Wondering if I'm the only one...

I suffered right through my working life from fade outs or falling asleep or visibly failing to concentrate when listening to someone. I didn't have the benefit of a diagnosis until late, and no other medical explanations were forthcoming.

I had difficulty keeping alert when someone was talking to me. Curiously my efforts to correct this seems to have given many people the impression I was a good listener. I'd keep drifting out of consciousness and have to struggle to pick up the thread. A lot of this was after a lot of interactive engagement, so with hindsight it was clearly a sensory overload response.

A feeling of my eyes dragging seems to signal the problem

Also if not sufficiently stimulated, and especially in hot stuffy working environments, I was nodding off, and passing time semi asleep. That probably happens to a lot of people anyway, but I think there was an AS element. I often had to read and synthesise or re-work texts and this activity just couldn't keep my attention. I felt very guilty at the time, often doing hardly anything in a day, and had to try all sorts of things to increase the interest.

The strange thing is I don't think it was loss of sleep. It was just a tendancy to switch out, but this took another form.  I'm inclined to fade out altogether, but was several times checked out for epilepsy and it is not due to that. It can happen when walking about, the sound around switches out, and then suddenly switches back in again. I think it is again a sensory overload reaction - I cannot filter out background, but instead switch off entirely.

I have found that getting regular short break to move around, go on an errand or make an excuse to get outside and moving around helps.

Don't know if this is in any way similar to what you experience, just offering a perspective.

Thanks for the tips.

I should have said, I've had regular blood tests with my GP & apart from an under active thyroid (which is being kept at normal levels thanks to tablets) they haven't found anything.

I'm not on permanent nights so it isn't Vit D deficiency.  I do a maximum of three nights in a row.

I do snore, but my step-dad has sleep apnea & a CPAP machine and my snoring is apparently minor compared to his so again, I don't think it's that.

It is frustrating as I'm wide awake now having slept for two hours and with one more night to go.  I know I have to sleep but it's not easy when I don't know what is causing me to be awake.

Hi, interesting question and one that I was discussing only last night! I am diagnosed AS and have always suffered the same difficulty, no matter the state of my physical health. I did shift work at one time, and certainly the changes of shift do put regular sleep hours out of question, but I haven't done them in 25 years, and nothing about my sleep has changed.

I can say for certain that AS is a root cause. Depending on the 'load' I am carrying at any one time, I can get exhausted by any social intercourse. The amount of physical work I've done in a day doesn't affect it one iota, it's the load in my head that counts, and it's a rare day when nothing is troubling me. I tend to think that it's because AS necessarily involves unresolvable processing that lies behind it. If we acknowledge that sleep is the time period when our brain processes the day's input, it makes sense to me that little gets processed in our brain in the way that NT brains are supposed to.

I wake up tired most days. Some days I just have to sleep at some point because of sheer exhaustion, ranging from minutes to hours. At work, I perfected the art of the 30 minute 'power nap' just to get through the day, and sometimes, if that wasn't enough, I simply worked a short day so that I could get home and away from the sensory inputs that a normal day brings. I acknowledge that I had those opportunities because of the type of work I do, and apart from lunch break, they aren't available to everyone, of course.

I'm convinced that AS, by its' very nature, ruins the quality of my sleep - I often wake up with my head filled with the 'processing' that never ends. If you have excluded any physical causes, you're only left with AS, but as stateofindependence says, AS should be your last explanation, not your first, you could just as easily be suffering from a form of narcolepsy or any one of a myriad of physical things. For my part, I suspect that this is a very common AS issue, so I'll be interested to see what others have to say.

I am frequently tired but this is caused by other health issues, not AS.

Do you snore? If you have sleep apnea this will make you tired in the day.

Has your GP done any blood tests? As basic, they ought to do a full blood count, electrolytes, B12, folate, and vitamin D. If you work nights you are likely to be D-deficient if you don't take supplements.

Be wary of any GP who dismisses your fatigue as just part of AS, although some people have anxiety which stops you dropping off or interrupts sleep, it doesn't sound like this is the case here.

Good luck!

I have slept "badly" all my life.  I have now realised that 6 hours broken sleep is enough for me, and I take a nap if I need one.

I always think thatif you accept the average as your normal, and don't worry about it, then you will feel ok.  

But......I once worked shifts and eventually became ill, because I was unable to sleep during the day. I caught up later, but it weakened me to the point where I caught every minor illness and eventually got in trouble for sick absence. I need routine; what they call "good sleep hygiene", in order to sleep enough.

Worry can keep you awake, and anxiety does fearure highly with Aspergers. If you are anxious, then you can feel tired all of the time.

Re the desire to stay in bed, I think that can be more to do with feeling safe and comfortable, whereas the outside world is full of sensory irritation and stress. 

You could talk to your GP about this. Falling asleep during the day is a sign of having a sleep problem.