Haven't had a meltdown this bad since friggin' 7th grade...

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I've always been depressed my whole life, but it's gotten worse in the past few months. I've felt really hopeless about the things that mean most to me ever getting better (i.e. sensory defensiveness, girl problems, connecting with others, becoming a better person, etc.) and lately they've gotten worse. When school ended for winter break, they hit a really low point, especially since my brother was coming home. I love my brother, and enjoy his company for the most part, but it's always hard to get used to his presence when I'm used to having my small room to myself, and we always argue about the stupidest things at some point.

Last night I was feeling suicidal for the first time since 4th grade, when I'd tried to kill myself with a breadknife. Last night I didn't want to actually do it, because I knew that it was immensely selfish, but it didn't feel repugnant like it had always had before because I didn't think life would get any better. (Still don't.) Sensory defensiveness has just gotten worse as I've gotten older, especially in recent years. My home has gotten dustier and has an incurable mildew infestation, so it's hard for me to breathe; this has also lead to my throat being covered in phlegm, probably due to an allergic reaction, which means I cough up phlegm constantly and am always thirsty despite drinking lots of water (since my throat never actually feels it, due to the phlegm...I'm taking medication for it, and it's better but not nearly good enough); my excessive computer use has lead to some chronic headaches (I'm taking medication for that, too, and again it's better but not nearly good enough); somehow I've gotten my neck and back aching like crazy, making it even more difficult to go to sleep at night (basically I'm having a problem most people don't have until 40); and all the while these "constants" are combined with the everyday normal overload-making sensations that I'd be feeling every day anyway. I don't know if an OT will help because I never get used to things and making you "used" to uncomfortable sensations is basically what an OT does. So I didn't expect my life to ever get more comfortable in this regard. Combined with the hopelessness of my other goals (see the more poetic "Quest for Compassion" thread) I was feeling like life would always be as shitty as it was. With such a low morale, I almost felt like killing myself then and there. So of course I was going to blow up the next day. I didn't know how bad, really, but it turned out to be the worst one I'd had since 7th grade, one of my years of hell. (I'm now 18 and a college Freshman.)

I ate breakfast with my brother. He was having cereal, I was having 3/4 of a chocolate muffin from Costco. We talked about various things and I don't remember what, but somewhere along the line I mentioned "NT's," a word I was sure I'd used in his presence before. However, he was confused by the term, so I explained that NT's were Neurotypicals, people without AS. It should have ended right there, but he asked me in a passive-aggressive tone why I bothered to use the word at all, and why not just use "Normal people," or "the Average Joe," or something. I told him because normal and average meant different things in different places, and of course he argued with that, and I argued back, because I didn't see why I should stop using a word that had been adopted by one of the cultures I belong to (in this case, Aspie culture). I also didn't want to listen when he was using such a passive aggressive tone, and told him so. He said he wasn't being passive aggressive because that meant he was being passive aggressive on purpose and he didn't want to be, but his tone was still passive aggressive and people are passive aggressive all the time without meaning to. Yet he continued to deny it. Finally he told me that the first impression his girlfriend had had of me was that I used a lot of big words and it seemed boastful of my vocabulary. (I felt that he was saying this to insult me--why else bring it up? Furthermore, I didn't see why I should dumb down my language.) Then he said that aspies like me complained about most people not understanding us, and said that we should make it easier by not using terms that most people didn't understand, and then he called me "closed minded." I tried arguing back, but he then went on the computer to play Half-Life 2 Deathmatch because he was pissed off at me, and he didn't want it to escalate, when really by going on the computer and not letting me reply to his f*****g insults, by being so disrespectful and not letting me even reply, THAT was what would have made it escalate.

I obsessed over and over about it the whole day, pissed off as hell and depressed and sad because I felt misunderstood even though I wasn't even sure I'd understood him right. I was trying to understand his argument but couldn't because I didn't use long words to boast, it was just the way I spoke, and dumbing my language down so dumb people would understand better seemed like shallow bullshit to me--it seemed disrespectful to the words I hold so dear, as a writer. And as a writer, I have the duty to ensure that words longer than 3 letters continue to exist. But of course I couldn't say this because it would just piss him off and he'd either threaten me until I shut up or try to find some other way to escape. Always in the arguments, he'd end them before I was ready for them to end, and THIS was always what got me pissed off. He always said that he ended them before I got too pissed off, but he was doing that in the process, and then I'd spend hours and hours obsessing about it later. Today it got worse because it just combined with all my other thoughts the night before. Like the day before, I basically spent the whole day lying down feeling depressed and crying and trying to do something to distract myself but failing each time. I watched a trailer for the upcoming killer sheep horror-comedy "Black Sheep" (the trailer is at: http://www.blacksheep-themovie.com/ but be careful, the trailer is very graphic--minors beware!), and unlike most trailers for "funny" movies, this one even made me laugh. Yet not even it helped; when it was over, I almost immediately felt depressed again. I didn't want to obsess, I just couldn't help it. I never can. I can never help what I think about. It's usually not as bad because usually I have more things to do, but I had nothing to do and I was already so depressed already about all the other things I'd been obsessing about.

Later my brother had killed a bunch of people in Half-Life and had forgotten all about the morning, but I hadn't. So I thought, "Okay, he's feeling better, and I really have some things to say, so I'll just say them, and then show him that trailer so he laughs and forgets what I said, and then he'll be at peace and I'll be at peace and it'll be fine again." So I said, "Hey Chris!" since he was walking by. "What?" he asked. "Come here!" Only, he walked away. That immediately put me in a bad way and made me less calm than I would have been, because it just seemed to show that he didn't give a s**t like always. So I followed him into the kitchen (where my parents both were) and tried to tell him that I felt he had insulted and disrespected me. Unfortunately, like before he replied in an argument, and he denied everything, but I remembered it, but he denied it, and suddenly it all exploded again, and this time it got worse. He confused me even more, because to me this was about respect and to him it was about "one word." That's what he said, "All this is about one word!" "What?" I asked, confused and really pissed because he was arguing. More squabbling later and I figured it out but he still wasn't going to apologize for being such an as*hole and somehow it escalated again, and again, and before we'd been arguing for two minutes he was threatening to punch the s**t out of me if I didn't leave him alone. Then I screamed at him and got ready to punch me and my mom got inbetween us. (I should say that my brother has never physically harmed me.) I started screaming and crying and I was in tears, and then my brother walked off saying "Whatever, f**k you," and then I screamed "f**k YOU!" and then he started running towards me with this crazed look in his eye, and my mom held him back until he calmed down, but I was still crying and I felt more disrespected than ever, and I followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room and we argued more and he denied more and I asked for respect more and I was pissed off that he thought it was okay for him to tell me "f**k you" but not me, when he'd been the one to disrespect me so much in the first place, and I was just overwhelmed by it all and felt guilty because I'd digressed so much, I was screaming like a little f*****g kid, hadn't been like this since 7th grade. And then my mom was telling me if I didn't calm down then she'd have to take me to the hospital or call somebody to take me to the hospital, and I was leaning against the wall crying and I sunk down to the floor. My brother said we'd just have to never talk ever again because it just made us argue, but I didn't want to because most of the time I enjoy his company and he enjoys mine, and then he said he'd go back up to his college, and my mom told him that he couldn't, he had to stay, and he didn't really reply so it seemed like he would.

I spent the next hour or so on the couch crying and trying to keep my mouth shut so we wouldn't argue more. I felt outraged that I was the bad guy when he'd been the one to get me in that position, that he'd been so disrespectful and had tried to physically harm me and that I was still the bad one, even though I knew that it wasn't okay for me to be screaming and crying so shrilly, to be digressing so much. My mom offered to take me for a walk with the dogs, so I said okay, and when I put my shoes on I showed Chris and his friend the trailer for "Black Sheep." (He didn't like it that much, but mostly because he was pissed it was sharing the name of a Chris Farley movie, one of his favorite movies. But since it's a New Zealand production, I didn't see what the big deal was.) Anyway I went on the walk with my mom and the dogs, and that calmed me down a little bit, and then I planned to watch "Unleashed" because it's one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen (2nd on my list of movies that make me cry the most) and I needed something to distract me, something so emotionally intense that I couldn't think about my own problems as I watched it. When we got home, I put in the DVD, and then my mom asked my brother "What are you doing?" and he replied, "Going back to [college--name withheld]." So I stopped the movie before it had begun and tried talking him into staying, because I knew if he left it would just make me feel even more guilty. While, at my mom's request, he agreed to stay for Christmas, he said he'd go after and would never be staying here again because if he did we'd just argue more, and none of us needed that. I told him that like always, he was trying to escape from his problems and just making them worse. By running away it was just making me feel more depressed and guilty, it would make his parents miss him, and it would mean he couldn't be enjoying the food, movies, heat, and greater comfort that living at home provides. (His home near his college is new and ill-equipped--it lacks a heater and food is not so good.) But he just got pissed off again because I was arguing with him more.

And I'd been ready to watch that movie, to learn from what I'd done and forget it and just never let it happen again, but because of that I couldn't, I didn't want to, I felt to depressed and remorseful. So for the next few hours I sat on the couch and cried AGAIN, because I couldn't do anything else. Eventually I calmed down a little and put my movie on, because I knew Chris didn't give a s**t and wouldn't change his decision. At about an hour through they all went out to see a movie, and my mom was worried because I'd told her I'd felt suicidal the night before and she was afraid I was going to kill myself. When the movie was over, I still felt depressed, but a little more peaceful, so I had dinner and took a shower. Then I went on here to try to vent out any frustrations I had left, since my mom had said I should earlier, except now just going through it all again has just made me feel depressed about it again.

God, I don't know what to do. Why do I have to obsess about things that make me sad? My mom thinks I'm going to have to have some cognitive therapy, and says that an autism clinic in SF might be able to help me with some sensory stuff, even though I'm cynical about it. We may also contact her chiropractor or however it's spelled to help with my aching neck. I just feel awful and I wish my brother understood that him leaving would just make me feel worse. I'm trying to work on my issues, but I can't do that if he makes me obsess about everything more by just running away like he always does.

Happy hollidays....

That sounds awful. I'm glad you chose to talk about it instead of doing something self-destructive.

I've been their when alot of pains add up to total misery. I totalily understand that.
And when your life (as mine) is not that happy anyway it makes it all the worst.

Yeah my brother is very diffcult to deal with. I have hit him with the butt of my rifle instead of killing him one day(he was staring at me non-stop with a smile on his face in
some doped up state). Have physically faught him minutes before getting on bus to leave his house.

Yeah the "big word" things I guess means nerd. I use to be a member of match.com
and I seen many potential match dissappear because they said "no brainiacs" Its
a f***ing feature I have only seen on match.com. Anyway I guess is routed in what they really want: alpha male jock.

I thought I read you exercise some on past post of yours. I say get out of the house and exercise more and avoid contact with difficult people.

We'll first off if your brother leaves thats on him, don't let him manipulate you.I think your mom's suggestion is wonderful and I hope you take her up on it. But I don't get why she was talking about hospitalizing you when your brother was just as bad, but I think it's wonderful that she took you out with her to walk the dogs. She seems very dedicated to you.And we here are also, please don't kill yourself, we all would miss you very much, and it's been hard loosing Jetson, not you to. You have alot to offer, and we love you here. So whatever help you can get, go for it.