Mental Exhaustion: Is recovery possible? Please help me.

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New member here...first time I've done any research on AS since my self-diagnosis (virtually no symptom unchecked) six years back. I'm 25 now and through all these years I've clung to a belief that progress was possible and with enough work I could overcome. But the reality of this past year has forced me to reconsider, and I wanted to come here and see if anyone can identify at all with this. More importantly, has anyone ever faced this situation before and managed to make a comeback?

Guess the quick version of my story is necessary, so here goes - and I apologize if it sounds smug or self-flattering, but it's the most honest portrayal I can give. At the lowest point in my life at age 19 I self-diagnosed, and after a good year of drowning the reality in alcohol, drugs, and ultimately a close brush with death; I came out of that ordeal determined to fight genetic determinism and do the things people had always assumed I could not. Starting as a 115 pound wretch, I packed on 40 pounds of muscle and became a capable opponent in boxing and martial arts. In that time I also overcame my sheer terror and avoidance of social situations. Since then I've become decently proficient in small talk, able to pick up the occasional girl at a bar, a well-liked grad-student instructor, etc. Most bafflingly, I have a serious girlfriend that I once would have dismissed as unattainable, and despite my own difficulties in a relationship it seems to be going ok. Of greatest relevance, I've gone from a gifted but aimless freshman to an advantageous starting point in my field, now on a decently prestigious study-abroad fellowship and poised for a respectable career when I'm all done...although all of the latter is now in jeopardy. In sum: I came to believe in the existence of progress and that Darwin could indeed be defied.

So why am I here bitching? It's because starting last year everything began to unravel. What compensated for my inadequacies and propelled me forward in other spheres was my freakishly good memory. Read something once and it was locked in, either didn't study at all or did it once the night before - and that gave me straight A's at everything. But the more complex my life has become, the more this gift has eroded to its current brink of extinction. Far as I can tell, my "immersion" strategy of last year completely backfired on me, when I decided to plunge into a relationship, a heavy workload, and exposure to a politics-driven work environment. Instead of shocking me into adaptation, it feels like my effectiveness was incapacitated from the get-go and has been dying a slow death ever since. I'm constantly fatigued, forgetting everything at all times, it takes me forever to put anything into writing (this included), I've become quite poor at thinking on my feet, I'm disorganized in every way, and I've gone from being the smartest to the dumbest in any given classroom. Now when people take a deep breath after seeing my resume or transcripts, I take one myself as I realize that it belongs to a different person and I'm just an impostor now.

I've tried to keep this level of detail to something less than gratuitous, but I hope this conveys the situation that I know others have experienced and might be able to advise. It weighs quite heavily on me because belief in progress was all that's given my life meaning in these years, and now I feel like I've lived for a lie all this time. I can't escape the conclusion that my mind is at best a cannibal, and that any progress in one sphere of my life can only come from the consumption and destruction of another. It's like fighting the same fight over again - screwing up time after time, day after day, and still finding the will to go on - but this time I can't even motivate myself with the belief that willpower will deliver me. To cut down on words: I'm on the edge of a mental breakdown in a foreign country of all places, and I don't know how I'll pick myself up this time if I fall.

So please, if anyone has any advice whatsoever - a similar experience, random insights, etc - I'll savor every word. More specifically, I want to know if anyone has not only gone through this, but come out on the other side with their minds relatively intact. That last part is really important, because it's hard for me to convey just how destructive a force this has become, and I need some grounding in realistic expectations if I'm to pull myself out of this morass.

I need help like I've never needed help before, but thank you all for hearing me out and please advise if you can,

Ben

Ben,


Okay. Calm down. Yes, I've been through this. Yes, I've come out the other side with my mind intact (I also have the memory thing and it's my best asset academically and professionally just like you). Here's the deal as you will find out, just as I did (in fact I have a feeling you are very much like me in personality as well). What is going on is that it takes us so much energy to socialize and deal with "NTs" (for lack of a better term) that we are physically, emotionally and most importantly mentally exhausted. There is literally nothing else left after a day of dealing with NTs for people like us. It zaps us completely. That's the main reason I can't stand to manage people. Whether they are good or bad is irrelevant to me because I still have to deal with them and it exhausts me so badly that I literally come home and collapse. I can't write at night, I can't do much with my husband, I literally will do nothing at all. As my current boss says, I come home and plug in to recharge.


So, here's what you have to do... You have to make another self determination. You've let the pendulum swing to the other side, which is fine because you just learned you actually can get by in the NT world. But, you've come to the realization that the price you paid was too high. You may in fact have to cut all socialization to recharge your brain (in other words, it needs to rest). I have had to do that and it works for me. You may even be able to recharge by just cutting back (I can't do this, but, depending on you personally, you might). Just explain to people that you are fried mentally, physically and emotionally because you've taken on so much and you need to recharge. That helps put into a context they can understand. It's actually pretty common for people about to graduate from university so don't feel like they will think you are weird or anything. Let your girlfriend know that you must concentrate on school until you finish so you are really going to have to slow things down. Many guys have to tell their girlfriends this at this stage of life (and same with many girls). Then, just do it. Some people are going to go crazy with their neediness and you must hold firm. Just be by yourself for awile (keep your martial arts and exercising because they are a form of meditation and good for you). But, just recognize that your brain cannot handle that much socializing. You are going to have to find your zen place, the happy medium, the middle way. Don't even try to do that until your brain starts to recover. Then, slowly add it back until you start to lose brain fuction and ease back.


That should work. You just had to understand what was happening. It's always frightening the first time. Scared the crap out of me!

Good luck and relax. It will come back. You will be fine.

Zanne

Here's my piece of advice. I"ve got a undergrad in psyh and a masters degree.

Go get on an anti-depressant. You have fought the darwinism concept and won. Your experiencing what all NT's experience, stress. Start blowing it off; your "you"...with natural talents and abilities....and that's what got you where you are. You will not have the same memory; however, the core will be there. And that's what will make you excel. That's okay.

The recommended length for an anti-depressant is three years; by then the stress has moved on and most people have time to adjust to new situations. Don't forget....your experiencing a "NORMAL REACTION"....so, handle it like an NT would and you'll be fine.

You would be surprised how many people take anti-depressants. That's why you see the advertisements on TV; there are a ton of people that take this. It's now commonly known that people go through stressful situations that affect how our brains function under stress.

ADHD is also a commonly accepted diagnonsis that an antidepressant helps; becuase it interacts with how the synapsis in our brains work. So, you could even claim ADHD and not have a problem. However, you never have to tell anyone.

Hope that helps....and that's my personal opinion. I'm undiagnosed aspie; I see the trend in most of my family members and they all tried to self medicate with drugs and alcholhol. That self medication has really hurt many of my other family members; so I recommend the authorized medicine from a doctor and staying the course.

My own advice is don't listen to the antidepressant crap. I listened to that and it did nothing. I had to figure out how to limit my contact with people so they didn't zap me. I wasn't depressed at all. I was exhausted. Completely different thing and completely out of the context of Psychs. All they did was mess up my brain even more.

I am too tired to say much so I shall say I agree with ZanneMarie and totally disagree with Cordelia...anti depressants are most certainly not the answer...tho I know some think they are the answer to everything. They are useful in treating certain depressions, but all in all, I see them as an easy way and think they do more harm than good. Better to work on oneself in less chemical ways, I say, as a matter of personal opinion. I went through this experience many times, and the worst was when I had been working in London in fringe theatre stage management for 8 months. The result was that I spiralled into anorexia and paranoia and ended up stuck in a private psych hospital...so I suggest, sort it well before you hit that stage as it was not pleasant. Total overload, I am assuming. I also totally messed up my degree... I did okay for the first year then it gradually went downhill as I continued after leaving my ex and living alone for the first time, and needed more and more to escape into this cyber world. I found even trying to continue draining and frustrating. You know your capabilities and you know you are not a failure, so I suggest you keep that in mind.

Grael,

To flesh out my thoughts on anti-depressants, here they are. If your problem is truly depression, that's a different problem and those may help, although you better get to the underlying cause of the depression and fix it or you'll be in trouble when the meds run out and go right back on them (this 99% of people I know on those things). If you are exhausted, you may feel sad that you are exhausted and overwhelmed because you don't know why or how to stop, but that is not the same thing at all. In your case, Ben, where your mental abilities are what you want brought back and are what is causing your distress, an anti-depressant won't help and will in fact make worse. You aren't depressed, you are exhausted. You will feel better once your brain function comes back. I think you probably were depressed when you figured out you probably has AS which is why you drank and such. You didn't handle that with anti-depressants, you handled that with exercise and martial arts, which by the way set off good endorphins in your brain and make you feel better. Kind of a physical way of getting an anti-depressant without the mental backlash.

I think, especially for Aspies, we have to be extremely careful of the Psych world because it is very easy to misread our behavior in relation to other's behaviors. Even our verbal explanations are markedly different than what Psychs usually see. So it is important for us to understand the pitfalls that can happen there. It is extremely easy to be mis-diagnosed and being treated with those meds when you don't need them can have serious consequences. Just understanding yourself well is the biggest thing you can do for yourself.

Yes...I concur with ZanneMarie.....

I don't know if cutting out socializing 100% is the way to go....as suggested in a few posts above....

But, I do agree on the main point that if you analyze the situation and re-adjust your goals; you'll be fine. IT may be that only 30% cut of socializing will do the trick. Some people also re-energize themselves by doing something unique....that tests out their physical strength; so...and this is going to sound odd....rock wall climbing...There's many gym's and specialized places that offer this skilll or "hobby" and it's not a social activity.

I did loose quite a bit of my photo-graphic memory; but I still have the core. I'm like being very social...but not skilled; so it's difficult and wears me out easily.

Ben,


Just so you don't get caught in our different perspectives, remember we are all different, here's the deal from what I've learned.


Yes, you have AS. Yes, you have your mental abilities which do sound like photographic (which is what I have and it sounds like what Cordelia had). In addition you have personality traits and if you don't know what those are, it would really help you to find out. Here's the short test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp. The long test is better, but the short test is ok and the long test is expensive.

Here's why I say that will help you find your way through all this muck. My personality is INTJ and not just INTJ, my scores are extremely skewed to those letters. My I - introvert is 100 and my E - Extrovert is always 0. That means I get no energy at all from being with people. In addition my T - Thinker is always 100 and my F - Feeler is always 0. That means I don't process anything from an emotional level and think about everything (including emotions). It also means that while thinking gives me energy, feeling exhausts me. So right there, I know much about myself and what gets me into trouble and how to get out of it.

For me, 30% backing off would never work because it would prolong the problem for me and actually exacerbate it. Been there, done that and had the bad result. For me, to completely rest my brain from all the exhaustion, I must withdraw from the social. Obviously I keep working or going to school, but that's the limit for me. That's already taxing to me so there's nothing left and I don't give it. I don't get anything out of it anyway, so it's okay for me. Having said that, I look at it like any kind of exhaustion, if you were sleepy, I would tell you to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Same concept. You might only need a couple of days to regenerate. I might need a year (and frankly have on occasion). You will know what's right because your mind will start to function correctly again. Cordelia and I were in agreement that physical things can be helpful, so do your exercise and martial arts or take up rock climbing. Either is great. They have good effects and for some reason, with me, those stimulate my brain to work again.

The biggest thing is find out who you are with everything, not just AS. It will help you respond better. If you find out that you have higher scores than me in E and F, you will know that people give you energy and you need to be with them socially at least occasionally and you can adjust accordingly. Make sense? That sounds like what happened with Cordelia and she's found her happy medium. For me, skewed though it might be, I've found mine. That is where we all must get to and it is all about finding out everything you can about what makes you who you are. That is going to inform all your decisions about how to deal with AS and make you ultimately a happier person.


Hope that helps. Certainly don't want you to feel pulled between our different perspectives and personalities. This is to help you!

Ben, you know, sometimes you just have to lay back a while and not expect anything from yourself. You sound like me 30 years ago. This is what worked for me when I was burned out, a few times:

Only do the stuff the world demands in a minimal way (whatever you have to do to pay the rent and grocery bills), then just do and expect nothing productive. It's very hard to "disengage" when you've convinced yourself that you have to have a "driven" lifestyle, but it's possible to do. You just have to find the key in your personality and unlock that part. 'Fraid I can't tell you how to do that, as I think it's different for each person. But it can be done.

I've found, when life got a bit much, that just getting into a simple routine helped. Get up. Have tea and watch or listen to the morning news. Take a shower, get dressed, go to work. Do not expect anything, just do the job. Be pleasant to people, but don't seek out their company. Do not judge yourself, do not say there's a standard you have to meet (other than doing your work satisfactorily). Go home. Lay in the sun and watch the clouds or take a walk where it's quiet, pay attention to what you see on your walk. When you're tired of walking, go home. Eat something. Read a book, play with your pets (if you have them). Do something like Yoga to help unwind any stress. Or meditate. Or listen to your favorite, soothing music. Go to bed in time to get 8 hours' sleep.

Do not worry about yesterday or tomorrow. You can't change yesterday and you'll be more comfortale with tomorrow if you're rested when it gets here. There's really only the "right now" that you need to deal with, and you're a competent person and can handle whatever is going on in the here and now.

Let everything else slide. Tell yourself you'll deal with everything else later - say, in a month. Then every time you start to think about "things" remind yourself that you're on a mental vacation and switch to watching the grass grow. Or nap. Or listen to the birds sing. If you want, you can get a book on birds (or anything else you know little about) and study them. As long as it's something completely different. Whatever you need to occupy your time that's not related to your "pre mental vacation" time. Just back off of your prior activities as much as you can.

And wait. When I get "knocked off center" it's usually been that I've been trying to do too much and expecting too much in return.

This isn't coming out as succintly or clearly as I'd like, but I don't know any other way to put this. Just back off and try to not expect anything at all. Then just deal with what comes one thing at a time. Good luck!

its society bro, think about it. if you didnt have to conform to thier way of life you wouldnt be having these problems. it would be alot easier for you to function if you could live however you wanted and were accepted as such. mind over situation! nothing can touch you

You are doing fine,

Humans, all of them, are designed for an earlier time. Silence and the blackest night were common. We are pulled toward action, and interaction, there is a desire to engage others to measure ourselves.

The modern era is out of balance, not you. I found places to hide out. No people, noise, bright lights. I picked jobs where I worked alone. It worked, but then I fell into the world, because I am so good at what I do, and they always wanted more. One day you run a four minute mile, the next day they expect 3:55. Try to keep up with demand, unreasonable demand, and it will consume and destroy you.

When I pulled back they seemed offended, and came to use up my off hours, after all, I was not doing anything. When I chose to continue doing nothing, with my time, they became offended, they were just trying to help, for my own good. It came down to telling people that if they could not leave me alone for a day, they could leave me alone for life. They became very offended, I took up fishing.

When I turned to self employment, a rejection of them all, they became worse. There were people I knew who had jobs, they resented me, exemployers were making five times what they paid me for my work. Then there was the girl, as long as I had a job, she was OK, but when I made more money in less time, and wanted to spend more of my time fishing and hiking, alone, well relationships cannot withstand such behavior.

My entire network turned on me, they had something to prove. They are a social lot, and soon people I had never met knew all about me, and even strangers were unhappy with me. Trying to withstand, was not good, my comments of, well why do you not go speak to someone you like, really set them off.

In the end the load was too much, I could not function, my life was constantly invaded by hostile people, and I moved to the mountains. It took months of being alone to shake it off. I could not read, concentrate, remember, but in time it came back.

Now, I keep them all at bay. I am productive, and hence I enjoy life. I have reached highths that would be impossible if I had stayed. I still need time off, from myself.

I have a cool dark quite room to retreat into. I need sense depravation. After a while the tempest in my head subsides, and calm, I just let the machine run.There is always a backlog of data to process, some I am aware of, much I think is beyound understanding. The machine still needs time to catchup.

It does remind me of this AOL, after three or four hours it turns slow, strange things happen, trying to fix it makes it worse, and when I shut down, reboot, all is fast and functional again.

We need both engagment and disengagment. After months alone in the mountains, I found myself talking to clerks in stores when I went out for food. We do need the world, and ourselves. With two seperated files, everything is fine. I did burn it out in long hikes, but could also sit still and not catch fish.

You would be surprised at how long you can sit deep in a cave in silance and total darkness. An hour is like a day, it is very refreshing. I took the sleeping bag, had made my spot, slept there, an woke to darkness. It was a reboot. No input and it catches up fast, then starts planning.

I once worked the nightshift alone processing film in total darkness, best job ever.

It seems a bit late to tell you not to let it build up a backlog, but I hope you can see how it affects processing. You have to dump the cookies. I think I will go in the sleep vault business, pitch black, silent, 25% O2, EM shielding, we are even loaded in our sleep.

I tried lots of things, walking in the city, going for a drive, taking myself out for lunch, all were good, but not enough. I still was dealing with load. I do not want the AOL to work just once more before crashing, I want a reboot, and am worthless till then. If I had learned this sooner I might still some friends and lovers.

Shooting dope works too, it relives the pressure of work, life, and you have to stay engaged with work and life to pay for the dope. The only problem is you cannot quit any of it.