Losing my mind, I reckon.

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Hello Haven. I think this is my first visit to this section. I guess that's kind of selfish, to post my own thread in here when I haven't even supported anyone else here yet. Being successfully supportive is not my forte though.

So anyway, I reckon I'm "losing my mind". It has been creeping up for a while now, and I've been keeping it at bay. But I wonder if at some point I'll just crack? It's that feeling that nothing is going right, I can't see a way out, and I just don't know how to get out of my rut. Yes, I am going through a bout of depression, but now on top of the feelings of sorrow and helplessness, I feel like I may burst. That's the feeling I'm posting about.

I am not the sort to ever get angry, to have outbursts or anything like that. I have the occasional tantrum-like meltdown when I get drunk. My fear, I suppose, is that I'm going to have something similar when I'm sober. It will just happen one day at a really inopportune moment, and I'm really going to embarrass myself. I'm going to lose my composure and just flip out.

I think my question is, to those of you who are mellow, calm people like me, is it possible that I will lose my mind and flip out suddenly? Or will my natural temperament keep me cool no matter what, until I get through this phase? Maybe this isn't even a Haven topic but more a general autism question. It feels a lot more like "reaching out for support" than anything else I've ever posted, but still I think I'm after informative info rather than a shoulder. Like I said, I reckon I'm losing my mind, so I don't really know.

Thanks folks.

Why should you loose your mind, and is one aware of loosing ones mind?

Do you have a real depression? (try take a few online tests) and are you familiar with depressions, can you control (part of) them?

I have had several hormone induced depressions (pregnancy depressions due to hormones) and I know the feeling and am able to remedy some of the thoughts and acts (but not all of it )

Depressions can feel different according to your situation. I think that they can be worse (different) if you really do not have any possibilities to act or change your situation.

I do not know if the fear of a serious meltdown can be related to depression, but I think you should do something about that fear. I do not know much about panic attacks but be careful that the fear of a meltdown do not become to strong. Who knows, meltdowns might change with age and experience?

Other than that I find it difficult to say more, without more details about the situation

Good luck

I'm not a calm, mellow person, but my sister is. And I'd be pleasantly surprised if she ever exploded with anger just once.

No advice from me, I'm afraid.

Thanks all. I just had my last day of work at my current office, and I was in a very strange mood but there was no meltdown. Now I have to get through my first day at the new office on Monday!

Yes helles, I'm going through a real depression. I'm quite familiar with it and confident that I'll get through it, but it's the potential for me to have some sort of outburst that is concerning me most at the moment.

Perhaps everyone would be pleasantly surprised if I did!

I don't think it sounds like you are in actual danger of losing your mind. But spraining it yes. So a temporary meltdown is possible. If it does happen you will return to normal however. Many of us here can relate to those overwhelming times when we are very fragile in this way.

It's simplistic I know, but I do find simple analogies helpful at times, so I think of the mind as any other part of the body. Like a your back, if its used too often or put under unusal stress it can get strained. Push it too hard and it will be too painful to use and you will be laid up for a while until it really heals.

So like someone mentioned above when you see the signs, its a warning you can take to protect yourself from additional stress for a while. Some things you can't really avoid, so I tend to cut out everything else and save my limited strength for the 'must dos'. I remember during particularly stressful periods at work I would totally zone out at night doing some mindless thing to try and give the mind a rest.

But it does depend on what is stressing you as far as what you need to do to minimalize it. Yours sounds more like a general dissatisfaction with the overall situation, more then some specific stressful situations and its really hard to avoid your own life. Yet something is making the feelings spike right now that you feel capable of flipping out. Maybe it is just the weight of the total of things you do not like going on or not going on now.

It might be helpful in such a case to make a list for yourself of what you don't like and how important it is to you. Then you can look at it and devise a strategy for regaining some happiness and satisfaction. Its hard finding solutions when looking at the whole pile, but if you could seperate the things out a bit, then you can work on them bit by bit... just like they probably occurred bit by bit.

Thanks TS. It's a mixture of overall, general dissatisfaction, as well as some specific, major things. One thing I've considered cutting out, and have tried to, is contact with my ex. I'm taking a lot of my frustration out on him by being nasty, which isn't fair. But he's my best friend and my main support, so while it's painful to be in contact with him it's probably more painful to lose him. Confusing...

I'll try the list.

I'm usually a pretty calm, mellow person, but something like that actually did happen to me a few months ago, for the first time while I was sober. Thankfully, it was at about 4am, and I was in place that I could go out to the middle of the woods before I freaked out... I guess my own thoughts and fake negative scenarios just got the best of me. But yes, I do worry about that happening at a less opportune time and place.

It's been my experience that calm people (myself included... well... most of the time) often have frustrations building up like pressure in a bottle. I think we all need the occasional healthy release or we'll snap under the pressure! Some can certainly handle more than others but we all have a breaking point!

Come scream in here if you need to... heck, I think I might even know you well enough you could scream at ME in a PM if you want! You're a good person so I'll know it's not personal.

Hang in there.... this sure can be a stressful time of year.