Stress and decompensation

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How many of you respond badly to stress. In my case it's been better since having a regular depot injection or maybe I have been luckily in avoiding aversive/stressful situations since then . At it's worst I would get increasingly paranoid, verbally erratic and volatile,irrational and somewhat hysterical.
I remember one time I nearly got trapped in a cemetery and ended up having a screaming fit. Luckily or not there was no one there to hear me making a fool of myself. I have also done it a few times when I have lost my bearings or otherwise been in a difficult situation.

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I get overloaded very quickly when there is more than one source of immediate stress impacting on me. If there are simultaneous multiple stressors of some importance then this can quickly reach a critical mass point where it impacts on me on 3 dimensions: physically (I get shaky, and ultratired) mentally (I lose focus, lose concentration, forget things) and emotionally (being overwhelmed on several levels at once can trigger despair).

I need a lot of extra rest to recover back to my own normal. My immunity drops under prolonged multi-stressors and within 1-3 weeks infection sets in, usually pneumonia if the stress has been extreme. I am immune-deficient so have had to learn to avoid as much stress as possible over the years. The fewer stressors at any time, the better my physical health is.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean exactly. Don't most people respond poorly to stress? I would think that most with ASD, do, anyway.

I've had some stressful events lately that I've responded badly to. I haven't screamed or anything, but I became physically ill and unable to socialize even close to normally. I've had crying fits at times, and if I get very angry I tend to lose control and have trouble calming myself.

What you are describing sounds like a meltdown, and a lot of people here seem to have them. Mine aren't usually that bad compared to what others have described.

It's such common thing that I wouldn't think to bring it up. I spend a lot of time withdrawing into quiet to decompress, but I'm rarely if ever not stressed. B19's description sums it up well.

@B19 I don't get pneumonia but I can get a flu/fever like reaction with acute stress -feverish and achy joints.

@MjrMajorMajor Do you mean it's a common thing for people in general or where you specifically referring to people with ASD? I am not sure many people get as I can get under stress unless they are mentally ill or have another problem(like ASD?)

For people with ASD. I always assumed it was normal for a very long time, though.

[quote="firemonkey"]@B19 I don't get pneumonia but I can get a flu/fever like reaction with acute stress -feverish and achy joints.

What affects the body affects the mind, and what affects the mind affects the body! I am totally convinced of that and the division IMO is artificial. I know there is some acknowledgment of this (at last) in a developing field called something like psychoneurobiology..

Back to your OP.. decompensation is when stress is so severe that a person's defence mechanisms collapse and there is an inner experience of chaos which suspends the ability to function...it's an extreme reaction though I am not sure that is what you meant, perhaps something else (or not)?

Here is the definition according to Wikipedia(yes I know the complaints about Wikipedia)


For me I use it to describe a marked deterioration in functioning. For example when not stressed I am according to my pdocs an articulate and highly intelligent person.
However when angry,agitated or frightened I have difficulty explaining myself clearly. I become more psychotic like(irrational and paranoid) and emotionally even younger for my age than I am (a decade ago a pdoc described me in the context of some of his patients who he said were highly intelligent but emotionally stuck between 5-15).
I am not the most mature person at the best of times but become a lot more emotionally immature under stress, or at least I used to till going on my depot injection. I would like to say it is all the injection but also there have not been many what one might call acute stress triggers in that time.

Once I was on a road trip with my husband (an aspie), my brother in law (an aspie) and a couple other NT people (I'm NT). My husband and brother in law don't spend a lot of time together, now that they're adults, so they don't really know the ways in which autism affects either of them.

So anyway, we crested a hill and on the other side was a huge oceanliner. I'm talking, like, one of those things where other ships and aircraft ride on it because it's so big. My husband goes, "BOAT! OH MY GOD BOAT!" and at the same time my brother in law goes, "WHAT THE H*LL IS THAT?!?!" They're both squirming around in their seats, doing the exact same stims, eyes big as pokemons.

Apparently, they were both afraid of unexpectedly seeing oversized vehicles that they can't get away from. A specific, odd fear. My sister in law and I discussed many other times when we were in the car with our respective spouses and they had seen a very large vehicle without expecting it and nearly wrecked the car having a panic attack about it. It took them awhile to calm down all the way, but when they knew to expect seeing boats they handled subsequent sightings much better.