The Fever Affect in Adults in the spectrum

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There seems to be a fair bit about how this might affect children, but I would be very interested to hear from adults in the spectrum.

I have recently had a virus that was awful, but I always enjoy the effect it has on my OCD and general anxiety. In life generally I feel like everything is always turned on full. But when I have a fever it's like everything gets turned down to low. It's feels so good and there is almost a part of me that laments getting better.

I am a lot less hyper when I have a fever, that's for sure.

I am un-diagnosed so this may not be relevant but if I have a fever that incapacitates me , it is almost like the pressure and stress of life are removed i.e. too sick too leave the house , go to social events , do anything for yourself , you can tell people to go away and there is no guilt as you are too ill and it seems socially acceptable - a free reign to be selfish. I wouldn't feel this way without a fever as I'd feel too guilty and I force myself to do these things.

Once when I was ill with a 103 fever, I didn't care about anything anymore; I know I just lay there very still, lost in my own feverish thoughts. At first when I wasn't that ill, I lay watching the TV. As I got sicker nothing felt interesting and I just kind of drew into myself and lay there. At one point I actually felt like my body was telling my mind it might have to die. Seriously. And the odd thing is, I felt completely calm. I didn't even care about that. I remember feeling like "Okay then."

I prefer being well though. I wouldn't want a fever JUST to feel calmer.

I feel like nothing more than a slug when I'm sick. I noticed I'm not as anxious, however.

As an adult = more annoyance. I don't want an 'energy down'.
I'm already too lax and bored as it is when I'm not having a fever or sick.

Although I cannot say the same when I was a teenager or as a child.


Yet overall, a fever usually make me more vulnerable to cold. That's the only factor that kept me 'down' along with the cause of said fever along with other symptoms.
But just fever alone? It's mostly annoyance. Then the emotion of annoyance and frustration rebounds into something else.

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It depends. Sometimes, I feel more anxious when I have a fever; other times, it's what the other posters have described.

I've felt almost euphoric when I've had a 103 fever.

Hmm, I don't really remember feeling any different when I had a temperature of 103 due to untreated strep throat. But I don't have heaps of experience - for some reason, my body is extremely reluctant to run a fever (for example, I'd had the strep throat for five days prior to that, and my temperature didn't even break 100 until suddenly it shot up that high overnight - which is the reason the health center staff didn't take me seriously when I went in on the first day, because I know exactly how strep presents itself for me, and there was no doubt about it). But I think when I'm sick, my brain is busy enough feeling sick that it doesn't worry so much about other things. I do enjoy being sick, but I think it's because it gives me an excuse to just sit at home and do whatever I want, and it also makes me feel good to push through things like sickness and pain - it makes me feel strong, or tough, or something like that.

I can feel lousy and not run a fever. As a child, I did run fevers of 104 degrees. I noticed when I was feverish, my sense of balance was off. I guess, in the vernacular, you could call that being "tipsy." Alcohol never makes me that way, but running a fever did.

I don't get fevers in the recent days or years. I don't recall the last time I had a fever.

Me too, the last time I had a fever was in 2014. But when I do I feel so tired I sleep all day. It doesn't really affect my autism though (other that I'm not as sensitive to sound as I would be normally because my body is busy fighting off the fever).

I think it's like a physical and psychological narrowing of focus that creates an experience of calm and clarity. When you are ill enough to run a fever, you're actually engaged in a battle and your body becomes a war zone. The only objective is to win, to survive, and get better. When there is only one priority and goal to accomplish and all success requires is being a human potato (slightly baked), I think it's a wonderful feeling and great relief. You've only got one job and it's easy as f**k to do and if you fail nothing will matter anymore anyways.

I'm very sensitive to any unusual changes in my body and I have health anxieties, so even something mild and temporary like a cold can make me anxious and it disrupts the flow of my life. The only good thing is having an excuse not to go grocery shopping and my parents offering to get them for me. But then I feel guilty because I'm not literally dying or anything although I might be contagious.

When I was a teen and young adult however, I would usually try to ignore the symptoms of a bad cold-flu as much as possible because there was nearly always some event or holiday I was looking forwards to, and I didn't want to miss out on it. But not only was I usually unable to enjoy it much, but who knows how many other people I carelessly infected. Maybe some of them were elderly or had weakened immunity, caught my illness and died, and I didn't even know it. Would that be the same as murder?

I'm pretty different about it now. I'm like the injured wolf who hides from the rest of the pack until they're better. Except I hide from the pack even more so.

I don't get sick or have high fevers often, at least not now anyway (when I lived with several other people in a home it was a whole different story), but these days anything could be the early symptom of some debilitating, life-threatening disease. That's why you shouldn't look them up online. Although I'm pretty positive that when I do get the sniffles it's not because I'm addicted to cocaine.