Hi Functioning Aspies with a Breakdown in Mid Adulthood?

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I was always a bit of a loner, but lucky enough to have had a sense of humour and combination of circumstances that meant that I was accepted into groups at school and college whenever I wanted to flit in.

Graduated, worked hard, supported my family, had a great job heading up a team of programmers at a top FTSE company. Then my husband started threatening suicide.

After several months of living with it, I had a breakdown, and suddenly, I went from having a career and an IQ of 152 to a wreck with severely impaired executive function and severely diminished short term memory.


I have a friend who's pointed out that there has been very little work done in studying/following the fates of aspies who make it successfully into adulthood only to suffer a breakdown.

The medical profession either treat you as an aspie, or someone who has had a breakdown, but don't really attribute symptoms to both, i.e. my current psychotherapist, a nice guy, is currently busily trying to work out what caused what, and you can see him trying to separate things the ASD from the depression.

So anyhow, the question is are there any aspies out there, who had a reasonably successful life, UNTIL a breakdown, and then any lingering effects? Thank you.

Had one of those in my late teens... had to do with being asked to do more than I was capable of. I'd been considered completely non-disabled as a teenager. Turned out it was the environment I was in that was compensating, plus a mom who didn't want me diagnosed.

It was simple burnout. I'm still coming back from it.

Staying up past my bedtime to write this...

Very interesting -- I was in college, and didn't have a breakdown per se, but it was an extremely stressful time and I had a huge burnout (the effects of which seem to be permanent). My short-term memory and executive functioning took a massive dive and I lost of a lot of talents and skills (including partially losing some basic abilities like reading and writing). I was at Berkeley at the time, majoring in Physics. I don't think my IQ was 152, but it couldn't have been too shabby. I graduated somehow, and scored in the 80-something-th percentile on the Physics GRE, but was a total wreck (was through sheer effort, but I couldn't keep that up any longer). It was weird, like getting brain damage, but for no reason that made any sense.

I suppose I was somewhat successful, given my age at the time.

The memory problems, and some physical problems (basically "mild" dysautonomia) started about the time I started most severely trying to "normalize" myself in order to function in the world (at 19). It took about 5 years to have serious cognitive & physical problems, but I scraped along until I was about 30, when the roof finally fell in and I ended up on disability.

I'm interested to see if more people have had this experience. It's been a big mystery as to what the hell happened to my brain, and I I've seen people talk about burnout, but not those specific cognitive losses. My doctor has labelled it CFS related cognitive dysfunction, but that's not a very helpful or illuminating answer.

You may have seen this already, but just in case (there's a subsection called "burnout"):

"Help! I Seem to be Getting More Autistic!"

I am not very ambitious, partly because I intuitively know this would happen to me. My family thinks all I lack is self confidence. Like socializing where I could work harder at connecting with people but when I do I feel depleted.

I've just had my second breakdown in the late September/early October of last year. The friend who would eventually phone the ambulance on me, wasn't giving me enough space. Thus I had a breakdown, as I was coming out of that Punk Rock fantasy that I had, going on.

I had a massive nervous breakdown when I was 12 after my granny died. It took me another 9 years before I could even start to think about getting better. All of my skills became non-existant and I became lethargic, bad tempered and depressed. Thankfully I am coming out of this slowly. I still have bad days but they are getting fewer. You just need positive things to focus on (I am hoping to get a job in an animal shelter). I know clichéd answer or what!

I ended up being able to get a Federal Employee Disability Retirement, and am presently working on the Social Security Disability. I really can't do anything any more.

I have had a long psych history, but have had a fair bit of success in between......

At the end of 2007, I simply burnt out. I have been on disability ever since. I cannot work. I have physical health issues and have a bevy of doctors.

I was dx with AS about 2 months ago.

I am 36.

Yes, it is the longest I have been this ill.

Take care of yourself.

Mics

I think I had a breakdown last year. Still trying to find myself afterwards.

OMG this scares the bleeeeeeeep out of me....I too have had reasonably good career success, IQ in the same range, probable AS though I'm scared to get diagnosed, now with possibly unresolvable marital issues and there are times when I think I'm losing it. I'm already burned out from putting in so much effort to "be normal" at work over the years, and now with my marriage problems I don't know how much more I can take. This scares me to *death*....

~Kate

Yep... I was doing fine enough for awhile... then I crashed and burned. I had a job that was very demanding and fast paced and at first my hours were not too much... then it became ten hour days for ten or more days straight with no day off... it was like that for... oh... six or nine months maybe. My body health failed, I was constantly overwhelmed, I was calling in sick a lot. Then my aunt died, a childhood friend shot himself, my grandpa died... all within six weeks. My husband and I took to fighting as he was home more than I was and my younger daughter was flipping out all of the time because her dad was flipping out over the friend who shot himself... It was bad. She was breaking doors and beds and everything... my husband could not cope with all of the kids and his work and he had to stop training and then his grandpa was diagnosed with cancer. I quit my job. I turned into a zombie. I just shut down completely. I did not leave my house for close to a year. It took me years to still recover and I would go so far as to say I have not recovered completely, nor do I think I ever will. Something in me stopped. I do not know how to make it work again. I never dealt with stress well... my coping mechanism just changed. Before all that I would flip out and self destruct. Now I mostly shut down and hide in my head. It is disturbing to me now when I have melt downs as I do not have them with such frequency. I mean, they upset me before... but now it takes days to recover from them and it used to take hours. All of that happened back in... oh hell... I do not know... I think it was five years ago.

I used to be a manager type... I helped run a store that made millions just in the summer. Now I can barely manage myself. I knew it was killing me when I was doing it, but I thought no one liked their jobs and I thought work was hell for everyone. I thought I just needed to suck it up and push on. I was only diagnosed last year... I just thought how I was, was how everyone was and maybe I was just being a whiny somethin-or-other. I wish I knew then what I know now. Wishing gets me nowhere though. All I can do is not repeat mistakes. At least I have the sense to do that.

I pace myself now. I move a lot slower than I used to... handle a lot less than I used to. I am back in school now, though I doubt I will ever work again. I needed to get my head working again as I became so dormant for so long... school works. I did find my head stopped working though. It was like my brains were leaking out of my ears. My memory is shot as well. I have a hard time retaining information. I used to be pretty good at it. I find now I have to work twice as hard for half of the progress. Tests are hell to me now. I am a perfectionist and perfection takes me a week, where it used to take me a few hours. I also have amplified health problems. It is fair to note that I do have spinal issues and permanent nerve damage, but at my worst, I had days I could not get out of bed without my leg giving out on me and I would fall on the floor. I could not always get into the shower and I had to pick up my foot and my leg. I could not always get down the stairs and I had to drive with my left foot as my right one would go numb on me. My health has slowly improved, but I still have my off days... damn weather fronts... heh.

My executive functioning has also gone down hill. I have always needed many notes and such to keep myself reminded of what I am to do and whatnot, but now I frequently forget to eat and sleep... I lose more time and find I am in a room and have no idea why. I forget to put on new clothes, I cannot pay bills... it is just too much for me. I look at those things and have no clue where to start or stop. When I was first denied disability I almost lost my chance to reapply as the letter messed me all up and I could not even look at the thing for over a month. Hell... I could not get a broken stove out of my kitchen for half a year and then my husband finally did it for me. I just could not remember the stove was there until I was mad at it for being in the way of my pots and pans... I can be a wreck... But I am getting better.

Sorry... I talked a lot...

I'm sorry you're scared.

If it helps, I know that if I could advise my younger self, I would have told myself to leave him at the start of his unacceptable behaviour (He was trying to have affairs, then when found out, threatened suicide).

This way I would have not had a breakdown, retained my faculties, and continued on with my life, a bit sad, but with my career, faculties intact, and without giving up another decade to stupid b*stard (whom I also loved) who couldn't effing make up his mind what he wanted.

Suzanne C. Lawton refers to Aspie burnout as The Asperger Middle-Age Burnout in her book Asperger Syndrome: Natural Steps Toward a Better Life. Lawton shares on page 33 what Dr. Leslie Carter observed:

“She had noted this same behavior and attributed it to adrenal exhaustion from years of pumping out high levels of epinephrine from prolonged severe anxiety. Not only were these AS people dealing with their regular levels of anxiety, but they were also working extremely hard to maintain a façade of normalcy.”

Lawton points out, “Some AS people seemed to slip through this burnout crack. The common denominator was diet and relaxation.”

Last edited by faithfilly on 20 Mar 2010, 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That sounds exactly like me at the moment. I know it sounds awful, but I'm relieved it's not just me, that I'm not alone.

I'm glad you have your husband to help you.

Wow, I wish I'd had that book when I first applied for SSDI. It would have made explaining an invisible handicap to government docs so much easier.

I suspect this is an extremely common occurrence among adult Aspies, especially those of us who've lived with AS for many decades without knowing what they had. I've had several breakdowns over the years, but never had the luxury of being able to call it that, or seek help. I was always told there was nothing wrong with me but cowardice and laziness and to 'get up and walk it off'. What would happen was, I'd become unable to function at my job, get fired and draw unemployment for eight months or so while I recovered and decompressed. Then I'd go right back out and start over because there was no other option. But as the years went by, the decompression periods got longer and longer.

To address the OP, though - I'm finding that in my experience at least, there was a long arc of functionality. I think I peaked around 40 as far as my ability to function both professionally and privately. Now, ten years later, I feel much more helpless and unable to adequately deal with everyday executive-function tasks. My anxiety level seems to actually be on the increase and I've always been a worrywart. I'm much more likely to be incapacitated by panic over simple things like getting mail from the government and being afraid to open it, fearing changes to my income or demands to explain myself on long complex forms. I feel like an orphaned 12 year old. I can understand the world around me, but I'm no longer emotionally equipped to deal with all the details.

Last edited by Willard on 20 Mar 2010, 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I fear I may be having a breakdown right now. I find it very difficult to drag myself out of bed in the morning. Sometimes I just cry for hours on end...and I´m usually not a "crier". Too many things have changed in my life recently....I tried to put up a good front about it for a awhile, but now I feel like I´m losing it.....