Meltdowns and Depression

[Ripley7]

Hi-I’m a 42 year old female - I’d recently been diagnosed with having high functioning autism/Aspergers and ADD. (already diagnosed with chronic anxiety and depression).

So the frequent anxiety attacks are now what I believe to be Autistic meltdowns. Mine are in form of sort of panicky irrational crying fits, although I try my best to hold it in. Oftentimes it happens at work when I’ve reached my stress threshold. Sometimes I can feel it building close and I can try to manage it better and other times it is sudden.

My question is does anyone ever feel sort of a ‘hungover’ feeling afterwards for the next couple of days...for example very fatigued, depressed, and kind of spaced out...

This is how I feel each time but the depression is very dark—I am battling an issue I have with self harming, specifically cutting, and the urge to is worst immediately after my attack/meltdown for the next 2 or 3 days.

I’m seeing a counselor about the self harming.

I was just wondering mostly about the hungover/depression part and whether that’s a common thing.

Thanks in advance!

[Hidden]

Hi try to learn to relax more when things happen take a deep breath and sit back keep practicing it then will become second nature.

I'm in same/similar boat to you as i'd just throw things everywhere and break things etc so had to learn to sit down as it were!

[Ripley7 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you- I will definitely have to practice some kind of deep breathing. My weekend shifts are when they usually happen and I’ve come to dread the weekends now.

[ncrbrts]

I don't know about common but I feel like that after a big meltdown. I rarely get big ones now because since I was diagnosed I have learned to mitigate my anxiety (or try to ask for help when I can't do it myself), but when I do they always result in days of struggling to get out of bed which sucks when you are trying to maintain any kind of life. I wish I could give tips on how to deal with them but I'm not so good at it myself.

[Ripley7 in reply to ncrbrts]

On the contrary, hearing about someone else’s experience with meltdowns and depression can help me get a bit of insight on what might help me get through my issues.

To me it sounds like you surely must be on the right path in dealing with your meltdowns since you were diagnosed.

I think it takes a lot of courage to ask for help in the times where you feel like you can’t do it yourself. That’s probably one of my biggest hurdles right there because I don’t know anyone or even trust anyone enough to ask for help. The few around me don’t really seem to understand me—and besides they’re going through their own problems in which I am a contributor (or so says my live in boyfriend as he deals with his own demons).

It just feels like I’m blindly battling with my own mind—alone and clueless.

[ncrbrts in reply to Ripley7]

I was lucky enough to have the support of a good psychologist - are you seeing anyone like that at the moment? She gave me a lot of strategies and wrote many letters to places like work and university explaining my difficulties and asking for reasonable adjustments (although I rarely use my adjustments but knowing they're there makes me feel secure). All of these things, and being able to recognise what is making me anxious and why, have been very helpful and I was able to graduate from therapy a few months ago and no major meltdowns yet. Yay!

It is difficult when people around you don't understand or are not supportive. I think it's true of the general population that they don't get what autism is and how it affects us, and they are much less considerate if you are high functioning. And I've found it hard being diagnosed later in life because it is an entirely new dimension of your identity you have to get comfortable with - it disrupts decades worth of thinking you knew yourself but actually...

I hope you manage to find some support somewhere.

[Ripley7]

Congratulations on graduating from therapy- and being major meltdown free since then!

I’m currently seeing a counselor and a psychiatrist. It’s only been a few months but I feel good about the place I go to. I’m glad to finally dig up what it was that was behind a lot of the anxiety and depression- which was kind of just going through life being on the spectrum but not knowing it- dealing with the world’s expectations and always seeming to fall short.

I’d never had emotional support from my family. It’s always been the idea that I’m just over sensitive and I need to toughen up. Even now they don’t believe me or my diagnosis. No support from the boyfriend either.

But now the knowledge of my diagnosis has sort of vindicated me (in my own head) for always feeling like I don’t belong anywhere.

However, the only positive thing about that is that maybe I’ve learned to go a little easier on myself mentally-not beat myself up so much for falling short at certain things; because I’m literally wired different.

I guess I’ve still got a long way to go.

[whitegato777]

Have you tried low dose naltrexone? Also if it helps and you can get the money together for umbilical cord stem cells i would try it.