Going crazy and no one cares

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I used to have flashbacks. I then occasionally would depersonalize from stress, but only for an hour or so every now and then. Recently, I was severely ill for a month, while dealing with returning depression and a very hurtful end of an intimate friendship. Two weeks ago I went into a severe detachment, fully depersonalized for the whole week. Utterly apathetic, with sudden overwhelming outburst of emotional flooding. I would hurt myself and weep for about 10 minutes before going back to completely zoned out. I went to urgent/crisis counseling at my uni and the woman admitted to not having any experience with it. She said I should go inpatient if I was scared for my safety/harming/experiencing impulses, and I was. When I told her I can't afford that. so she told me, literally, to "just go with it".

Just go with it. With being broken away from reality and terrified I might suddenly feel like slitting my wrists or absent mindedly walk into the street.

She was useless. I can't let this out to anyone, no one gives a s**t. Most people I've tried mentioning it to won't even let me get far enough into talking about to know what's going on. It's not like any of them would believe me anyway. Now my sleep is f****d, I sleep all night by I have stress dreams and waking feeling exhausted. I don't want to eat or shower. I'm just mindlessly doing homework every waking hour. I'm just sitting around afraid for another bad episode, even though I'm still in a moderate stage of it. I don't know what to do.

If you are feeling like that you have to get help. Hospitals have places you can go when you are feeling like that. Whether you can afford it or not you need to go. Hospitals can help with money stuff but your safety is more important than owing a little bit of money.

If you really can not go you have to try harder to find someone to talk to.

I can't say i really understand what you are going though but if you need to you can talk to me. I realize you don't even know me but maybe its better that way.

Please take yourself to the emergency room of the nearest hospital before you have another break from reality. If you don't have transportation then please call the ambulance and they will pick you up. I'm saying this because in most cases they will release you from the hospital faster if you check yourself in, than if you are brought in against your will by police or paramedics after you've done something terrible which you will later regret. I have gone through things like you're describing, so I'm speaking from kind hearted experience.

Depersonalizing is a protective state. Its OK to do that for a while you grieve. This is normal. Its like putting your emotional self in stasis and its a very common response to the loss of a loved one. Even though the other person is still alive, the relationship is a real loss. Give yourself time, gentleness and permission to grieve. Two weeks is not a long time.

I think its a much better idea for you to get counseling from real counselors than from who ever is staffing the emergency center at your uni. (Wait - the word "uni." Are you in the UK? If you are, I think you can get counseling for free, yes? That might be worth checking on. I HIGHLY prefer people outside the university.) Anyways, if you are in the US, and seeing a professsional outside of your school isn't a financial reality, you can see the school counselors, but make an appointment. Don't just get the random student counselor. I would call the office for students with disabilities. They have different names but all schools have one. Ask them if they have any way of getting you in faster and if there is a person with experience in helping people with aspergers. This is absolutely a disabilities issue, as your autism directly affects what's going on with you.

If you do go to the urgent care center again (for example, your school's policy is that everyone has to go there first) take someone with you as an advocate. This is also a service you can request from the student with disabilities center. This advocate could help them understand that you have a communication disorder and that you might not phrase things in the best way. You may be surprised how willing collage people are to assist their fellows in an urgent situation. Asking any circle that knows you would likely reap results.

I've worked in an emergency psych ward in a hospital. It can be a difficult place for people with autism. I don't want to scare you, its not a house of horrors. But as you probably know, most doctors don't know about autism and when we are stressed, we often look like someone who is psychotic, but we aren't. So if you wind up there, you really need to let people know that you are autistic, as much as that feels stigmatizing. You don't want to end up on medicines you don't need. (They DON'T do operations on people's brain or tie you down like you see in the movies. They will most likely assign a medical assistant like me to watch you 24 hours a day until you feel safer. And they will likely give you sleeping pills and heavy anti-depressants to help your emotional pain. Autistics can be very sensitive to these meds, which is why they NEED to know.)

I don't know what you mean by self-harm. If this self-harm puts you in immediate danger, its off to the ER. But a lot of self-harm isn't an emergency. For example, I used to use to eat until I hurt and then eat some more. That doesn't warrent a trip to the ER. (I did eventually need to find help to stop myself from doing that, but it was a long process.) If you are cutting deeply or doing something that could end your life... well, you know what you need to do.

Good luck with everything. Be gentle with yourself and please let us know how you are doing.

If you decide to follow this advice, please stop using words like "full depersonalization." Instead, try to use words to describe what you feel. As autistics, we can often have a hard time describing feelings and we end up using big words instead. The problem with this is that you are using diagnostic words that trigger certain protocols with ER doctors. They will make assumptions about what is happening with you based on those big diagnostic words and you might not get the right treatment. You might end up with medication you don't need. Again, knowing autism would help because they would understand our tendency to pick a big word instead of little, more common words, when we are stressed. But most ambulance drivers and ER doctors aren't going to know autism. You have to help them by telling them what you feel, not what medical process you think is happening.

Nobody really gives a crap about my life, but I have become self-reliant mostly and therefore don't care about attention or judgement anymore.

Wow. This sounds like a very powerful place to come from. Not caring about things you can't control, like other people's judgement, goes a long way towards being more happy in life. I hope you are happy in life. And if you aren't, that you focus on taking steps towards being happy so you never loose that great, self-reliant attitude.