Do your emotions ever shut down from overload?

Post Reply New Topic

I don't know where this topic goes. I'm not sure if this is a trait of my HFA or something else I have because I do have a mood disorder on top

Recently too much negative stuff has entered my life. I guess as a fail-safe, my emotions have went near dormant, but I feel very taxed (Like my problems are still there, but my mind is trying to block them out). Like I'm sleeping 16-18 hours a day. As in I go to bed when it's dark and wake up when it's dark. I'm guessing a bit of this is depression, but I have very little emotion for it to make sense. I guess I feel like I'm burdened right now... but my emotions are gone.

I'm curious as to if other autistic people have this type of fail-safe built into their minds. For me if I could feel everything right now, I'd probably hurt/kill myself from the overload. So since my mind does strip my emotions when I'm overwhelmed... I can kinda tolerate living.

Also when I mention my emotions have left. I've not made this happen intentionally. It actually seems to be a fail-safe in my mind when there's too much negative stuff going on for me to handle. I can't turn emotions on or off at will... That would actually be a cool power.

It's a mixed quality really. I don't have to deal with my emotions that would make me dead right now, but I think my friends and family seem to think I'm miffed with them or something because I'm showing little care or interaction with anybody

I've been having something like this for the past 9 days now. I had a shutdown after I got some really bad news, and ever since, my emotions have been ... flat. I mean, they're present, but not completely there, and my depression seems entirely suppressed.

I haven't been sleeping much, though, like maybe 6 hours a day? I also don't feel a burden, like it's just masked. I might just not be noticing? I'm not sure, I don't remember this ever happening before.

Actually, ever since it happened, I've had serious trouble eating regularly. I skipped 1-2 meals a day, and dinner I could take two hours to finish. Today's the first time in days I've eaten normally. Normally, depression doesn't mess with my eating patterns, so I'm not sure if this is connected.

Lace-Bane, are you really 'not feeling,' or just not expressing?

My understanding of the implications of the recent suggestion that AS does not involve a lack of empathy but an overload of it is consistent with how I'd describe my experiences with heightened emotions.

I look unkindly on letting one's emotions make decisions, or otherwise override reason, and I credit/blame this for causing me to become rather catatonic when feeling something intensely. Be it rage, sorrow, or elation, others have a tendency to see it as indifference because I (involuntarily, but not regrettably) prevent its expression, instead drawing inward to reflect on it and analyze it in detail, making me seem rather unresponsive to prodding.

What you're describing, though, Verdandi, sounds like acute stress reaction....

I am doing that right now and have been for the last few years on and off. My mom and I have been stalked constantly and so although I am angry, most of the time, I deal with it non emotively. I guess it is good otherwise I would be slap-stick crazy. Well All I can say is sleeping most of the day will not help you. It passifies the problem in that you dont have to deal with it, but then your life will fall apart around you cause you are sleeping to cope. The other bad part about this is your body will start losing muscle tone and you will become very weak if you do this for too long. I have done this myself and you cant deal with the situation if you are just sleeping it away because when you wake up, it is still there, so then you go back to sleep to get away from it, but sleeping to cope will totally mess up your life because you just become a voluntary vegetable.

If you want to talk about it, you can pm me.

but as far as not feeling anything, that is either a sign of complex ptsd or maybe it is a ASD emotional shut down. Mine is from complex ptsd.
I would not worry too much about not feeling anything, it is your mind's way of protecting itself, however the sleep thing is a big problem cause it will effect every area of your life because you are basicly putting your life on hold to sleep so you dont have to face what is going on, but unless you get back to a regular routine, you will wake up one day and realized that you have slept your life away.

Anyway, I am being hard on you cuz I am worried about you, and I know where this leads. I flunked out of college cuz I could not get out of bed to go to class and ended up back home with my parrents.

Anyway like I said if you want to talk about what is going on...you can pm me.

Jojo

Is it typical for acute stress reactions to leave you fairly relaxed and calm after the fact, and with no need to avoid the stimulus that caused it in the first place? No re-experiencing of the stress (what caused the stress was a news story about budget cuts, and I followed that story to its conclusion as the outcome would have a direct impact on my access to medical care)? No trouble sleeping (I should have said that my sleep schedule is typical for me when I mentioned how long I sleep)?

What did happen: I was starting to have a panic attack, I had an overwhelming desire to go to bed which I ignored to finish writing a message to a friend about what had happened. As I sent the message, I was only able to move my hands. I was unable to move or speak for just over an hour afterward. When it ended, I felt very tired and out of it for hours afterward, and needed to sleep (although I fell asleep while it was happening). My emotions have been muted but not absent since, and my depression seems to be (but almost certainly is not) gone. I do not have difficulty feeling pleasure beyond the lack of intensity or texture to the emotion.

This isn't the first time something like this happened (although it is the first time in a long time that it was quite so complete and sudden - usually I go to bed and sleep), the entire sensation was somewhat familiar to me. It is the first time I ignored the urge to go to bed.

I don't want to take over Lace-Bane's thread, but I probably should've been more explicit. Obviously I'm not experiencing the same thing she is and don't have advice. I'm sorry about that. I was confused about what's happening with my emotions and seeing someone else with similar (if not identical) experience surprised me.

Hmm... I don't quite understand. I should probably mention that this isn't how I feel all of the time. It goes on from the start of being negatively overwhelmed (Consisting of certain conditions plus new negative effects on my life), until either the problem is solved or I come to terms with the problem (Subconsciously?). It's a feeling of feeling much less. Like I'm not 100% emotionless, but I'm only running at maybe 5-10% and the rest seems to be a mess my mind doesn't understand... and with that I'm able to cope to an extent. It's not that I'm not expressing myself correctly, but that much of what I feel is missing... like I can distinguish that this isn't normally how I feel... and can distinguish that not feeling what I'm supposed to feel has a negative impact on the people around me to an extent. It seems to be like a program in my mind to ignore the overwhelming emotions that should be taking place in my mind... like I said, a fail-safe to prevent me from going mad I guess

Usually this process seems to occur shortly after a nervous breakdown... so I understand my mind is hiding alot of feelings from me right now, from how upset I was feeling less than a week ago. For what I'm feeling though my mind isn't doing a good job of it this time because as I mentioned it feels like I'm burdened. Like these emotions are still going on subconsciously or something. I dunno if that makes sense Usually though I don't feel burdened when this happens so right now is a special case where I feel like something is wrong

Hmm... maybe this time the emotions are so much they are just unreadable? The thing is I'm not outwardly expressing much of anything, nor am I internally. I don't know really.

Don't worry. You can use this thread too

Got that too, but this pretty common. I am quickly overloaded.
Expression and empathy get turned down and I look real mad according to people.

If I don't do this i'll probably freak-out and start having tantrums.

I was googling around and alexithymia:

http://www.eqi.org/alexi.htm

This book describes multiple types, which actually seems to cover what Lace-Bane and I both are experiencing, although I hoping I'm not actually narcissistic. I've never been like this before:

Emotion Regulation (link)

I think type 1 or type 2 might describe what you're experiencing, Lace-Bane?

The behavioral manifestations for type III are completely unlike how I usually am. Also, many are inaccurate for how I currently am, but it describes low emotionality, a lack of depression and anxiety, and the ability to describe those emotions. But I also do not consider myself to have much control over situations, and my sense of my competence is overridden by the difficulties I have. But it's just about the only thing I've found that at least describes what my emotions are currently like, if only partially. It does suggest type III involves repressing, which isn't a surprise - I am pretty sure the emotions I'm not feeling are still present, and will return. It also says negative experiences are not allowed to enter type III conscious awareness, which is again contradictory to what I am experiencing - I am aware of these things, and they don't bother me as they normally would. I can still get frustrated, upset, even pushed to the point of not coping with emotional and sensory overload - but by things that are currently happening (there's a lot of yelling and noise and screaming children in the same house) and not by, say, the thing that triggered the shutdown in the first place. And specifically, the fact that I am experiencing this is a negative experience. I do not like it. This is not my typical personality, and I do not believe it predicts how I normally am, even now? But, it's just a book making broad generalizations based on people with a more stable emotional profile.

I do think this is directly related to the stress that came directly before it, so repression makes sense. Like I said when I first posted, I don't believe my depression is gone, just not present.

When I was in Iraq (pre-diagnosis), I always felt like my emotions had a switch and that it was often off. I felt cold and detached and was not bothered by what I saw. Even outside of my deployments I've always been able to remain objective in overly emotional situations. In extreme situations, like when my Grandma died, I pretty much just shut down.