but now this is what OCD-like symptoms are left:

1. Need for things to be accomplished in a particular way (having a system that must be followed for many different things)
2. Needing to have particular foods from certain brands
3. Emotional distress when routines are disrupted
4. Perfectionism
5. Fixations/obsessions with certain topics
6. Need for order
7. Need for things to remain the same until I decide that they must be changed
8. Fear of contamination, germs, dirt

I don't believe I have any compulsions.

^^ Your list of executive functioning traits all seems very familiar to me, and are the impairments that most frustrate and depress me in myself. Until they were identified at my ASD evaluation, they often made me very, very frightened that I was completely losing my mind - as if some other force were in the "driving seat" of my mind, not me, and I might wake up one day with no free will at all.

A lot of the EF items seem like typical ADHD behaviors.
Most of the OCD items don't seem like OCD but instead repetitive behaviors, only fear of germs seems like OCD.

@ Trogluddite

I didn't even realize mine were a result of poor executive functioning until fairly recently. I just figured that I was lazy, immature, and irresponsible, despite the fact that I was always trying really hard to improve myself and my situation.

I agree, they are very frustrating and depressing. I am slowly finding ways to work around them.

Learning this about myself has made it now possible to directly attack my problems.

I was tested for inattention, but didn't do worse than the average person. The tests were fairly stupid, in my opinion. I actually felt very distracted but was not worse than average except on one part of one test. I was told that the various assessments could indicate borderline ADHD.

I'm not normally very inattentive, however. I usually can focus very well on things I want to focus on. It's just that I often can't block out sounds, smells, lights, things in my peripheral vision, the way things feel, etc.

And I tend to be very careful when doing things, and notice many details. I'm a cautious type of person. I don't usually break things or hurt myself either. The people I've known with ADHD are much more disastrous, not careful at all, and more impulsive.

I just don't get why I have all these other EF issues.

Yes, I agree that the fear of contamination is more "OCD-like" than like a symptom of ASD.

Sometimes it is hard to know if it's my autism or my severe dyspraxia that is giving me the most trouble.

This almost is the same for me.