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An Aging Aspie having a Nervous Breakdown?

G

GhostWriter

Active Member
Has anyone out there found this Post?? I am 67, having the above happening, & tried to post this Query Twice already- can't seem to negotiate this AC site at all!! Help!
 
I can see this thread but not the article, perhaps age has nothing to do with it. I'm in my 40's, it's my 3rd meltdown/breakdown/call-it-what-you-want-down over my life, the 1st at 18, just prior to A level exams, the 2nd in my 20's and the 3rd recently after a few months of workload, people and emotional stress. I know another Aspie going through similar but with much more complicated issues, around my age, his has taken a few years to develop to this point after having a lifetime of stuff piling up, one of the thoughts is that he hasn't really fully been able to understand a whole situation and so has never fully resolved the feelings and thoughts after an event. He'd suffered the same sort of life events - marriage, kids, divorce, job, as any 'normal' person but possibly hadn't resolved many if any of them and they just piled up and he's collapsed under the emotional weight of them. Burnouts are not quite the same as breakdowns but could be seen as the same and are often treated the same by people that don't understand emotional or processing differences between Aspies and 'other' people.
For him, only time, patience, understanding and working through each issue will help, as with anyone. He needs to have emotions and feelings sometimes explained or what an expression 'might' mean in a certain situation. Different people give different ideas on a single thing and then it gets really confusing!
He has to process the info and work out or 'decide' the best answer or combination. On occasion realisation pops in too and something gets resolution.
It's like pulling out things from your heavy coat pockets, one thing at a time, and eventually the pockets are empty and the coat becomes ok to wear again, possibly even comfortable.
Finding someone to help that's rational but understanding and open minded on different points of view or ideas and theories can be one of the biggest helps, rather daunting but it's like any advice, you hear it but you are the only one that can decide to take it or not, sadly you might have to go through a few to find any but it can happen and I fully understand the difficulties that brings in itself.
You'll hear a lot about thinking positive and sometimes it's a case of 'not' telling yourself a negative thing rather than reciting positive things. I wrote down any positive stuff that happened, however small or tiny it was - a person smiled at me, I ate something I really enjoyed, good tv programme, any little thing that's positive, never negative- for a week.
The list I had was actually pretty cool and longer than expected and I had to accept in response to my own facts, it's not all bad, as corny as that sounds!
As distant as it may seem, it's fair to say there's a light at the other end, however faint :)
 
I am sending you positive thoughts, GhostWriter. I am hoping that you feel better soon. I don't see a description of what you are experiencing, but you are held in my good thoughts and wishes for healing and wellness.
 
Now that you've got a thread going, can you give more details about what you're experiencing?

I'm 41, and only discovered my "aspie-ness" a few months ago. Also, "nervous breakdown" is not a technical term, so it's hard to classify one experience in that category vs. another experience. That said...I've had a few episodes in my life I would classify as a nervous breakdown, where I was reeling, out of control, barely able to keep functioning at a survival level, and yet somehow I've never been hospitalized (I think if I had ever been completely honest with people about all that was happening in my head, though, I would've been hospitalized)...

Once in my senior year in high school when I came to the realization and was able to admit that what was happening to me and my sisters at home was sexual abuse. Again my freshman year in college right after I left home and had to report my step-father. Then again towards the end of college. Another when I was struggling with infertility, and another later when I lost two babies to miscarriage. Then this past year didn't really seem to have a mitigating event...more just a build-up of pressure in family relationships that finally brought me to my knees.
 
I learned I was as Aspie when I was in my 60s. I have a lot of psychological baggage and have never been happy, but learning I am on the spectrum has helped me understand WHY I have had such an unpleasant life. As I age (I am 70) I think a lot about death and wish for it because it should be an escape--as long as there is no form of afterlife to further mess me up. I am declining physically and also mentally--I am extremely forgetful and that is infuriating. I don't know what, if anything, that I have mentioned is the cause but I am much more prone to melt down when something really awful happens to me. I had a dog for only 17 months and she was MY LIFE. She keeled over without any warning and died after 5 hours last summer (necropsy showed a totally unexplained, lethal pancreatitis with hemorrhage) and because I was an RN I understood everything she suffered. I stayed on my feet and not quite hysterical until I was alone and then became hysterical. I was very ill with depression, anxiety and terrible anger for many weeks. I remained in bed about 20 hours a day, became anorexic (that was great because I have always been obese) required the addition of Alprazolam to my many other meds, and left the house only when I was without food for the cats. I wanted to kill myself--I often do--but I have always been able to realize that would cause my kids some unpleasantness and make my cats homeless. Eventually, I decided getting another dog would probably help me feel better. The day I drove from up near Syracuse, NY to CT to pick up my newly adopted dog I (she had been in an Arkansas high kill shelter before the rescue in CT brought her there) I had a very expensive two car accident--my fault because I was tired and distracted trying to find the adoption fair. I had an immediate meltdown and was helped by a wonderful Police Captain who was probably out on the road only because it was Labor Day weekend. He was fantastic with people skills for a crazy old lady and got me through making the report, towing both cars (fortunately no injuries), adopting the dog, renting a car, and then going to a motel for the night. I was in terrible shape but at least I did have a new dog. I managed to get home and after several more weeks of post melt down nerves I regained my appetite (I have been doing very well eating sensibly and have gone from 201 to 175 and still losing) and I am as mentally stable as I was before the horrible ordeal of the dog's death. I no longer take Alprazolam. and continue to live alone, pretty much a hermit because I choose to avoid contact with NTs so they don't need to demonstrate their annoyance of my weirdness and/or try to cure me. I am happy with the new dog but she can't replace the previous one who was a truly wonderful pet. I do believe my current propensity to become absolutely ill with misery is part of aging for me. I guess I used to be more resilient.
 
In 2012 at the age of 41 I got fired from my job, and that was a serious blow, but I managed to find another one. However, I wasn't able to adjust to the new job and that I soon started to suffer from anxiety, which got so bad towards the end that I was barely able to function, then I became physically ill and was unable to work at all. I had suspected that I might have AS for some time, and had an appointment for a diagnostic assessment with a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed me with AS and Major Depressive Episode, which is really just an official term for a nervous breakdown. After that I really couldn't face work, and I had to give in my notice and inform them that I was too ill to work. To my mind it seems more like a burnout and issues resulting from severe anxiety rather than a neverous breakdown in the classical sense of the word, I was never suicidal and although the it landed me at the doctor's with stomach cramps, I was never hospitalised.
 
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