I have aspergers I feel I am declining

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Apple_in_my_Eye, you've described things so well I'm sitting her with my mouth hanging open. I still speak and think like an intelligent person, but when I try to actually do stuff, it's like my brain shifts into slow motion, and comes grinding to a halt over every little challenge. At the moment I'm trying to get back into computer programming, and I am enjoying that, but I wonder if it is really worth the effort, because I'm afraid of my brain shutting down once I get into more challenging aspects of it. That's been a pattern of mine for the past few years. But I guess I'll keep programming while I can because it's fun for me. By the way, I also live close to San Francisco, but only visit now if I spend the night and someone else drives.

Yeah, for the past several years I had no idea what happened to me until I came here and read Apple_in_my_eye's talk of burnout.

And then it all fell into place.

Yep sounds similar what I am going through

I do not seem to cope with doing major chores and I feel sorry for the wife as she has to put up with me, I can only do small tasks now. I find it difficult shopping as I do not know what to buy, I used to play a lot of world of warcraft and I only play now for an hour at a time.

I cannot seem to organise around my home , i find it all overwhelming.

I love listening to more music these days.

Burnout seems like a really good term for it. I started a crash and burn during my last semester of college. I got my degree when I was 48. Not long after that the final crash happened. Fibro started a few years ago, major depression, and a young daughter having hell in school. I can't juggle it all, so my daughter is the choice. I think I'll be looking for an advocate just to go to IEP's with me. There's something about sitting there with 7 people that just gets to me. Sometimes I just plain lose speech. Oh what fun.

I did college in the past and I failed all hurdles, I couldnt cope with the environment and the people there, I self taught myself to repair computers and I did an exam at home and passed.

I also do not have many friends as people find it hard to cope with my aspergers and they stay a mile away from me.

Last night I think I hit a burnout climax. My brain refused to even comprehend computer programming anymore. Today I'm just puttering around the house doing little projects that I had been putting off. I feel so much better and happier! Trying to pretend I have a work-like occupation is just something I can't keep up anymore.

I have tried to do smaller tasks and it has helped a lot, I seem not be able to do large tasks anymore, I cooked dinner tonight and I had my wife preparing the veg and I did the chicken, so a joint effort.

My wife is visually impaired and she has her own issues on top as well as coping with me. She keeps and eye on me in case I drained the veg onto my feet instead into the feet. She also makes sure I turned off the hob as in the past I placed my hand on the hot part. The meal came out great, so full marks to us.

[Argh, I don't know why I keep getting spontaneously unsubscribed from threads!]

I'm glad if my experience is helpful to people. When I was in the depths of it I had no idea what was going on and no way to explain it to anyone (let alone in a way they would've believed) and that was... well, really difficult. (I see the people here who were/are homeless and think "there but for the grace of god...")

And, I had the same experience from other autistics, here and from and from people's blogs and such. I remember Verdandi and others chiming in with similar burnout experiences. There's some really valuable autistic "folk knowledge" floating around.

As for managing long-term shutdown, I'm always worrying about not doing enough. For a long time I've been backing off, waiting to "touch down" on solid ground (so to speak). Lately I've had some functions start coming back on line (I used to have an affinity for programming, but that particular skill took the biggest hit in my case), but it's fragile and falls apart easily. Still trying to learn how to balance things.

Oh, and about brain shutdowns, I remember a long, detailed article that that Verdandi posted a link to once (I'm not finding my bookmark for it ATM for some reason.)

I had a burnout at age 27, after only 5 years in the adult world.

Hmm I would like to mention Fragile X tremor ataxia syndrome... It hits in the middle ages and causes mental degradation..
I've tried looking for the answer for this, as I'm 22 F and have had consistently declining functioning/memory/attention/brain fog, etc in the past 1-2 years.
Since the majority of FX individuals are on the spectrum, I would like to be genetically tested for this..
Or, it could just be a vitamin deficiency, or a gut problem, or a result of stress, or depression.

I feel I am in decline too. At one time I was into humanoid robots but lost interest when everyone put me down. Now I'm into nuclear powered rockets.