Abrupt Ending of 15 year marriage - can anyone help me to understand

Hello, I'm sorry you are finding it so hard and can imagine how you must feel. I don't have anything to suggest, I wish I did.

If you can't talk indirectly through a 3rd party friend or family member and say what he meant to you, I don't know what the answer is. Time may help, as I think was mentioned before. But this may be many months. It can take 6 months or more to recover from burnout, but I don't want to give you false hope.

Stuart333 Have you experienced burnout - if so,  can you tell me whether you were able to function through it - or was it (as i have read) a complete inability to navigate things? 

I believe so, but it was perhaps a bit less typical.

If I just say what I believe it is, you will then perhaps be able to understand. I have spent considerable time trying to analyse myself, which means it is specific to me, but may apply to some other people. Also, I would strongly note that I am sure the experience differs between men and women as the emotional processes and priorities differ, as anyone who lives in the real world knows.

For various reasons autistic people seem to often have more sensitive nervous systems. This means things can more easily trigger threat responses, either fight flight, fawning, freezing, overwhelm, in the extreme case, or anxiety, unease, stress, etc. more generally.

This generates the various sensations, knotted stomach, clenched teeth, nausea, etc. It also changes the way you think. When threatened there is no point debating all the options to escape, you just rapidly pick one option and get away from the tiger that is about to eat you. So black and white thinking, collapsing arguments, avoiding nuance, is part of survival. It is very hard to notice your thinking changing though.

It makes interactions in strange places or with strange people seem higher stakes, much harder, and worthy or deep analysis later to learn what went right or wrong, i.e. it drives hyper vigilance.

The solution is to try to calm the nervous system, which is through prior practices that it knows from experience are safe. This drives the desire to avoid change, to retreat to somewhere quiet, to be alone.

Because you can't just hide all the time, you tend to squash it down, or have a drink, or find something to cope (inc. stimming). But the pressure builds if you keep going it. Your body is running it's nervous system hot.

Eventually this causes problems. It can't stand down the threat response. You have high adrenaline and cortisol, and other items, your hormones go a bit wrong, your thinking priorities get distorted. I did blood tests, I found multiple things outside the normal range. It also means your kidneys don't slow at night, so you can go to the toilet a lot, like you have diabetes (which I thought, but I don't have). Chronic stress can affect your eyes, which I have too, and cause inflammation and arthritis.

Being on edge may eventually lead to collapse, which is lots of sleeping. Or you may be able to cope on minimal sleep (4 hours or less) for long periods from being permanently wired on adrenaline.

If you are very systematizing, can strongly compartmentalise and have been used to squashing emotions since young and can mask well, you can hide this quite well (or so you think). If you are very logical you can keep going, say if you have a quiet technical job. Work may actually feel safe, sat on your own, working through fixed rules, regulations, calculations, etc. It is non-threatening. But you have no capacity. Evenings are just sit there, no TV, just zone out. Executive function issues exist. Your special interests start to fade. Anything unusual provokes a disproportionate response 

You just want to be alone. You can't support more than one person. Other requests are just too much. You have no bandwidth.

You can't cope. You want the feelings to stop. But mostly you think you are thinking logically, but the priorities are wrong. The arguments too narrow and absolute. Small issues become huge. Multiple issues together are overwhelming. You need peace, you need quiet. Emotional triggers are overwhelming, you start to lose control of your emotions. Crying is easy. You may try to hide it from others, but cry when alone. It may burst out for no reason, collapsing while walking to kitchen to make a cup of tea, or something triggers a memory 

You may be pulled back to previous times you felt like this as your brain replays events looking for how it escaped last time. This is the worst part. It feeds you all the worst moments on a loop as previous times were not good. Understanding your thinking is difficult from inside the system.

I have done this 4 times. The first time killed my relationship, the second time damaged my career and nearly made me go bust, the third and fourth times I considered ending it all. The 4th time I went and got help and got diagnosed. Several times I let large plant collections worth a lot of money die as I couldn't water them.

The way out is reduced pressure, reduced demands, alone time, to get the nervous system to return to baseline and become stable so it does not flip at slight triggers. Thinking then becomes rational, able to hold multiple viewpoints. It is possible to even enjoy things again. This takes months though. It is very easy to push too early and take a step back.

So you can function. But do you make good decisions, no. 

Do you remember much, not really. Do you feel like you are ok, sort of, but that is just you minimising things and coping. Your survival instinct keeps you going.

Are you good with other people, no. They sense it too.

I don't know if this helps. Maybe it gives some insight.

I believe so, but it was perhaps a bit less typical.

If I just say what I believe it is, you will then perhaps be able to understand. I have spent considerable time trying to analyse myself, which means it is specific to me, but may apply to some other people. Also, I would strongly note that I am sure the experience differs between men and women as the emotional processes and priorities differ, as anyone who lives in the real world knows.

For various reasons autistic people seem to often have more sensitive nervous systems. This means things can more easily trigger threat responses, either fight flight, fawning, freezing, overwhelm, in the extreme case, or anxiety, unease, stress, etc. more generally.

This generates the various sensations, knotted stomach, clenched teeth, nausea, etc. It also changes the way you think. When threatened there is no point debating all the options to escape, you just rapidly pick one option and get away from the tiger that is about to eat you. So black and white thinking, collapsing arguments, avoiding nuance, is part of survival. It is very hard to notice your thinking changing though.

It makes interactions in strange places or with strange people seem higher stakes, much harder, and worthy or deep analysis later to learn what went right or wrong, i.e. it drives hyper vigilance.

The solution is to try to calm the nervous system, which is through prior practices that it knows from experience are safe. This drives the desire to avoid change, to retreat to somewhere quiet, to be alone.

Because you can't just hide all the time, you tend to squash it down, or have a drink, or find something to cope (inc. stimming). But the pressure builds if you keep going it. Your body is running it's nervous system hot.

Eventually this causes problems. It can't stand down the threat response. You have high adrenaline and cortisol, and other items, your hormones go a bit wrong, your thinking priorities get distorted. I did blood tests, I found multiple things outside the normal range. It also means your kidneys don't slow at night, so you can go to the toilet a lot, like you have diabetes (which I thought, but I don't have). Chronic stress can affect your eyes, which I have too, and cause inflammation and arthritis.

Being on edge may eventually lead to collapse, which is lots of sleeping. Or you may be able to cope on minimal sleep (4 hours or less) for long periods from being permanently wired on adrenaline.

If you are very systematizing, can strongly compartmentalise and have been used to squashing emotions since young and can mask well, you can hide this quite well (or so you think). If you are very logical you can keep going, say if you have a quiet technical job. Work may actually feel safe, sat on your own, working through fixed rules, regulations, calculations, etc. It is non-threatening. But you have no capacity. Evenings are just sit there, no TV, just zone out. Executive function issues exist. Your special interests start to fade. Anything unusual provokes a disproportionate response 

You just want to be alone. You can't support more than one person. Other requests are just too much. You have no bandwidth.

You can't cope. You want the feelings to stop. But mostly you think you are thinking logically, but the priorities are wrong. The arguments too narrow and absolute. Small issues become huge. Multiple issues together are overwhelming. You need peace, you need quiet. Emotional triggers are overwhelming, you start to lose control of your emotions. Crying is easy. You may try to hide it from others, but cry when alone. It may burst out for no reason, collapsing while walking to kitchen to make a cup of tea, or something triggers a memory 

You may be pulled back to previous times you felt like this as your brain replays events looking for how it escaped last time. This is the worst part. It feeds you all the worst moments on a loop as previous times were not good. Understanding your thinking is difficult from inside the system.

I have done this 4 times. The first time killed my relationship, the second time damaged my career and nearly made me go bust, the third and fourth times I considered ending it all. The 4th time I went and got help and got diagnosed. Several times I let large plant collections worth a lot of money die as I couldn't water them.

The way out is reduced pressure, reduced demands, alone time, to get the nervous system to return to baseline and become stable so it does not flip at slight triggers. Thinking then becomes rational, able to hold multiple viewpoints. It is possible to even enjoy things again. This takes months though. It is very easy to push too early and take a step back.

So you can function. But do you make good decisions, no. 

Do you remember much, not really. Do you feel like you are ok, sort of, but that is just you minimising things and coping. Your survival instinct keeps you going.

Are you good with other people, no. They sense it too.

I don't know if this helps. Maybe it gives some insight.

Thanks l Stuart333 your post is very helpful but also a very difficult read - i hope you never have to go through that again.  I was looking for someone to explain to me what my husband might be going through me and I think you just have.  Your description matches what I think I have seen in my husband.  I honestly do not think i have read an account of the 'inside' of the storm which details it so vividly and so clearly- it is humbling to read.  Thank you so much for replying and sharing so much of what i imagine is a very difficult set of memories to recall.