night rage

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Hi. I'm new here. I'm a self diagnosed aspie who had no idea what was "wrong" with me until I was in my 20's when I discovered aspergers. What a revelation. I'm living a mostly normal life, but of course have some aspie related issues that I contend with.

One is the tendency to have rages at night. Rage is rare for me in the daytime for some reason. I feel like the world is closing in and I can't imagine making it to morning. Eventually I'll tantrum myself to sleep and when I wake up, I feel like a fool - everything is fine (except of course for the damage I caused the night before, emotionally and often physically...I broke my hand last night on a brick wall). I'm wondering if night time is an issue for others more so than day time. If so, and even if not, how do people deal with their rage issues?

I love this site, btw. Wow, so nice to hear so many familiar stories.

For me it's mostly dreams, so it's a good thing that for the most part, the nervous system immobilizes the body during sleep. My latest dream was about how I kept walking into a projector beam while someone else was giving a talk. The projector beam was one beam, but somehow it ended up on several screens around the room, and the beam was difficult to avoid. In the dream my awareness of possibly causing offense by blocking the beam was greater than it normally would be, and my coordination was worse than it normally would be. It was a dream meltdown, where I dreamed that I was having a meltdown about something in the dream. In the dream I was swearing and a woman sat next to me and I explained to her that I don't mean to seem so scary, and she touched me.

I had night terrors well into adulthood. It was because I always internalized all my anxiety, fear and anger. It's good to express it before it gets too big to handle. I had to get over feeling like I didn't have a right to my feelings.

For me, it's if a social thing doesn't work out toward the end of the day. Then, it's a busted day. And it reminds me of all the other things that haven't worked out. (and it can be a very small thing toward the end of the day)

Sometimes it helps for me to then plan to get out and do something early the next morning.

Sounds to me like a release of the day's events, all that stress has to go somewhere. My rages always happen during the day, though.

Nights are a personal thing, time for us to be alone and reflect. I can only imagine that for you it's sort of like a designated time to get out all of those frustrations. And while I can't know for sure, since my reading comprehension is quite poor at the moment, I'd at least say if you could, it would be great for you to find a gym for exercise at nights to relieve some of that, or at least some other very-physical activity at a time that would be suitable for you. If money is an issue, jogs before nighttime have helped me quite a bit, but I have no idea about your personal ability to tolerate that sort of exertion. Find a way to get out all of that built-up aggression, and perhaps the fear of the oncoming night may be easier to digest.

Just to note, I have had major, major issues with being alone through the night. That fear each night had me doing some pretty drastic things. Music and reading with some kind of 24-hour Discovery network in the background is how I get by, and frankly, I do this every single night. I never sleep during darkness, that fear is still very much there for me as well. I suppose that diversion of getting super-involved with a book, aided by my favorite music is about the only thing keeping me from going nuts. I have no idea how much that works for you, but it's an idea.

I know the feeling of finding out about Aspergers, after a life time of feeling wierd. It woke me up a few notches to. As for the night thing, I have my set of emotions kind of the other way around. During the day, I usualy look at life negatively, including other people. Then at night, I'm very paranoid. I go to sleep every night forceing myself not to think of demons. As related? Hard to say..

I understand the anger, and how you can't sleep until you get rid of the anger. I find exercise to be helpful. As you exercise try to appreciate that you're doing something good for yourself.

And don't forget to channel your rage as you exercise. Use anger as the driving force to purge it.

When I was a teenager I used to wake up several times a night with this feeling that there was something very important I had to do but I just couldn’t figure out what that was. This went away in my early twenties.