Is this mania or just ASD?
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Deinonychus

Joined: 15 Apr 2021
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 324
Location: South Africa
I have recently moved. I won't go into the detailed story but it involved moving three households over two days. Plus the weeks of packing leading up to the move.
When there are things that need doing, I tend to move quickly and get them done as rapidly as I can. This isn't too much of a problem with normal tasks but when there is a LOT to do it can get out of hand.
I'm like a beserker! I just do. Constantly. This involves constant physical activity. I don't (can't) stop. I push and push and push beyond the point of exhaustion. I feel like I'm about to drop, then get a second wind and keep going. Then after a while I have another brief low of energy but I still don't stop. I get a third wind and keep going. I can drive myself like this for a very long time. There is a cycle of falling energy and then feeling back on form.
I mean, I don't see how we could possibly have completed this insane move if I didn't do this. It would otherwise have been impossible, I feel.
But I am more aware now of self care and can see that this isn't healthy. I need to be able to disengage from the task and realise that a lot of what I'm working at isn't really that important. At least not compared to staying alive. And dying from this kind of behavior is certainly a possibility. It takes a lot to recover.
I used to do this in an earlier life working as a sound engineer. Driving myself half to death.
Somehow this "mania" hooks into the constant body tension I experience, which is the result of C-PTSD from childhood trauma. The activity is like a way of expressing this deep, layered muscle contraction. I've only recently begun to be able to feel the muscle tension as in the past I was very disconnected from my body. Now that I can feel It, it seems to tie into this behavior. The behavior seems to be a consequence of the held tension, which is my body stuck in permanent freeze mode.
Any comments or experiences appreciated.
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I do something similar. If making a move or doing a big spring cleaning, I will usually make some preset internal goal for the day and won't stop until I accomplish that. I keep doing this everyday until everything is completed. By the time I'm finished, I feel so wasted because I've pushed myself past my limit.
I also have the muscle tension issue. At the end of the day, when I want to relax, I can still feel I'm tense and often have to remind myself to release it. My mind is constantly going and I believe this is reflected in my body.
It depends. If your mania is followed by depression, it's a mood disorder. But yours sounds more like hypomania. Real mania is more like running around naked for 48 hours thinking you are God, or whereabouts.
ASD to me is not connected to my energy levels or manner of activity. It just makes me very "thing"-oriented.
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Deinonychus

Joined: 15 Apr 2021
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 324
Location: South Africa
^ Spiralingcrow - attempting to release body tension is a constant with me. I realise I'm tense, relax, then three seconds later realise I'm tense again. Actually it has got slightly better. The gaps are longer than that now. Also releasing the tension invariably reveals, if I'm really paying attention, that there is another layer of tension underneath.
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Deinonychus

Joined: 15 Apr 2021
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 324
Location: South Africa
^ 1986 - I had to look up hypomania. Have seen it referenced here before but it doesn't mean what I thought it might mean. Sounds closer to my experience than mania but still doesn't really fit.
I do have ADHD as well, and it is probably actually more of an issue for my daily functioning than being aspie.
Part of me feels the labels can only take you so far and then you're just into the infinite variability. As long as I can learn something about myself in the process of trying to find a label, the actual label doesn't really mean very much.
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If you look at the human brain, you will see that it has two halves. In the middle is a connecting set of tissues that combines these two halves together. This makes your brain function as one unit. In mt case, due to a brain injury at a very young brain, my connection tissue is slightly damaged. So in a sense I am two brains in one body. The brains have a good working arrangement. One is a daytime brain and the other is a deep sleep brain.
Many people are unaware that they have two halves. So perhaps when you are under stress, your second brain comes online and implements a go, go, go, go mode.
There is an interesting book out there called Whole Brain Living by Jull Bolye Taylor that goes into some detail about how the brain works. Although in her analysis, she describes it as four independent brains. It is a rather interesting read.
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Exactly same with me.
I do have ADHD as well, and it is probably actually more of an issue for my daily functioning than being aspie.
Part of me feels the labels can only take you so far and then you're just into the infinite variability. As long as I can learn something about myself in the process of trying to find a label, the actual label doesn't really mean very much.
For me mania or hypermania doesn't seem to fit. I'm not sure hyperfocus does either. It's the same hyperfocus I can get when I'm doing art. Perhaps more of a compulsion to accomplish what I set for myself to do.
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Deinonychus

Joined: 15 Apr 2021
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 324
Location: South Africa
Many people are unaware that they have two halves. So perhaps when you are under stress, your second brain comes online and implements a go, go, go, go mode.
There is an interesting book out there called Whole Brain Living by Jull Bolye Taylor that goes into some detail about how the brain works. Although in her analysis, she describes it as four independent brains. It is a rather interesting read.
I must check out that book. I'm very interested in the two brain halves and what they do and how what we are is some form of competition between them. I have heard Ian McGilchrist talk about that.
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Deinonychus

Joined: 15 Apr 2021
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 324
Location: South Africa
Sometimes it results in me doing things too fast and therefore not doing them well. I think it isn't helped by the ADHD way I sometimes opperate where I bounce off tasks as I see them. I do this task, then on my way to the next one I see something else that needs doing and do that while I'm still rushing to....
Endlessly on and on and my poor body grinds through energy like there is no tomorrow. Not being good at planning is part of why that mode of operation is how I work. Also not working at a job where there is a fixed structure to things.
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