Am I losing it?

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Recently, I made a weird error: I mixed up which mailbox was mine and did not correct it for 2 weeks, even though previously for months I had been going to the correct mailbox.

I've had 3 collisions since December 2012, though thankfully none was serious and one was not my fault--though neither of us would have been able to prove fault. Recently, I've notice there are times when I turn that I fail to turn "enough," and may hit the curb or come nearly off the road. I am now going to have to spend hundreds of dollars to replace my wheel due to one such incident.

I've been having increasing social dysfunction and more outright expression of anger in the past year or so, which seems to mirror some of the issues I had as a child and I thought I grew out of--and the lithium and antipsychotics I was on didn't really seem to help with that--I'm not on either now. In the past few months, I've been having a somewhat harder time sleeping. There have been times when I'll twitch in bed or even when I have begun to sleep will twitch in ways that will wake me up. On some other occasions, I will often be thinking myself to sleep (which generally helps me sleep), but I wll have this weird thing where as I start getting deeper into sleep, I will have this rapid succession of thoughts and images that have nothing to do with each other. Nevertheless, my mind will try to make sense of them and try to put them together into a story, but that won't work and I will get aggravated and wake back up. At that point, the rapid succession of thoughts would stop.

When I got some good news recently, that seemed to stress me out even more, even though it's good news. It has made sleep somewhat difficult, and I finally had to take a clonazepam (which is prescribed for "as needed") last night to get to sleep. As well, off and on, I've had attenuated psychotic symptoms, though those resolved themselves. I've developed some more social anxiety lately, and my interactions feel more awkward, like I feel like I am unintentionally insulting people and that people are mad at me for it, but just not expressing it.

And now, today, I had an issue while shopping. I dropped off a prescription, but forgot to activate the discount card, so after getting a few items from the shelves I went back to the pharmacy to tell them I will come back later as I first have to activate the card. For some reason, I did not think I still needed to pay for my items and walked out with them. Once I realized my mistake after realizing that I would normally have the stuff in a grocery back rather than having to hold it with two hands, I ran back in and went to the U-Scan and paid for them. I know that they probably could not prove intent in this case because of the fact that I had talked with an employee right before leaving (crooks would usually try to avoid employees) and did immediately come back to pay for the good after realizing what had happened--and it was a small dollar amount and no one even seemed to notice me--so I'm kinda worried about going back to pick up my prescription, but not that worried. Nevertheless, it did make me think, Am I becoming less competent? Even if I am vigilant, will I end up making the same mistake again but this time getting arrested and being thrown in a men's jail and getting raped? Perhaps I should always have someone accompany me when I go shopping?

So I don't know, but I don't like what I'm seeing.

EDIT: And to clarify, by "did not think I still needed to pay..." what I meant was it felt like I had already paid. Of course, once I realized I had not, I returned to do so.

Could it be the inappropriately named, "absent mindedness" - which means you are thinking about other things in your mind, and somewhat oblivious to your surroundings, and the context of what you are doing?

I do that a lot. Life is full of mundane activities/thoughts, and my mind demands to be engaged in challenging activities/thoughts, so I become oblivious to the mundane world.

http://memorise.org/brain-articles/abse ... 01217.html
http://cdn.wrongplanet.net/postt149856.html
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt125168.html

That's a lot going on for one person. I'd hate to sound like a broken record, but I will anyway. I believe you are experiencing what it is like to be off your medications. Whatever the reason you decided to stop, this should be a wake up call for you to go speak with your doctor about it.

A few uncomfortable minutes with the doctor and working out a medication regime that is better suited to your needs would be better than several months to years in jail. Or worse yet, seriously injuring someone while driving.

None of your symptoms talked about above represents anything I would consider autistic in nature nor mild nuisances. They all suggest a severe impairment in judgement and reasoning.

Seriously I would make an appointment to see someone sooner rather than later, especially since by your own admission they are getting worse.

Thanks, kicker. However, keep in mind that I had a lot of this stuff even while I was still on my medication. As well, I had gone for a second and third opinion, in which the doctors made a much more thorough analysis of my situation and history and said I didn't need the medication. In their views, the medication didn't make any difference.

I would have to agree. you are probably not going to go to jail for making a mistake. please, don't take this the wrong way, but you are probably way beyond a little pep talk, and getting a hobby. probably the wrong thing to say but, even a little marijuana in your case probably couldn't hurt. just a stupid question but, how could you be getting mail for three weeks, and not know it is not yours??? and please, forgive me for being me.

As someone who has already "lost it", I just wanted to say I can relate to what you described. I used to be able to handle driving, and shopping (and even had a couple of jobs when I was younger) – but over time my functioning ability gradually got worse and worse, to the point where I finally had to give up driving, because I didn't trust my ability to pay attention to what I was doing.

I've never been on meds, so that wasn't the cause in my case. I would guess it had to do with stress, and just complete burnout from the exhaustion of trying to function while autistic (and undiagnosed at the time). Though I also have Lyme disease, which causes brain fog, so who knows!

Anyway I hope this turns around for you, and you can get your focus back!

I guess I should emphasize what I still can do: I can go to work and do my job, I can interact with people fairly normally (and so at least can handle personal business), I can still research and debate, and many other things.

Ugh. I'm in a brain fog right now.

The spaciness and such...well, that's me on a good day.

Other things you mentioned though, the anger, agitation, and feeling ways you have not since a child, brought back old memories.

Years and years ago, there was a book out, titled 'Passages." I am not sure, but it might have been written by Gail Sheehy. I knew several people who had reached their late twenties and were having difficulties in many areas, particularly in areas connected with old problems they thought that they had long resolved. They realized what was going on in their minds after reading the book and took steps to correct it.

According to the book [which I just skimmed through for half an hour about 40 years ago] people with unresolved issues that they thought they had dealt with, but hadn't, tend to reach their late twenties and suddenly have a resurfacing of the unresolved conflicts.

As I mentioned, I never actually studied the book, and this was a looooong time ago, but do you think that this could possibly be the problem?