Anyone else with aspergers become "depressed" (but not sad)?

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I'm not an emotional person, and can't ever remember feeling sad or happy, and over time this led me to have sleep issues. It's like my aspergers causes me to have very little emotions, which led to the develop of insomnia for me. I tried SSRI's, but they only made my sleep worse (although they did make me more emotional)... and recently I started 45mg Remeron which now makes me feel very good and happy. With Remeron, I actually experience emotions now. Anyone else take Remeron (or SSRIs) which have helped them quite a bit?

It took me a while to figure out I was "depressed" (since I don't have the sadness part), even though I was perfectly content with my life. But now after taking anti-depressants I'm content AND more emotional now. It's like now I want to smile when I meet someone instead of just having a flat and emotionless expression... or in other words... instead of constantly feeling neutral, I now feel much more emotional.

Last edited by raw83472 on 17 Oct 2017, 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah I think this is the mostly what depression is. Its also a lot to do with feeling hopeless not sure if that applies to you.

I get both "depressed" and "sad."

Sometimes, when I'm depressed, I get more "angry" than "sad."

Not sure I know what depression is. What are its key features? How is it distinguished from normal, "healthy" sorrow and feeling down? Is there a good online test anywhere?

Oh absolutely. I'll have low energy, achy joints. Nothing I do can hold my interest and nothing seems worth putting in the effort. I might be sad for a bit, or a bout of sadness will trigger it, but then that lifts and I'm still having all the other symptoms.

"depression" is a diagnosis

"Sad" is an emotion

Some precious lil "people" are so full of themselves that claim they are "depressed", but they do not have a diagnosis.

The opposite of depressed is manic

The opposite of sad is happy

And I do have a diagnosis for clinical depression

Sometimes I feel depressed and not sad.

I once read that children and teenagers who are depressed may not appear sad but adults who are depressed usually do, that kids and teens may try to relieve their misery by being "bad" and lying, stealing, or running away. When I become really depressed I feel both physically and emotionally as if the joy has all been sucked out of me. It's just like the Dementors in the Harry Potter books. But sometimes instead of just wanting to sleep and cry and hide from the world more so than usual I've become very angry, hostile, nasty, and just full of hatred. And then people see me as a dangerous madwoman who must be locked up and heavily sedated. I wonder if I'm really passive-aggressive.

Depressed is perhaps an overused word. If you feel sad sometimes but then perk up in a day or so that's not depression. That's perfectly fine and even normal. Real depression stays around much longer is is much more debilitating. And even in this day and age people with depression are still seen as weak and somehow at fault and that they're just using it as an excuse for everything. Just like people who are autistic. Who often suffer depression.

I remember once I have this incredible feeling of sadness the same feeling I had when my cat died but nothing was wrong everything was fine. I do remember finding the emotion itself very intriguing, almost like my brain had a short in it. I take Adderall, Effexor and Seroquel but at that time it was either nothing or Sertaline I forget. The current combo though does seem to work fairly well, and it is simply not possible to remain awake after the Seroquel so it helps me to go to sleep when I should (as long as I take it that is.

Depression lasts longer than "healthy" sorrow. Depression is like a blanket that smothers everything else out. For instance, the normal grief process after someone dies, the person will be sad, but they'll remember good times. Depressed people probably won't, or they'll remember the fact of good times while only feeling the conviction that things will never be good again. Some depressed people can't remember ever being happy, nor can they imagine ever being happy again.

Normal sorrow has no real impact on self-esteem; depressed people usually feel worthless or guilty or outright evil. A lot of the indicators of depression -- hand wringing, sleep disturbance, changed appetite, etc. -- can be true of sorrow or grief, but with depression these symptoms last a lot longer. Depressed people have a hard time thinking clearly; sorrowing people who've gotten past the shock of an initiating incident can usually concentrate if they have to.

Depressed people may not feel sad because they don't feel much of anything. Sometimes depressed people feel more angry than sad. If you'll excuse the mixed sensory images, depression can be like a grey drone that becomes all the depressed person is aware of, or that blocks everything else (beauty, music, love) from getting through to the depressed person intact.

Yeah, when my depression is bad, I don't feel sad, I just feel emotionally numb. I have negative thoughts that most people would assume I'd feel sad/bad about, but I don't feel anything about them at the time. I don't even feel anything about the thought of killing myself, I just view it as a fact that people would be better off without me, so it's selfish of me to keep living (don't worry, I'm not having those thoughts right now).

I was depressed for a lot of months before I started taking medicine for it. Every once in a while it will creep back in but I have managed to hold it off. I know I'm in a depressive mood when I get dark thoughts, such as no one caring about me and angry or irritated for no reason.

It's pretty hard to deal with and it sucks when you are in that state but no one can tell and you can't explain it in a way to get someone to understand.

I wish I could help those in their depressed state because I know I didn't like feeling that way and I'm pretty sure no one does!

I've been depressed since I was 13 when I started to realize that something was terribly wrong with me. My parents didn't care to have me evaluted for Autism as I know now. In my 40s and only diagnosed a couple of months ago. I wish I could take Remeron again but my new lame ass job pays only 5% of perscription drugs leaving me with almost $50 a month drug bill.

Reminds me of my parents, I was having some major problems with depression for a few years my parents solution for this was to make my life more difficult. Eventually I attempted suicide by jumping off a car park and straight away my mother comes out with Autism, which really pissed me off because she is a teacher and should no about these things I had no idea that people could have high functioning autism.

I suffer from bouts of depression (and No, I am not clinically diagnosed). The cause of my depression is linked back to bullying abuse that I received at different points over my lifetime. Whenever it hits me, my usual low self esteem becomes negative self esteem (having a net negative value overall). At that point, I see myself as evil. No good can come from me at that stage. Any creative thoughts become centered over revenge tactics in some way, shape or form. I hate this feeling. It steals my positive energy when I need it the most. It is my Frankenstein monster that I have to deal with.

The worst is when I suddenly wake up remembering a past bullying event that I have tried hard for forget. It triggers my depression immediately and I lose the rest of the nights sleep trying to talk myself out of that phase. I can hide it from others at work, but it usually lingers inside me for days afterward. Only my closest friends know about this issue.

I've had both forms of depression. When I was in my teens, my depression manifested as crying all the time and being extremely sad but as an adult I experience it more as complete indifference to life, lethargy, and being emotionally numb. At both ends of it I've been diagnosed so I suppose it's on a spectrum like everything else. I've never noticed any difference on medication so I stopped taking it years ago. I actually wonder these days if the emotional numbness is just part of my personality. Apart from the bout of sadness in my teens, I've never really experienced much emotion.

Thanks for the description. I've certainly felt that kind of hopeless, endless thing, but it's very rarely been intense enough to take me over.


Again, I'm no stranger to such feelings but the intensity and longevity is much less.


Same again. So I guess depression, like most mental illnesses, isn't qualitatively different to normality, it's a matter of degree, and so far I've been lucky. I remember a doctor asking me if I was depressed, and I just replied with my gut reaction - "naw!" - I was never sure about that response because it wasn't the result of an objective appraisal of the situation, but it seems my gut was right.