Life going in episodes of ability and inability

I have this same problem. 


I often get an overwhelming feeling of nauseousness that comes over me after a 'peak' where it's like the world caves in on me and it dawns on me all over again that I find everything pointless.  It's like nothing I do fills in an essentially 'empty' feeling. I also have a lot of anxiety and i think it wears me down. 

I have major depressive episodes frequently. It's hard to tell what causes what. Is it depression, is it Autism? Is it anxiety? Is it all of them? I suspect there is an element of all of them. 

I need a lot of prompting to do some things like tidying, cleaning etc. I will then get helped to sort it all out and then for a week or two I'll keep on top of it because I enjoy the tidiness. And then it gets on top of me again for the reasons talked about above. 

I'm also diagnosed Biploar/Schizophrenic. So, in essence, I'm Schizoaffective.

I can relate to this, i sometimes question whether i have Biploar?

im 31 years old and at 23 i got a diagnosis of atypical autism, anxiety and also manage an eating disorder.

i deffinelty goood days and not good days 

its so tiring and hard for social workers to know how many hours support to fund as sometimes i need like 24/7 as i cant cope and sometimes I’d only need for example 12hours a week ?

im tired a lot physically and mentally.

I’m guessing its more common though with Covid around, more uncertainty doesn’t help:( being told to wait and people say they dont know when things will re open or start, I’m not brilliant at waiting. 

This has been me for 21 years. So, I understand. As for fixing it, I'm still trying. But knowing I have ASD has made me "less" hard on myself.

It's not just the number of tasks but more about complexity and situational awareness. I think it's the number of elements I can keep in my mind at one time and have them connected. 

The problem is that this ability fluctuates by a lot - at one moment I can be a engineer and two weeks later can hardly be a cleaner. Same with relationships or any other activity.

When I'm at my highest ability I get ideas, I find ways, I make plans, make it happen, and why not, it's easy. .... Or I can play it safe and do nothing but then I feel it's all going to waste.

I am not sure if this makes sense

Does uncontrollable daydreaming fall into this?

Also have you had any success with mindfulness? 

To me it's inconceivable how someone can be here now without effort. 

Now that you're aware of it, maybe try and smooth those highs and lows out a little. It sounds like when you're at your peak, you sign up to lots of things, but then after some time, you drop it all. Instead, try and start with one or two things, and really stick at them. A lot of the time, people drop projects because they lose sight of why they wanted to do it in the first place - if you can keep that image in your mind, it will defo help you to keep going too x

Hey I have a diagnosis of Autism and ADHD. I can completely relate to everything you are talking about. I am just going to describe some stuff below; I am not sure if it will be helpful or not..... 

I blame what you have described largely on my ADHD. The thing you mentioned about being able to get more done on less sleep also makes sense to me, as it's a classic thing with ADHD, that you produce your best results under pressure. When you are tired your brain is under more strain and pressure (this obviously is not healthy - and I recommend spending time to figure out what works well for you by doing some research into sleep hygiene - just remember to be kind to yourself as you may not always be a perfect at this. I have been doing this for years and I still cant always figure my sleep hygiene out - but we live for the moments of victory!) 

As for peaks and slumps, in the ADHD world our brains are constantly over stimulated, therefore to focus an ADHD brain takes a hell of a lot more than your average!  Plus ADHD'ers have so many wonderful ideas and you fully intend on doing each and everyone of them, as you seriously want to, and therefore you set out doing everything. Which is where you feel great - because you are excelling, getting everything done, feeling pretty proud with yourself and everything you have achieved. (From this the brain is getting positive stimuli - something an ADHD brain massively craves - ADHD Brains require much more endorphins in comparison to the average human brain). 

But somehow, somewhere, everything just begins to collapse and fall apart around you, and you start to notice things are getting out of control, which makes your whole world around you very scary and frustrating and you question everything about yourself, and about how it just makes no god dam sense, and you become mean to yourself, because you just need to go back to the way you were a couple of days ago so as you can be brilliant and finish everything and blend in and be your very best and be like everybody else in the world. This is because although a person with ADHD has far more thoughts by breakfast, than the average human does before breakfast, the brain actually struggles to keep up with all those demanding thoughts and cannot physically process everything. This is where, what I call, the blips happen. Everything begins to fall apart, with no rhythm nor rhyme. With an overloaded brain it is impossible to make the simplest of decisions, and to hold everything together, the brain is working in overdrive and therefore we are living in a realm of fight or flight mode, without even knowing it, almost like our brains have just gone into auto pilot mode and switched that "fight or flight" mode on. This is where we find our emotions can be from one extreme to the other, at a flick of a switch. We mean harm and are often just as confused and shocked as the people observing from the outside. 

Before I had my diagnosis of ADHD, they used to tell me all the time I had things like depression, Bi-polar disorder, personality disorder; yet none of these conditions truly nailed it on the head and I just couldn't 100 percent relate to any of them. The moment I found out and took the initiative to study more about ADHD (which has only been in the recent year or so) I am feeling so SO much more stable within myself. Everything suddenly makes sense and I have come on leaps and bounds.  

And of course I do wish to quickly highlight, that my autism does also play a role in some of this, as Autism and ADHD overlap a lot, especially when it comes to processing difficulties and being over stimulated and executive functioning skills etc. 

This is just me and my experience, I am not saying that you do have ADHD, but if you think anything I have mentioned is relate-able, perhaps look more into the possibility and understanding of ADHD and go from there. I wish you all the best :) 

Thanks Beefree

Hi NAS64975,

I'm sorry to hear that you're having a difficult time. You may like to contact our Autism Helpline team who can provide you with information and advice . You can contact the team via telephone on 0808 800 4104 (Monday to Thursday 10am to 4pm, Friday 9am to 3pm). Please note that the Helpline is experiencing a high volume of calls and it may take a couple of attempts before you get through to speak to an advisor. Alternatively, should you prefer to send a message, you can do so via their webform:

https://www.autism.org.uk/services/helplines/main/questions.aspx

Thanks,

ChloeMod.

It sounds like you are having a really difficult time. Is there a GP you can talk too? There is also the NAS helpline that you contact by email or phone (details on their website or if you search NAS helpline the details should come up) they may be able to give better advice and guidance. 

Another update.

Long term worries, even minor ones, seem to wear me off. 

Perhaps that's why I can't work on a project for more than two weeks, maybe a month.

Okay. The topic doesn't seem to be very popular. Would you like to share any ideas or observations you might have?

With me it seems to be triggered by a mix of physical tiredness, social/emotional stress, unpleasant event (I'll remember the rest later).

A peculiar observation is that when I sleep less than 7 hours, I feel focussed and determined. If I sleep for 8 hours or more, I am likely to get into the condition described above. Unfortunately consistent sleep deprivation makes my gums hurt and bleed, and any injuries don't heal - I'm physically falling apart.

As I wrote my first post, It got nearly midnight. Made it to bed at 00:20 and was up at 6:10 next morning. I felt sleepy but I was back on track. Took a while to remember what I was supposed to do but now I am up and running.

It is possible writing my post here to have kick started me. 

Any thoughts?

Sounds more like anxiety. The same happens me.

I'm also a victim of that same up-and-down cycle. I too would like to know if it has anything to do with autism or is a seperate mental health issue.