Always doing the wrong thing?

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(Already posted this in the general forum, decided it would be better here. The other one can be deleted)

I'm really scared of this situation, I don't know how to cope with it. I'm an 18 year old man with possible Asperger's traits. I'm still trying to figure out if I have it or not, so if anything in this points one way or the other I'd love to know.

I'm in a 2 year relationship with a woman I love very much, but it has descended into a nightmare of bizarreness which I have never experienced before, even with the many relationship problems we've had in the past.

Every day, I feel weighed down by heavy feelings of worry, dread, and anxiety. I can't stop thinking in circles about how my life could be normal, better, less stressful. I try to think of positive ways to improve the situation and I at least feel proud that I've made a lot of progress in being able to organize my thoughts and cope with my (usually extremely variable) emotions.

But every day, inevitably, I make the wrong choices in the relationship, as well as in other parts of my life. My girlfriend, even though she understands and even discovered that I may have Asperger's, often gets very frustrated at my seeming inability to make the right choice. And I can't give her a clear answer as to why, because it's like I just lack the faculties to understand situations in the big picture and make the best decision based on what I feel. My GF ends up feeling like I'm being cold, uncaring, lazy, and just not trying. I love her so much and it literally tears my heart up when I make a crappy decision and it hurts her over and over, beyond my control or understanding.

Even worse, my constant mistakes send me into a swirling nightmare of confusion and sometimes panic. I become more withdrawn and shut off to others and the outside world. I end up not taking care of my own health since I feel like I'm in a stupor, and my GF, having to pick up the slack, resents me even more. The worst and most crushing thing of all, though, is a very recent development. I'm starting to experience more and more delusional symptoms as this continues. I now have a very serious problem of starting to randomly fall asleep during the day, especially during emotional conversations and the later the night gets. This feels totally beyond my control - I will be trying to stay awake and the next second my eyes will be closing and I will be immediately drifting off.

By far the scariest thing, however, is that in the mornings I often experience near complete, though non hallucinatory, delusions while still in bed. These can last 20-30 minutes after waking up, and will only really disappear once I've physically gotten up from bed. The delusions usually involve me feeling like my GF is someone else, that there are other people with us (usually one), that I am somewhere else, and there are often incredibly nonsensical objectives which only make sense in the moment. I attempt to act out these delusions, and only when I actually start talking at my GF about nonsensical things does it start to hit me that I'm delusional, but it doesn't get better at that point, I only get more confused and frantic. It's probably the worst thing I've ever experienced, and I know it's scary for my GF as well.

I've considered breaking up with her to spare both of our selves, but there are often intimate, loving moments which briefly shine between the nightmare that make it incredibly difficult to end this.

I'm so scared because it just feels like it's getting worse. Can anyone understand this?

I think you have bigger worries than your love life at this point, judging by your symptoms. Hallucinations/delusions/pseudonarcolepsy are signs of some very serious mental health issues. Before you make any major life decisions, please seek help from a professional in the mental health field, e.g. a psychiatrist or at least your primary physician. There may be other factors at work here, none of which some peanut gallery advice can fix. Please don't wait on this.

I appreciate the advice. That's definitely something I am interested in, and I've floated between a few therapists, told my doctor my symptoms, etc. My therapists didn't help and my doctor prescribed me SSRIs, which I took for about two months. I was having severe anxiety before them and it helped me permanently cope with that, but they just made me more depressed so I decided to stop it.

The problem is that I'm in Canada and I've heard nothing but bad things about the mental health care here, backed up by what I've experienced myself. My doctor wouldn't even let me see a psychiatrist, saying that they are too scarce and in high demand (since health care is free here, specialists are referred to on a priority basis, and usually involve months of waiting).

So given that, I'm trying to figure out how I can at least help myself in the meantime. If anyone can relate to my experiences or offer advice I'd really appreciate it.

The delusion/hallucination thing is a red flag that should make the physician escalate you to a psychiatrist -- you could be a danger to yourself or others. Have you told him everything that has been going on?

Are delusions when first waking up really that uncommon?

I'm also sorry you're experiencing such frustration with your GF and I hope that after you take care of the MH part that you do get an AS eval and get your GF involved in understanding AS.

No, I haven't. I don't actually ever experience visual hallucinations, or any kind of hallucination, for that matter. The morning delusions have only really occurred in the last week, and never during the day. They have happened on occasion before that, but only rare times when I was awoken in the middle of the night. It could also be that I've been having these symptoms lately because my GF and I have spent numerous late nights talking until 5 or 6 in the morning. These delusions seem to mostly occur around 9 or 10 when we tend to wake up for a short time.

So I don't know that if taking the above into account would still warrant serious help. The sleeping thing I'm not so sure of, because I don't think I should be falling asleep so readily, even if I am tired.

I'm mostly worried about the other problems, however; these things just add to it and seem to be related to the stress I'm going through trying to cope with all of my mistakes.

Thanks whitetiger and mitharatowen. I'll try to get an evaluation, yeah, if I can.

I should mention that most of the time, while I never experience outright delusions, things do feel unreal to me. I seem to have disconnect between the concept of myself, the concept of others, and the concept of reality. I'm also extremely insecure with myself, and struggled with being a masochist since the age of 6 or 7 (sexual fantasies revolving around humiliation). I'm not sure how these things connect and that's been something I've been trying to figure out for a long time.

I don't know.. both me and my husband have experienced 'delusions' on first waking up and I have never worried about it. I'll have to do some research now..

I don't know, I've never experienced sleep disturbances like that. I wake up really rapidly and sometimes have the remnants of dreams floating around, but it's never mixed into my reality. Full blown confusion like that, as often as that, is not something I've seen with friends or family. I'm sure it's pretty physiological. I'd be terrified if I had something like that, myself.

As for everything else, without noticeable social deficits, wouldn't that be classic ADHD/possible bipolar? Lots of my family and some of my friends have problems with it and are totally absent minded and make stupid mistakes. In the case of my friend, she makes stupid mistakes with confidence. I guess if you're lacking in confidence, it's going to kill you even worse if you keep f***ing up due to an dysregulated, scattered, AD/HD mind.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Dear me. Why don't you try getting 8 hours' sleep a night for a week or so, and see if the problem solves itself?

Try this before you go see a doctor, who might well decide you "need" medication when all you really need is adequate sleep.

Your other problems may diminish as well. You don't think logically or make proper decisions when you're sleep deprived.

Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence?

As for your first point, I seem to be getting mixed answers on that one. I guess I'll do some research on it myself. Sometimes it's totally non-existent, like this morning, even though I was awake all night. Possibly it's because I got more than 2 or 3 hours sleep before waking up again? Maybe the answer is as simple as that. I'll keep an eye on it, but what I'm more worried about at this point is that constant fatigue and falling asleep.

As for ADHD, that's entirely possible. It's not so much making 'stupid mistakes', though, as actually having a very hard time cognitively understanding a situation in the big picture (or sometimes in any size picture). It's like taking everything in objectively, balancing it in my head with emotion and then making a coherent decision is something I have a very hard time with. It does sound Asperger's in the way that I can get entirely absorbed in one activity. What makes me think otherwise is that I lack most of the social deficits and ADHD fits because if I'm not depressed I'm usually flying around by the seat of my pants between a huge variety of interests. And when I do get depressed, I crash hard.




I can totally understand your point, as I explained above. Another thing I might chalk it up to is poor diet and lack of regular exercise. But as for it helping my other problems, no, because that is something I've been struggling with for as far back as I can remember (and yes, there have been times I've had adequate sleep in my life ).

Thanks guys.