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Sunday Syndrome, the worry of Monday.

Roy

I have struggled on Sundays for ages, the day starts well and then the fear of Monday starts to set in, anxiety becomes intolerable and a whole night is spent with insomnia. This has gone on for more years than I can remember. My wife turned round two weeks ago and said to me, “ why do you fight this? Just have Monday off and have a day of doing what you want to do”. We had the discussion that, would Tuesday become Monday? No it doesn’t. To quote the Boomtown rats,  I don’t like Mondays. I am self employed, I never have a lunch hour, that’s 4 hours, I don’t mind working on a Saturday morning, that’s 4 hours. Obviously that’s one days work. I thought my wife would be angry with me for being at home on a Monday. She is an NHS nurse and my best friend. Her answer came from the film, Love Actually through The first lobster. DER!

Parents

  • Thank you for your kind messages, the feeling physically sick in the mornings is the worst part. Autistic people tend to be very intelligent and logical people, I can’t work out why anxiety is so prevalent in many of us. 
    I had a massive meltdown about a year ago and had a headache afterwards for days, I thought I had actually damaged my brain. Since then I have been constantly tired and have no interest in anything. To be honest working 4 days a week is as much as I can cope with. I have loved working on classic cars since I was a child, I look at them at work and have no interest. Some days I stop talking completely and don’t eat.

    I spoke to my mother a few weeks ago, through my childhood she tried to commit suicide on many occasions. She said for the first time that she didn’t want to die, she just wanted it all to stop. Don’t worry I’m not going to kill myself but I can now understand where she is coming from if that makes sense.

  • in reply to Roy
    Roy said:
    the feeling physically sick in the mornings is the worst part.

    Yes I would get that a lot. If the normal anxiety was combined with an extra demand that day, (such as an exam, a meeting or even a PE lesson at school) then that was enough to escalate feeling sick into actually being sick Nauseated face

    Roy said:
    Autistic people tend to be very intelligent and logical people, I can’t work out why anxiety is so prevalent in many of us.

    I've struggled so much with it my whole life and sadly this is an area where so much more research is needed. I have my own theories and may do a post about it one day. 

    In terms of Mondays I believe it is about having to go back into an environment where we know from past experience that we will likely experience overwhelming social demands and sensory overloads. Plus the added stress of the change in routine from the weekend and the uncertainty of what is going to happen.

    This kind of fear can't be erased by CBT techniques because the fears are very real, based upon what has happened before and is almost certain to happen again.

    Traditional exposure therapy for anxiety is not going to work when the fears are sensory in nature. The more an autistic person is exposed to their sensory triggers, the more they are going to experience sensory overload, triggering more frequent meltdowns and ultimately burnout. Repeated exposure actually increases anxiety not decreases it.

Reply
  • in reply to Roy
    Roy said:
    the feeling physically sick in the mornings is the worst part.

    Yes I would get that a lot. If the normal anxiety was combined with an extra demand that day, (such as an exam, a meeting or even a PE lesson at school) then that was enough to escalate feeling sick into actually being sick Nauseated face

    Roy said:
    Autistic people tend to be very intelligent and logical people, I can’t work out why anxiety is so prevalent in many of us.

    I've struggled so much with it my whole life and sadly this is an area where so much more research is needed. I have my own theories and may do a post about it one day. 

    In terms of Mondays I believe it is about having to go back into an environment where we know from past experience that we will likely experience overwhelming social demands and sensory overloads. Plus the added stress of the change in routine from the weekend and the uncertainty of what is going to happen.

    This kind of fear can't be erased by CBT techniques because the fears are very real, based upon what has happened before and is almost certain to happen again.

    Traditional exposure therapy for anxiety is not going to work when the fears are sensory in nature. The more an autistic person is exposed to their sensory triggers, the more they are going to experience sensory overload, triggering more frequent meltdowns and ultimately burnout. Repeated exposure actually increases anxiety not decreases it.

Children