Fading away

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I am so utterly confused. My mind feels like it is being broken up and abused by stimuli, colours aren’t right and increasingly the shock of reality is crippling me. As sad as it seems I’ve pretty much been hiding under my bedcovers for 3 months, barely eating and barely sleeping. I’ve been having a fair few breakdowns which happens when my energy runs out and when trying to deal with my reaction to my senses. I don’t know if anyone else has been through phases like this – maybe you can help me.

I am not characteristically a depressive person but perhaps it was inevitable with my deteriorating mental stability and overall functioning since the summer. In the summer, perhaps though I did have a good defence- I became physically fit and excised most of the time that I was awake. However I did this like any of my activities,
fervently and without substantial breaks – this made me sick of manipulating my routines, exercising and didn’t help my mental state.

I attempted 2nd year university after, but It soon became clear that I wasn’t functioning enough to live in a city so I came home to my dad -with the hard decision to leave all my friends and try to pin point why I wasn’t functioning/ having sensory overload issues every second.

Following which since being home I have pretty much faded away from reality and my identity totally; Time, mood, food, sleep etc have become meaningless and abstract ideas. I sometimes play with a coin for hours and hours or just stare at the light falling on the walls for days.

My focus in life had been art which had given me “meaning” and like many people with AS I can I could super focus on this and spend months on paintings but after I came back from Uni there wasn’t any motivation at all to continue. (Every time I’ve painted since I’ve been scared that it will lead to madness e.g like Van Gogh because that’s what kind state I’ve been in)

Um so that a bit of the recent back-story since I’m new-ish on here
Every test I’ve taken with a psychiatric nurse suggests aspergers. (Official diagnoses I’ve been waiting on and waiting on but whats new there. (I have no idea if I meet criteria but I want to know)

I feel like I’m killing everything that’s left of me by hiding away and not functioning well and I would like to know your opinion of whats helped you when you’ve been at your lowest ebb. I’ve been relying heavily on listening to music – but it gets tiring when you don’t sleep for a few days and only listen to music… I think the hardest thing over the last months was accepting I was “faking” normality because I was so used to it… plus I didn’t think I could get depressed or suicidal a few years ago...

I suppose that was one big negative essay there (sorry if its badly written) but can you think anything that got you moving along when you were feeling like that, that would be great

Sounds rough.

When I was 19 the world was utterly confusing to me as well. It still is often confusing. Through a lot of effort and false starts, I found that one of my biggest impediments was continually thinking in absolute terms about things which there are no absolutes. "I'll never understand anything..."", "I'll always be useless...", "Everyone thinks I'm a loser...". None of these statements is true, but continually rehearsing them in my head allows me to behave as if they are.

As cliched as it sounds, this type of thinking hurts you as much as any external forces. Simply changing your internal dialog to one that is truthful sounds like voodoo, but it does have subtle effects that build over time. "I'll always be useless" becomes "I feel useless". The first allows for no change or progress - an absolute conclusion is invariant and challenging it pointless. The second truthfully identifies a feeling, but it does not slam the door on growth and change.

What you tell yourself about yourself is more important than what others tell you about you.

It sounds like you ought to get a complete physical with an neurological checkout just to make sure there is nothing organically wrong with you.

ruveyn

If you are having sensory issues, are you sleeping with earplugs or a blindfold? I find that I have far worse sensory issues if I do not get regular breaks from them.

If you are having difficulty with motivation, then you need to get in the habit of doing work. Starting is pretty easy: pick a small job, something you can do in about 15 minutes and do it right away. Then you can work your way back up.

The thing about once having an interest in art, but no longer finding the desire to go towards it again, suggests anhedonia, a part of depression, which stood out in that post. I definitely recognize it, it flat-out sucks.

Do you live alone or with other students, or with parents, etc...?

Hi wavefreak58

Yes I know I am my own greatest enemy However I still have a fairly ok opinion of myself, I think I can achieve anything (perhaps) I want... the problem is over the last year I haven’t had any idea of the things I want to do -which hasn’t happened before. I don’t think I have ever thought I was useless.... everything I’ve wanted to do in the past kind of worked out I suppose.

Though its pretty hard to tell when all I focus on is my negative problems....

I made tonnes of great friends at uni so it was a disaster when I had to leave uni. (My plan is to go back next year if I can -instead of living with my dad)