OK With Chaos

Hello, welcome!

This is the very first blog post I have ever written for A Wandering Mind! I’m excited to get into some of my reflections and musings on what I have been thinking about lately, in regard to mental health and specifically, the state of recognition right now. I’m sure you all have noticed that we are in a weird place in history as of May 2026, and the trajectory of how the mentally ill and neurodivergent stand to be seen and treated, at least in the UK, feels like it has shifted fairly dramatically.

Yes, I am anxious about the future, but no amount of cross-analysis on my part is going to change what will happen to me, so my goal is to, basically, do nothing right now. Perhaps you feel that sounds a little irresponsible, but actually, I find it is the only answer to a question you will never get to the bottom of. You can’t find certainty at the end of a chain of logic when it comes to the future.

Autism lends itself well to attempting to be prepared for every eventuality. Naturally, you wish to be prepared because you have spent your life rehearsing the best way to navigate a situation without raising suspicion and incurring odd looks and social rejection. I think it is only natural that when somebody who operates this way has their social situation put into question by the actions of their government, they want to mastermind a way to minimise the impact it could have on them.

But what does that mean for your brain? I feel that it leads right into endless loops of rumination. That means I’m “thinking in circles,” and I am not producing any valuable solutions for problems; I am simply removed from the present moment, and now I am building anxiety, worrying about the future, which we all need a reminder: the future doesn’t exist yet. The only real thing in the world is the here and now, as far as we are able to perceive.

The skill might be to do nothing and absorb yourself entirely in the nothing. There will always be something to focus on. I suppose that’s one way to look at acceptance as a concept. When something is happening in another place in time and space that I can’t control, possibly the best thing I can do is focus only on what my senses can tell me about here and now.

After all, they say it is impossible to act with wisdom and self-control whilst experiencing extreme bodily anxiety due to the effect of certain neurochemicals. In general, panic is associated with adrenaline, which, when flooding the body, causes black and white thinking, which can hamper reasoning and logical decision-making. Ironically, autistic individuals often already think in rather black and white terms as standard, so you can see how problematic and difficult it can be if you are also stuck in ruminant thought and winding up your body like a spring, tensing under the stress, doing unseen physical damage to yourself (oh yes, real damage to your body is indeed a symptom of excessive stress).

I challenge you to reflect on how you might be tying yourself in a knot, and to (with kindness and openness) ask your mind to take note of something real and immediate, and if you drift, to return to it, as many times as is necessary. Also, if you like, practice Nadi Shodhana, aka “alternate nostril breathing”, to try to engage your parasympathetic nervous system and disengage your sympathetic nervous system. If you aren’t sure what any of that means, basically, by breathing in and out in this very specific way, we can actually stimulate the system of nerves that is responsible for de-escalating the body from states of elevated alertness and stress, and deactivate the system that is responsible for keeping those states going.

Well, I wish you all well during this time of chaos, and I’m looking forward to writing much more on a lot of interesting topics. See you there!