Ever had a nervous breakdown?

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Has any aspie here had a nervous breakdown in early adulthood? I wonder b/c I had a very severe one when I was 20 and I did not feel like myself for 2 1/2 years. I had a meltdown one night, started shaking uncontrolably for 30 minutes, and was in bed for the next 14 days (could not get up!) After returning to school, I started to develop panic attacks, agoraphobia, and bipolar disorder (this was the scariest!) I attempted suicide once.
I slowly got better after going abroad for two months and taking the herb Feverfew. After my breakdown, I became a much more calm person and my personality changes.

Anyone here have a similar experience?

Yeah, I had one as my midlife crisis, about 40, it involved panic attacks and chronic fatigue. Lasted around 3 years - I still have a lot of fatigue problems, but then, aspies do anyway. I didn't get bipolar or suicidal as I don't approve of suicide. I did have some suicidal thoughts wash over me from time to time but I just interpreted them as intrusive thoughts not of my own making.

I needed to change my life anyway so I did that. It was horrible but probably necessary as I come from a toxic family and you end up with too many false ideas about yourself and life with that kind of family so I would say it sorted me out. I became a christian at that time too, so I believe that helped me and solved some of my problems too.

yes. i had one at twenty and my parents put me in a psychiatric unit and it was not fun. i was just diagnosed with depression but with nothing beyond that at the time. it was int he days before they even really knew about AS in Australia.

i have had others since then - minor ones.
i have continued to manage the depressive episodes throughout my life.

Not at young adult but I had one at age 12 because of years of holding in the hurt feelings and not letting them out, all the bullying I was getting in my school and I came to a point where I couldn't handle it anymore so I regressed and fell apart. My parents had to take me out of school for a while and it was the time they figured out it was my pills that was causing me all my problems so they took me off of them. They didn't put me back in school till my psychiatrist the prescribed the right pills for me. I was considered to be ill.

I didn't get held back because I did my school work at home. There are things I have never revealed on here about my myself and 6th grade. Just something I don'[t talk about and I keep it vague.

I had one last year and my doc had me signed off college for it.

Yes. It started when I was 26, and expressed itself as mood-disorder, including anxiety, semi-hallucinatory episodes, and physical collapse. It cleared up, sort of, with change of personality, ( or, to be more exact, the discovery of a very different one under the exhausting "performance" one ), as I passed my 29 th birthday, after I had a moment of "grace", ( brief "out of body" experience in which felt how much my body loved me, and I learned what compassion was, for me and others ), and began excluding gluten and casein for the first time.

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I have experienced breakdowns like the one you describe several times but only at times of great stress.

The last instance was when I became single and was made redundant in the same week. Other instances have been triggered by the last car accident I had, the deaths of people close to me, stress whilst working in a fraud callcentre etc. I could go on as it has happened quite a few times thinking about it. Never seems to do any noticeable damage except for feeling absolutely exhausted.

Like you describe I am incapacitated afterward but only for an hour or so, maybe because it has been happening since I was a kid. I am very conscious of not allowing myself to feel sorry for myself for too long afterward as I realise most folk deal with stress better than me and I need to toughen up.

I usually feel better afterward although I am never sure for how long the initial anxiety and uncontrollable shaking are going last. Another recent episode resulted in some kind of tonic-clonic seizure. This is not something I had experienced before and was very frightening although I think there was just a perfect storm of contributory factors at work that time.

I guess I should probably have spoken to more health professional about this stuff by now, but the ones I have spoken to did not seem very interested and no action has been taken as a result even after telling them they have resulted in some pretty dark thoughts like the ones others have described here. I don't explain myself very well to strangers and get off topic in conversation far too easily even at the doctor's!

wen i had mine i sat in my room for a week only time i came out was to go to the toilet or get food. i cried the whole time and tore out some of my hair.

I had a near breakdown earlier this year (25 yrs old then, 26 yrs old now). It was kind of like what Alla and Postperson were talking about, i.e., wasn't doing much for a few weeks, major fatigue, severe depression/anxiety (though no suicidal thoughts/tendencies), and panic attacks every now and then. I'm especially interested in what the first two posters said as I am less than a year removed from the near breakdown, but still feel off. It's not what I would call fatigue, but it's like my energy levels have just been set lower than they ever used to be, and I have to deal with holding, and being able to expend, less energy than I used to. I also had the calm after period, but that was more due to finding out I had AS while sorting things out post-breakdown, and adjusting accordingly.

I wouldn't mind revisiting this some more if the first two posters want to expand on their paths to recuperation, as I am trying to get an idea of how long it may take me to get back to higher energy, based on others' shared experiences.

I'm not sure what else to add about recuperating..the big problem for me was that I had moved back home with my mother was a narcissist/hypochondriac, so she was incensed about having a sick (not that she believed I was, for a long time) person around. Being in a bad enviroment was a nightmare so although I wasn't too bad when I moved back in with her, just over stressed from my last job and tired, I got much worse quite quickly with her antagonism and negativity around. You know it's like 'your just lazy and you're a schizophrenic' sort of thing. It was at this time I started seeing shrinks (who only wanted to prescribe antidepressants) and weren't much use at all really but by chance also at this time I discoved this thing called Asperger's Syndrome.

so...what else did I do recuperation-wise.. um I went vegetarian (I eat meat again now, but I'm not a huge meat eater anyway), drank lactose free milk (to clear mental fog type problems - chronic fatigue has a lot of mental symptoms as well), I also drink tonic water (quinine) sometimes for mental fog stuff, I bathed a lot (when I managed to get out of bed) and walked the dog, listened to a lot of music as I have always used music as a 'friend' and a 'medicine'. The other stuff I did was religious because I was becoming a christian (no one else was going to help me) so I prayed a lot, like daily, made holy water and sprinked it around my room and parts of the house (might seem crazy but it made me feel better - panic attacks are spooky things).

It had become quite obvious I needed to get away from my mother to get better but I couldn't do it until I was slightly better, just didn't have the mental wherewithall, so eventually I had some improvement but was still kinda 'off' and did some research on the net on travel and accomodation and I moved interstate and established a new life away from my, ugh, 'family'.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.

That is definitely different than what my situation turned out to be. It was a negative, overwhelming environment that brought on the near breakdown, so post-breakdown I got to be in a better place (though looking for work, changing professions, and worrying about how long savings would last were stressors for a while).

Can definitely relate to establishing a new life as a big step in getting better. It wasn't family (relationships there have always been decent to great) so much as getting to reinvent myself after figuring out I had AS, what my limits, and stressors were, etc.

Diet got better, and waas really good as I was training for a marathon (it was a great, productive use of time, and a change of pace as I had never really taken up running before). I'd like to say I have a healthy habit that really helps me, but it's been sugar-free Rockstars that perk me up and make me more focused.

Thanks for sharing. Other people's experiences have really helped me understand my own a bit better.

Sugar free Rockstar?! I have to track down some of that stuff. The sugary stuff makes me jittery then I crash...

I have found speedy recovery is 1/2 mental toughness and resolve and 1/2 making sure you are getting the right amounts of nutrients etc. If I find myself in this situation the first place I tend to end up is the fruit and veg aisle of the nearest supermarket etc. I find plenty of raw veg and fruit mashed up in a liquidiser plus eating lots of oily fish, seeds and grains really speeds things along.

Usually I find it is much more difficult to feel sorry for myself if my body is getting the things it needs. It is all too easy to hermit yourself away and eat crap for a week or two whilst you 'recouperate' only to find you aren't feeling any better. Physical activity in moderation has also helped.

I've done the diet an exercise part for sure (ran my first marathon in October, am getting back into a regular workout/run routine. I actually work as a personal trainer, so if anything a sense of professional shame has kept me active). I'm keep myself decently balanced between socializing and recognizing when I just need that "me" time, and am not really stressed or super depressed about not feeling 100% (there is some up and down, which just tends to follow my being tired). What I am more engaging the subject for is getting a feel for what I am experiencing (recuperate was also not a great word to use; it's more getting back to where I was a few years ago energy-wise, when I generally had energy and rarely felt short on sleep). I was diagnosed in the aftermath of my near breakdown and am tapping the resource of others' experiences to find my own way through this newfangled thing they call Aspergers.

I don't know what it is about the Sugar Free stuff, but it works well for me. It does have one or two extra B-vitamins and milk thistle on the ingredients, so maybe that has something to do with it. It's good with a cookie or something with a slight natural sweetness. I tried it accompanied by a pretel once, but the tart and salt combo was a little bit too blechh.

I almost forgot... I am looking into Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, as I feel more natural (and prone to) a scehdule of falling sleep early in the morning and getting up early in the afternoon. It has not been as much of a problem before as I have had energy or jobs to accomodate it (as well as valid reasons to say that perhaps it was just my fitness leve/lifestyle/bad habits that were the problem, but, if it is DSPS, it would be making things a bit more difficult now as I try get things completely back on track.

Yes. I probably should have been seen by someone, but wasn't. Miracle I lived through it.

What I did was read up on the symptoms I had first, but that did not help. I went to cognitive-behavioral therapy and that helped a bit, but not much. What really did the trick was getting away from my environment (i.e. school and home) and going to Europe for two months. Being taken off your usual environment changes your focus. I also have a friend who is an herbalist and he prescribed the herb Feverfew for me which helped calm me down and balanced my mood. I would highly recommend it for anyone suffering from any sort of anxiety. I also read some ancient philosophy (mainly Epictetus) in order to understand myself and the world better.

I can now say that I am glad I had the breakdown because I am now a much better person and do not become stressed at the slightest thing.