Not being able to "bounce back" from a bad meltdow

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Last Fall I took a class in African-American literature which was taught by a humanistic, compassionate lady, who incidentally was white. The class discussions were great. However, she was hard-nosed about papers. I made an appointment to see her in her office, told her I was Aspie, and that I struggled with conventional papers. It did not go well. She said, still need to meet the assignment, which of course is not exactly ADA. I mean, the right way is that you have an equal path which is somewhat different, you go multi-path. I let it go, don't feel great about that.

The irony of it, during class this guy was talking about the role of the intellectual during the times of slavery. Well, the role of the intellectual was to put a veneer on the whole thing. And no one seemed to catch the irony that we're being graded on whether we write these stiffly formal papers!

Sounds like that professor was being lazy and uncompassionate.

That is funny about the irony.

Huge disturbances in your routine can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. I think that it's normal to be stressed when things like that happen, and especially if you have Aspergers and have trouble dealing with that normally. It may take some time to get back into things.

Yeah, it has always bothered me that things don't always go the way I think they should. I handle it better now than when I was younger, but it still bothers me a lot.

As for your own problems, although the anxiety meds may be a good idea, I do think you need to not take on so much at one time. Rather than drop the idea of school entirely, instead take one, or at most, two classes per semester if you are also working. While it will take longer to graduate this way, the way you've been doing it caused you to quit, which takes even longer. Taking on too much at once causes too much stress, and it's not healthy. Ease up on yourself,--take smaller bites of life and chew more thoroughly to get it down easier.

It's frustrating that there's not a lot of literature about autistic burnout and long-term shutdown. I went through this three times from 2001-2003, and the final time left me in bad shape for years.

Anti-anxiety medication helped me a lot early on, and a few times later on, and if you're finding that anxiety is causing you severe difficulties, it's worth looking into. Be careful with benzodiazepines, however, as they can cause rebound anxiety that's worse than what they prevented. They are great for disrupting anxiety, however, as long as you manage them and don't overdo them.

My three consecutive burnouts cost me my writing career (one element of it, at any rate) and my last attempt at college. I also ended up behind on student loan payments because I haven't had any income in years, and my attempt to restart school in fall of 2004 fell apart and I ended up past the deferment deadlines.

One frustrating aspect is that when we try to function at a level that NTs can manage, exhaustion, burnout, and breakdowns happen to us. It's like we start burning up our emergency reserves while NTs are still working on their normal energy levels.

I'll keep that in mind, if I haven't completely ruined my chances of finishing up the degree. With financial aid, they require you to carry a fulltime load in order to qualify, so that is another reason I also piled it on myself. :/ I started the semester with 18 hours, and dropped one class to make it 15, but that was still too much on me.

I also put a lot of pressure on myself, because people always encourage me to do so. They say "you're so smart...you can do this"...while in my head I'm going, "Yeah, I'm smart but Aspergers limits how I do things!! !" I'm learning that I have to speak up for myself instead of just to myself about these things though.

Now that I sit and think about it, I went through this back in 2009-2010 also. I landed in an abusive relationship where I was being manipulated and verbally (and later physically also) abused. The actual ordeal lasted about a year, and in the very end I ended up in jail facing prison time, because the psycho NT I was with was an expert liar, and I completely freaked out on the cops when they arrived (I had actually called them to help me). I got out of the impending prison time (close call), but I had to keep showing up for court dates that were 600 miles away for the next 6 months (this happened in another state, and when I got out of jail I took a bus back home to my parent's house). I don't think I need to explain how awful and stressful it was! Well, I don't even remember how many meltdowns I had during that time time period...a total of a year and half of hell and then trying to recover from it all afterwards. It changed me...for the worse. I'm still recovering from that.

While my current situation is no where near as bad as that, it all sort of feels the same inside my head (stress/pain-wise).

I wouldn't be surprised that it feels the same. It's more stress than you can cope with normally, and it eats up your reserves quickly, where does that leave you? And I think most NTs would be severely stressed out in that situation as well.

There can be other consequences as well. Losing skills temporarily or (more rarely) permanently, for example. Appearing to regress. Developing new conditions - I developed fibromyalgia - but as my mother has it I was already vulnerable and I think it was present before then, but not as severe. Also, panic disorder. I think another poster here has described developing a heart condition.

I'm a survivor of an abusive relationship as well - I am glad to hear you got away, and that you didn't serve prison time for being a survivor. I can say my time after getting out of my relationship was extremely stressful - I had more anxiety and found many things harder, but I recovered more quickly as the worst that happened was the ex tried to call and e-mail me.

I don't know where it all leaves me. I do feel like I'm regressing. Well, I sure hope that I do not develop any new physical conditions, but I have noticed that my immune system goes in the sh*tter during these times. I'm sick right now (cold-like symptoms). I did develop IBS during that whole ordeal with the abusive ex. I still suffer from it. My stress tolerance level/threshold is a lot lower these days.

Yeah, during that 6 months of going back & forth to court, despite the judge issuing a restraining order against me from her (that was so stupid, because I was the one who wanted away from her)...she kept contacting me. At first texting...I changed numbers...and then email...and then MSN messenger. It was hell.

Those all sound unfortunately typical for burnout. I think the best way to recover is to get as much rest in as possible. I don't know of other things, except maybe to get medical treatment for any secondary things that come up (like developing cold-like symptoms).



I think that kind of behavior is intended to be psychological abuse. When my ex called, it wrecked me for the rest of the day, and it did not help my aversion to phones.

Yeah, I'm going to the doctor next week anyways (for anxiety meds), and if I'm still physically sick I'll get something for that too.

Yeah, it was definitely psychologically abusive for sure. I had nightmares from it. The long-lasting affects from her contacting me is a horrifying fear of instant messenging.

I sympathize with having a meltdown. I feel one coming on myself due to hating every bit of work that I have(which isn't much because I was laid off 3 years ago). I can't take constantly dealing with people and compromising my values to "fit in". Anyway... I find that it helps to just have alone time and I've tried meditation which has been helpful. You also need to realize your stress limits and respect those and tell other people to respect them. You are the one who has to live with the consequences. I hope meditation and setting boundaries for what you're expected to do will help you come out of this. I also find comfort in spending time with my cats, animals have been shown to have a very calming effect on people.

Good Luck to you.

AH, I see now! This sounds like PTSD. I am not trying to diagnose you of course, but if you consider PTSD it may help guide your care providers better. I am sooo susceptible to meltdowns/shutdowns because of co-morbid C-PTSD. I'm on the waiting list for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy now.

Interesting...