Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello. I’m completely new to this forum, but I thought I’d ask to see if what I’m experiencing is normal, as I’m feeling very confused and anxious. I’m an 18 year old male with Aspergers, which I was diagnosed with as a child. A month ago, I was experiencing quite a lot of stress to do with sorting out my future financially. I had left college a few months prior to this, so I haven’t really had anything going on for a few months now. I have been learning to drive for a few months now too, but I’ve always struggled with making mistakes, which often led to me beating myself up about my mistakes all day mentally. It’s not been uncommon for me to put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve well in all that I do, I’m not sure if it’s do to with trying to prove to others around me that I’m capable or something? I’ve also had some family related stress a month ago too, which I’m not sure if that could contribute to any thing that’s happened lately.
So, a month ago my mum fell quite ill. She suffers from awful migraines, which often leads her to being unable to function for two or so days. I’ve been very used to witnessing this since a child, but this time I felt quite stressed and anxious. Im not sure if this was to do with my mind being overloaded with different kinds of stress. I do remember feeling a bit odd the week leading up to this, so I’m not sure if that could be anything to do with the start of what’s happened to me? I’m not sure if this sounds weird or probably unique, but that evening when I was feeling quite down, I tried to imagine my favourite car in my head, like to see a mental image of it. This is something that I’m sure I’ve always been able to do without any problems before? But this time, I couldn’t see it clearly at all, almost like there was nothing there. This very much concerned me, as I’ve always for as long as I can remember had a very good imagination. I’ve always been able to create scenes from scratch in my head, and been able to replay things too. It’s always been very special to me. Once this happened, I also noticed that I was unable to think clearly at all, or make decisions properly. I suddenly felt very numb. I had an extreme feeling of fatigue, which I still have now. I think this all caused me to go into a short state of depression, as I felt very, very down. So a month later and I’m still struggling. I’d say I’m not so depressed now, which of course is good. But my imagination still feels affected, as I still can’t picture things clearly in my head. It’s caused me extreme stress, as I’m struggling to even picture my family properly or clearly in my head! I’m also still struggling to think clearly, and feel quite tired physically and mentally. I just feel very detached from everything around me, as I’ve lost a lot of interest in my old hobbies. I’ve just been totally unable to function properly and I even feel more autistic if that makes sense? I can’t function properly to even concentrate or enjoy my old hobbies, the ability just doesn’t feel it’s there anymore. I’m struggling to take in new information, and I’m just at a complete loss. My memory feels like it’s been affected in some ways too.
I’ve spent hours upon hours searching for what my problem could be, and I finally came across autistic burnout. I feel like I completely relate to a lot of the symptoms and the complete almost shutdown my brain has gone into. I’m not sure if you can be affected cognitively as well by this? I just don’t know. Could my previously mentioned stress be a cause for my mind being in this state? I’d really appreciate it if anyone knows about autistic burnout, and whether this could all be a normal problem with it
Thank you!
Hiya George
I'm an old, burned out aspie - what you're describing doesn't sound to me like burn out, but plain overload instead - you've got too much going on in your head to process things in a logical order like you would normally do. We need down-time to de-frag life's events and you're being denied the time needed to just stop and process it all.
NTs would probably class this as depression and want to medicate you into oblivion - which may help in the short term (it doesn't for me)..
What support do you have? Do you have any friends or family around you that *know* you? Do you have a support worker or any mental health team involvement?
I'd suggest you need to talk to someone to help you verbalise all the things that are going on for you - talking will help you process as you speak.
Please contact your gp as soon as you can and try to get over to them that you are in crisis mode - or maybe talk to the Samaritans - they might be able to help or point you in the right direction.
Hi, thank you very much for replying
Thanks for the advice, I actually have spoken to my gp when it all started a month ago, who prescribed antidepressants. Unfortunately, similar to you, they haven’t helped at all :(
I unfortunately don’t have much support at all, except for my mum. We’ve tried to contact many different services to see if any could help, but again all that was really advised was medication. Thanks again for the advice :) I’ve just been really confused as this all seemingly began out of nowhere, one minute I could think, the next, barely at all. It’s been a very long, tiring month I’ve been waking up each day still feeling exhausted, like I’ve barely slept even though I have. I do think I’ve had too much stress prior to this happening! It definitely was more than I was used Thank you for replying again!
You're most welcome - this might sound odd but your mum is actually one of the sources of your stress so it doesn't sound like you have any support at all.
The whole covid thing means that no-one is being properly assessed - you just get a quick phone call and then fobbed off with pills - it's going to be hard to get real help.
Are there any ASD groups being run nearby that you can talk to? - they may have more immediate and appropriate help for you.
Something you can do for yourself is to be kind to yourself - think of things that seem really selfish and indulge yourself to remove the sources of stress - it's a bit tricky right now but things like walking around a museum or a walk in the woods - just to minimise the annoyances to allow your brain to pause for a while. What do you do to relax? Make models? watch films? It's important to let your brain pause.
It's going to be similar to delayed shock - like when people burst into tears weeks after a car crash - it all sits and bubbles and simmers and multiplies until you get to overload and you literally run out of brain capacity. Like a computer - you just need to let the little timer icon spin for as long as it takes to stabilise your thinking.
You're very young and you sound quite 'together' so this is probably the first time this has happened to you - unless you can sort out your stress inputs, it will happen lots more. The classic autistic person's version might be sitting in the corner, rocking - it's just the lack of ability to take any more input - you're at 100% processing.