What is the best mild psych drug for an Aspie?

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What is the best mild psych drug for an Aspie having a bipolar depression?

I am dealing with loss of mental energy and motivation, just when I get home from work. I have big trouble doing my housekeeping tasks or going out to my fitness club doing some sports. Just collapsing on my couch, often letting my wife do all that household stuff... I do not feel depresst, just mentaly tired. But I cannot fall asleep 'till around midn8. I have no stress at work. my job is ok, even sometimes a little boring. It is mostly easy. And at the weekends I have trouble getting my ass up doing something else than watching TV, doing some urgend needed housekeeping work.

Ah yes, I had a deep issue of burnout half of the past year. But because getting an early appointment seeing a psychiatrist is unpossible. The waiting time for a apointment is around 6 month here in Germany!! ! so, tuesday I will have this first apointment with my new doctor. But it is not realy a urgent burnout issue anymore, it's more the bipolar depression problem I guess I have.

So, please, do you guys have experience wich drugs do not work, would be too much or too less for us aspies / autists? What drugs do work the best in such a case???

A lot of psychiatric drugs have side effects and really aren't very good for you. You say you do not feel depressed, but are having problems with motivation and organisation. Are you sure your problems aren't something to do with executive function, rather than a mood disorder? Personally, I would not rush to take psychiatric medication until I was sure what was going on as they won't work otherwise.

Or are you just plain tired? Maybe something to help you sleep would be worth looking into, Aspies often have trouble with their sleep cycles. I am not sure how early you have to get up in the morning so I can not tell from your post whether you are getting enough sleep or not.

I'm sorry to be so obtuse, but what you describe does not sound like a "typical" depression to me, there are usually some "mood" symptoms to accompany the more physical ones - I am not saying you are not depressed, I am not a doctor, just that you should consider the alternatives and seek medical advice.

Ok, yes, I know how a real typical depression feels like, if what I had 4 times in my life, has been typical depressions. Humans around me have been only objects, nothing could get me interested and I had none motivation for whatevery I liked or loved befor. Nothing could get me excited or happy or trigger any positiv emotions anymore. I did not feel love, not even hate, just had the feeling to be disconnected to the outer world and mute within my inner world. I felt like being a robot with an organic body.

So, bipolar is what I experience these days for years now. having phases of days when I feel very mentaly strong and start things, just falling down again some days later or even some hours later being strong in believing that I will not reach my goal, cannot get that new hobby or task done, not being able to finish it. Often I just even do not start because I feel like I wil never get it right.

One or two days in a week or even only once in two weeks I feel having the power to get simple things done at home in my free time after work. Other days I just can keep myself rolling and working as supposed to by the motivation that I get mone for it and that I can help with m knowledge and experiences. But my power and strength is exausted the minute I come in through the home door. I cannot listen to what my wife is telling me, the words are going just right through me without ay effect. I even have to tell her often to repeat because just a half minute later I figure out I cannot remember a word she said to me!

I have to wake up at 6am, having 1.5h to get ready and another 30 to 40 minutes to drive to work.
Like many other aspies, I often lay on my bed, very tired, but just can't fall asleep. And often I have to use my earplugs so I can sleep, because my wife snoores a lot and real loud. But every morning, no matter if I slept 6 or 8 hours (about 8 hours at the weekends), I wake up being exausted and need about 2 to 3 hours to get me energiesed, to get me up to speed. A lot of coffee, my two pills of vitamin B complex + zinc and some morning routine at work.

Maybe my sleep quality is a mess and I need something that knocks me down at the evening, without the side effect being stoned at the morning after 8 hours of sleep! Actualy since I take my two pills vitamin B6+B12+zinc, I sleep much better, but still I do not sleep deep and long enough and well, I still got the problem that I cannot switch off my brain at the time I should.

I already got my hormones tested as well as my thyroid, all are very good in shape. What I got is too much weight and I am insulin resistant. I got that much weight after both my knees have been damaged 1993 and got fixed finaly in 2004. In between my life changed from being a real sports youngster to being a couch potatoe and a IT Nerd without being able to do sports, without being able to move a lot because of the pain I had constandly 24/7. My knees are fine, but my brain, my psyche is not since then. Before 1993 when I had emotional problems, I wwent out for a run of 10km, being back after an hour or having a walk for three hours straight or a bike ride for 30km just for the fun of it both at the weekends. So having the walk or the bike tour at the weekends. And in the summer vacation my parents and I have been a lot in the mountains walking, hiking and even doing real mountain hikes up to 8000ft! Sport was an importaint part of my life befor 1993 and since then my world changed. So did I without having the power to change my life the way I like it. I lost a real big part of self-esteem and self-confidence and I only feel good when others prais and commend my IT work or my wife my housekeeping work. I never can reach my own expectations of my abilities and goals. Others often tell me that I should not be so rigorous and harsh to myself. I think too much, expect too much and start too many projects I am stopping because I do not trust to get it done right.

Often I do not feel joy in what I do. I just do it because it is my job or my task and I can do it and I get something for doing it. But realy seldom I enjoy it. I even can have sex with myself and do not enjoy it, just doing it for my hormones and to get rid of the pressure and feeling relief. But no joy or fun.

But when I found something that realy got me, I can be so much enthusiastic and even fanatic doing it that I get on the nerves of others very fast. Ok that is "normal" for me as being an aspie. I dive into my SIs and can be in that tunnel very long without a brake and doing it a lot better then others, most NTs. But what comes with that is as well feeling soooo super happy and extremly excited, that's not normal even for aspies I guess!

Just to sum up: I have phases of strong happy and excited activities sometimes lasting some hours, and then dropping down to feeling very exausted and tired and unhappy and dull the next hours just like if a switch has been used on me!
Sometimes these phases are shifting within hours, sometimes each part lasts some days. I would call that bipolar or flipflopping like a TTL FlipFlop chip. Off/On, binary and I realy do not like it. And it is completely different to what I experienced realy deep depression is... But in these down phase parts I feel a little like having a depression, but not nearly as strong as I remember a real one would be and had been. I still can laugh about jokes, feel love and give love and so on and on. But I more so feel very tired and unsure... Do I make some sense? English is not my mother tongue...

From what information you give I think this. Imagine your brain/mind as a battery that drains each day. You need to recharge the mental battery after each days work
A few hours maybe ? Than do house work and the fitness club.

tried that recharging way already... does not work. I have to drive to the fitness clu right away after work, doing an hour my training and drive home. I had a looong period of unemployment and had still the same problem like today when I have to work 5 days a week. But I had more time to recharge my battery, but it did not recharge at all. I slept a lot more, but still I was tired half of the day and did not more housekeeping work as todays.

I would be tempted to try some kind of psychological therapy before I tried antidepressant medication, as current research seems to indicate that antidepressants are no more effective than placebo in mild to moderate cases (obviously if you became severely depressed medication may be of benefit). You may benefit from something to aid your sleep though, as it does not sound as though you are sleeping very well and not getting enough sleep can really affect your mood and energy levels. These are both things you could talk to your doctor about.

What you describe does not really sound like bipolar disorder as usually the moods last longer (weeks or months, rather than days or hours), although sometimes people do get diagnosed with rapid cycling variants. Sometimes there is some emotional disregulation with AS or some psychological disorders so if you have not been officially diagnosed with bipolar it may be worth seeking further clarification. If you have been diagnosed with bipolar you will also need to exercise some caution if you do plan on taking antidepressants as some of them can increase the likelihood of a manic episode in someone with bipolar.

Hey--just to let you know bipolar is really serious, no joke, not like the energy problems you describe.
The meds bipolar people going to are heavy and have serious side effects at time so don't give yourself more problems than you have.

It sounds like your energy and mood issues could be related to sleep and psychiatrists are not the best doctors to deal with sleep. I had good luck with naturopaths--they gave me long-lasting melatonin which helps sleep through the night. In the Northwest US they are better regulated than the rest of the country--not sure what their status is in Europe. Would think you have more options as far as "medical tourism"--maybe you can just drop into the Netherlands or London for the weekend to visit a practicioner if you are waiting so long in your own country.