Do not understand what is happening

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Don't understand what is hapenning.

I feel like s**t, I have had enough of taking my Medication and I really understand why I feel like I do.

Before I take my meds I feel fine, but then I take them and I want to do bad things and they make me feel like crap.

I dont understand and I have begun to scare myself sometimes and I do not know why.

I blow up at the slightest things. I have begun to defend myself (not effectively because of meds) and this just seems to make things worse.

All I want to do is to crawl into a hole and never come out again.

What am I doing wrong?
Why do I feel like this?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME

Perhaps recording your thoughts in writting then taking the writting into your doctor.

Good advice.

What you're experiencing is classic side effects of the the mood variety. If you keep a log--even a brief one--of what you're feeling and when, your doc has a better chance of dealing with the problem.

And don't expect to understand what's happening. You won't. Understanding relates to ideas and thoughts and communication. What's happening to your body is not understandable, because it's physical. It's MATTER. You can't understand matter. Matter has zero understanding in it. If you try to squeeze understanding out of matter, you'll make yourself nuts.

Best wishes and healing. I know it's tough.

Hyper Alien

To me this seems like you're on the wrong meds. Maybe you need to try different ones.

I've heard that drugs like ritalin for ADHD can make Asperger's worse.

My experience of marijuana (eaten not smoked) - was it slowed my thinking down and I felt stupid and I found this very frightening - since I rely on quick thinking to keep me out of trouble.

My experience of alcohol is it enhances what ever mood I'm in when I drink it. So if I'm anxious I tend to become angry - which isn't really the effect people are expecting when they make you drink a glass of champagne. I've declared myself allergic to champagne. Usually gets them off my back. So I always avoid getting completely smashed on alcohol because if I start to lose control or co-ordination - I get anxious - which pretty quickly translates to a rather extreme form of anger. Which is no fun at parties.

I've never tried anti-anxiety medication or anti-depressants. I suspect if any of those slow my thinking - I would react badly.

At moment no doctor. I am eighteen. I got kicked out of the mental health unit as for adolescents and am now an "adult". Whatever that means.

They think when hit eighteen ADHD will go away. They think AS will stop happening. I believed them. They lied to me. They will never go away. Never. I am ok with this as long as not medicated for the rest of my life.

I think therefore the meds need to stop.

Five years long time. Yes it seems time to stop if this is the reason I feel bad.

You guys good. Good advice.

hyper alien

I don't know what your resources are like - but this is something that is helping me.

I see a psychologist - who uses "cognitive behaviour therapy" (CBT).

Which involves analysing your thinking, like your reactions to certain triggers/stresses, and thinking of alternate reactions that would be more useful/constructive.

So while a trigger might set off anxiety - it is a way of introducing self talk that is constructive.

So for me - my thinking alone can make physiological reactions in my body. Ie destructive thinking can make bad chemistry with no drugs swallowed at all.

In Australia, psychologists are not allowed to prescribe drugs, so all their effort is about analysing why you think what you think, why you feel what you feel, how that builds recursively on itself and how you might interupt the system and come up with better strategies.

All this does take some practice and repetition to be useful - you have to remember somehow in the middle of a crisis - to interrupt what you're thinking and question it's validity.

A couple of examples.

For every event - that triggers a response, possible responses might be
angry (how dare they? they shouldn't do that)
worried (what if something horrible happens)
sad (why me, this always happens to me, there's something wrong with me)
and ideally
Ok (they forgot, it's not my job to fix it, i will find a way to manage, doesn't bother me, it's not so important).

Each set of brackety things - changes depending what the event is...

Some examples of questioning your own thinking...
what thought is feeding the angry/worried-anxious/sad response?

what is the worst that could happen, how likely is that?
what is the best that could happen, how likely is that?
what is the most likely outcome? how would I cope with that?

what things can I change?
what things can't I change?
(and god/higher power/deeper self give me wisdom to tell the difference)
what sensible things can I do to improve the chance of what I want
and reduce the chance of what I don't want to happen?

If you are sure you have AS, I'd suggest (with no valid qualifications whatsoever), that you avoid ADHD medications. And if depression or anxiety is holding you back more than you can accept or tolerate, then try the lowest dose drug to help with that. Maybe the anti depression drug first depending how out of control your depression is. I find a low level of anxiety quite easy to tolerate. You might think of it as anticipation or excitement if that helps. I suspect that anti depression drugs might counter the anti anxiety drugs or vice versa. So it might not be so good to take both at once.

Also every body reacts a little differently to every drug so if one isn't working for you, you feel worse not better, change to something different - a different type of drug that operates on the system differently. And do the research on every drug they give you - google the chemical ingredients and look up the side effects and variety of responses - this will help you with words to describe how you feel on the drug when you talk to the doctor who prescribed them. And keep a journal. Doesn't matter if what you write doesn't make sense - this might be one of the unacceptable side effects.

If you can't afford a psychologist, consider joining toastmasters.org or a similar organisation. They won't help directly with "therapy" but they will teach you to communicate in a positive and constructive way, and this may help other people treat you better and then you may be less frustrated and stressed and feel better. And they are much much cheaper than a therapist.

In the UK it is free to see psychologists/ psychiatrists. The problem I have is their attitude of that when you get to eighteen the condition disappears. As a result of this I have found myself without one.

I have never recieved much help. For the three years i was on Ritalin. The last two years I have been on Strattera. And know I am eighten they just expect me to stop.
They wont even give me a copy of my case notes (I tried to get them today).

They are just morons.

Thanks for the advice though.

Hyper Alien

Strattera now has a big fat suicide warning on it - ie taking it could give you suicidal thoughts. Great just great.

And Strattera - like Ritalin is for ADHD. And I don't believe you can have AS and ADHD at the same time though I do believe that on superficial investigation AS can be mistaken for ADHD. There are those who disagree with me.

Reason I think what I think - Hans Asperger described his patients as "Little Professors" ie like to give long monologs (lectures) on their favourite subject whether their audience signals interest or not. I don't think an ADHD sufferer could do that. But an AS person may be unable to focus attention on anything that is not "interesting", and so appear to be AD. An AS person may not be able to pay attention in a stressful environment ie a bored or unfriendly clinician's office.

Can't you get to see a psychologist for "depression" - which I consider caused by the AS limitations and frustrations - but you don't have to tell the psychologist that when you start. Once you have a reasonable relationship with the psych - one that specialises in CBT - then you can educate them on AS. Until they figure it out for themselves what you already know. For some strange reason, none of the psychs in my town seem to be interested in adult aspies. Maybe it's because we're old enough to have learned masking strategies so they get confused. Really you are a "publishing" opportunity because nobody is currently doing the research on aspergers in adults - maybe that will get them interested. If you are really sneaky you may find a psych who is also aspie/many aspie traits and probably doesn't know it. You can be direct (blunt) with one of those. Hint - ask them why they found psychology and human behaviour study interesting.

I looked up Zoloft and Aropax as well - both scary as hell but more appropriate for relieving anxiety-depression combos than Strattera. Aropax is particularily horrid. Neither of these or any of the SSRI (Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors) are recommended for children or young adults because they have suicide warnings too. Not to mention ugly withdrawal symptoms.

I hope you find a way that works for you.

my psychiatrist kicked me out as I am now an "adult". I came of ritalin to get away from suicidal thoughts. They sometimes come back.

I think the best way forward is to just stop taking it.

I hate it.

Makes me feel realy bad sometimes.

I'm sorry that these things are happening to you. You never did share that these things are happening to you or mayne you did already. Is there anything I your best friend can do to help you out?

Hyper Alien

I think it is good to stop the meds.

I think you also need to talk to someone about your bad thoughts, and how to cope generally - without the meds.

To me, ideally, that would be a psychologist that speciallises in something called "CBT". But even a friend who helps you see the good things in life and listens when you're stressed would be a start.

Some psychologists and psychiatrists specialise in children ie under 18 years old - so that might be why yours kicked you out. Many psychologists and psychiatrists deal with adults. You should be able to find one for you.

I don't know what the system is in the UK. In Australia - we go find a GP that we like and ask them to recommend / refer to a psychologist who specialises in CBT.

Does that make any sense? Do you think that would help you?

Why are you still saying you can't get help because you are too old? Find a new helper. You can do it. TigerFire might be able to assist with this.

It is hard in the UK to find psychiatrists how are for adults who know about AS and ADHD in this country.

Tiger is a good person and is trying to help me, but it must be hard.

What you have said has made sense. I will talk with tiger fire more about what i feel. It is easier for me to do this online and in text form than it is to talk person to person.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been seriously scaring myself and I didnt really understand why.

Thanks for the advice it is helping me and so is talking to people about what is happening.

Hyper Alien

CBT or Cognitave Behaviour Therapy - works quite well for me. It didn't matter that neither me nor my psychologist knew I had Aspergers at the time I started. I was just looking for practical strategies to get my life going where wanted without me stuffing myself up so badly (self sabotage, ultra-procrastination, depression).

So I think you can educate your therapist as you go, while they teach you CBT strategies to address your self-destructive thinking.

When you're trying out a new therapist, give them two sessions - to see if you feel comfortable with them, and if not, look for another therapist.

It doesn't always matter if they understand what AS is or agree that you have it. Mine didn't when I started. She told me she thought I didn't have it. And then when she saw me talking to someone I wasn't comfortable with, she changed her mind. But she said, and I agree with this, that the strategy/treatment for my problems is the same whether I have AS or not.

It should be fairly easy to find a therapist especially a psychologist that knows CBT.

I don't know why you'd hurt yourself either.

Sometimes when I am particularily angry or frustrated - I will do things that are very risky to my safety. I got in a stranger's car once when I was mad that the loan car I'd been given by my car mechanic didn't work, didn't have brakes, didn't have any water in the radiator etc. It broke down in the middle of the road. And it was raining and cold and horrible. I was so angry - I just didn't care.

And there is a certain level of pain I get to - I rate it 8 out of 10 (9 - is screaming or whimpering incoherently, 10 is unconscious) - where 8 is still talking but what I say is "please kill me now and put me out of my misery". Again I'm in so much pain that I can't think about getting better. Last time that happened to me was when I had an Arthroscopy on my knee after I snapped the ACL in two. Unfortunately the damn nurse wasn't dishing out more morphine for less than a 10. I don't know why she bothered asking. If I have to have surgery on my knee again (to repair the ACL) - I will just scream at her.

The closest I've gotten to deliberate self mutilation (apart from picking pimples) was putting a compass through my finger when I was trying to break into a piggy bank. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want a tetnus shot - they hurt.

Is it possible for you to do some exercise instead of hurting yourself? Like 20 crunches or a quick walk around the block or up and down stairs for 10 minutes?

I dont know what to say.

What I feel is like a huge explosion in my head and then I do something stupid. Something really stupid sometimes.

You can say anything to describe how you feel. I'll listen. I think I helped you some. I got some of it down. I hope I could help you more Aliens.