Mental Health Struggles

[jgb191]

I was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD a half-decade ago, which answered a lot of my questions about why I am the way I am.  And I exhibit the symptoms:  I can't handle loud or crowded places very well, which is why concerts and nightclubs are out of the question for me.  I am also socially awkward; I've never been able to score a date with any female.  I did have mental challenges in school; I am a very slow learner; I needed special education to keep me 'kind of/sort of' caught up with the rest of my classmates with regular mental abilities in every subject with the exception of one subject -- Mathematics.  Math was the only subject where I never needed help and that everything clicked for me.  I also had specialized interests in roads/highways, meteorology, and aviation from my earliest memory.  I also learned the capitals of all fifty states by age nine and most of the world capitals by age twelve.  I make the easiest things look very hard to do....to this day I still have incredible difficulty tying shoelaces (hence why all my shoes are all lace-less).

[JayhawkCO]

As far as I know, I'm in perfectly good mental health.  But I don't get very emotionally affected by death and tragedy either.  I've been fortunate to not have lost someone very dear to me yet, so it may be different whenever that does happen, but tragedy striking casual acquaintances and complete strangers just doesn't shake me the way it appears to shake some other people.

Maybe it's because there's so much of it these days that it seems normal. In the late 1970s, if there was a big murder case, it was considered a big deal. Now it's just considered an everyday thing.

The murder rate is WAY down since then. It's just because media is all over the place now.

This. Lots of people think the world is so violent because there are all these murders and shootings. The reality is that 99% of the violence is specific to certain areas at certain times. I know if I'm hanging around on East Colfax in Denver around 2:30 AM on a Friday or Saturday night, that my chances of something bad happening is exponentially higher than something happening to me at my house.

[kphoger]

Lots of people think the world is so violent because there are all these murders and shootings. The reality is that 99% of the violence is specific to certain areas at certain times. I know if I'm hanging around on East Colfax in Denver around 2:30 AM on a Friday or Saturday night, that my chances of something bad happening is exponentially higher than something happening to me at my house.

Not only that, but most violent crime is committed against someone that the criminal knows, not some random stranger.

[LilianaUwU]

I've been known to be autistic for 20 years now... but the bit I'm struggling with is gender dysphoria.

Something I noticed is a lot of autistic people will be more likely to be openly trans, possibly because we don't care about the strict social norms given to us by neurodivergent people.

[kphoger]

Something I noticed is a lot of autistic people will be more likely to be openly trans

Autism is three to six times more prevalent among transgender adults than among cisgender adults.

[achilles765]

My mental health is...unusal and weird. Like, I have ADHD and autism--formerly Asperger's--and I have always had anxiety, which runs in my family. Drug and alcohol issues also are common in my family, as is depression. 
I have had some time periods where I have sort of been deep in depression without really realizing it--
Now, I still have days where I start dwelling on things and getting too wrapped up in my head and get besieged by dark thoughts; but for the most part when I feel a depression coming on, its usually situational. 
I am geenrally a pretty peppy, happy, upbeat person in general--especially in public. And I am an eternal optimist--even when things have been at their worst (and there have been some bad times), Ive always been able to believe that its going to be ok if I'm just patient or take certain actions. Sometimes I am wrong, and it doesn't work out that way. 
I just remember when I was in my early 20s--like from 18-23 really just being a negative, unhappy, morose individual. So when I moved to Houston at 23, totally by myself, I decided to reinvent myself and not be so negative and unhappy all the time. 
Now...I admit--I do drink.  Not excessively but kind of a lot. It absolutely is what helps me get through the days and allows me to interact with people. That probably makes me a functioning alcoholic--but I never drink to excess.  I cannot even remember the last time I was drunk. And its mostly wine

[akt85]

Along with what was once called Asperger's, I've been diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder. My sensory processing issues is why I have decided not to have kids.

[SSOWorld]

formerly Aspergers? Changing the name of the condition doesn't change the condition.

[NWI_Irish96]

Apparently, if you're a member of Congress, you can be so depressed that you can't go to work or communicate with the public for several months, yet at the same time not so depressed that you can't make regular stock trades based on insider information.

[Scott5114]

Let's not bring up the mental health of people not on this forum.

[Bobby5280]

Regarding depression, I've gone thru a few dark periods in my life.

One of the worst was in high school; a good friend of mine committed suicide. My mental situation was already shaky before then (skinny as hell, kind of nerdy, zero dating prospects, generally felt like a misfit). Losing one of the few real friends I had plunged me into a state of despair. I had serious ideations of ending it. One good thing about the high school I attended: it was small and on a Marine Corps base. Enough other adults (teachers, counselors) and classmates didn't let me slip thru the cracks.

Pain from a tragedy, a break-up/divorce or some other incident is different from the kind of clinical depression where it's just there and no external source is causing it.

When I was in college, living in New York City, I saw a guy get hit and killed by a van after walking right past me on the city bus. He walked down the steps, out of the bus, started to walk across Bay Street and BAM. He didn't see the van coming alongside the bus. The incident happened back in 1990 but I can still see it in my head like a movie. That experience, and a few others where I've been confronted with mortality, makes me really sympathize with people who have PTSD.

My theory is the human psyche can absorb only so much extreme stress before it is permanently scarred. It makes perfect sense to me how PTSD can be common with combat veterans, cops and other first responders. I feel terrible for kids raised in horrible, abusive situations and end up with PTSD as one of the consequences.

I've never been diagnosed with autism, but I've wondered if I might be a touch "on the spectrum." I have some obsessive habits with my graphics work. When I'm at the gym I'll catch myself re-organizing plate weights and dumbbells in proper storage order after others have made a mess of things. I can remember tons of useless trivia. Then there are some odd quirks. I have to play music through headphones at work to block out certain noises that just piss me off. The doorbell sound from our front office door is excruciatingly annoying. It makes a loud, piercing "deet-deet-deet-deet-deet" noise both when the door is opened and when it closes. Occasionally some jackass will stand up there, jaw-jacking with other people with the door cracked and repeatedly making the doorbell noise. If I don't have my headphones on I'll have to fight hard to keep from losing my temper.

I've lived in Oklahoma for a long time, but the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building didn't bother me as much as the 9-11 attacks. The World Trade Center was a very real place to me. I didn't know much about the federal building in OKC until after it had been bombed. The memorial in OKC gets me emotionally choked up though.

[roadman65]

Deppression sucks.   For me it makes it hard to get up in the morning as I have to force myself up which is beyond difficult.  I tell my doctor about it, she prescribed meds.  Then they dont work, so she tries different meds with some costing over $100 per bottle not covered by insurance because they're new drugs on the market that because of our lovely supply verses demand rule they can overcharge.

So im stuck in the middle where im forced to cope and deal with forgetfulness,  waking up from nightmares that give me amnesia, and awkwardness around others.  Friends of mine say that's great that I do, but if they had it the situation for them it wouldn't be so great. 

My one friend who retired from being a chiropractor told me the best way to deal with depression is find the anger inside of you as anger causes depression.   Of course therapists will try to convince people that a change of habit will rid it and psychiatrists will just try different meds on trial and error, but no analyzing like they should.  When I applied for a 911 operator was the only time I got on analysis where the shrink asked the probing questions to get me talk about certain things in my life and administered the same tests that employers administer to canidates for hire. From that they found the hidden things they wanted to know about me and said I had depression and wasn't suitable to be an operator for 911 calls.

However when you hire a medical professional verses a client hiring one for the same reason its night and day.

[wxfree]

I can't give medical or psychological advice, but I can offer some perspective based on my experience and things I've learned from professionals.  In this, I'm referring to an internal condition, not a reaction to bad events.

People often think of depression as sadness, and it does include a lot of sadness, but it's more defined as a low state of emotional energy.  For me, this generally means that how I feel is from inside, and at times that's little more than a baseline sadness for prolonged spells.  In that state, I don't react much to what happens, either good or bad.  It isn't constant crying and overwhelming despair (in general, it can be that at times) but it's a state of low energy.

The brain is actually very good at doing what it does, finding a way to get through, but there are some missteps.  I compare this to an immune overreaction to an infection.  The body is fighting something bad, but sometimes it overreacts and does something worse.  The programming is pretty good, but it isn't perfect.  The brain is designed to find a way through.  Sometimes, like an immune reaction, the programming can lead in what seems like the right way but ends up being bad.

This is something that was explained to me by a professional.  I'm a lifelong student of human nature, so I know a bit about this, and this was a whole different way of looking at it that fits my understanding better than other psychological perspectives.  He said that the brain contains memories, not exactly memories, but imprints, neural wiring built by the experiences and emotions of your ancestors.  You have an enormous amount of history built into your brain.  It needs only a little bit of it to survive each day, and for the most part that's fine.  When you're depressed, the brain gets in a rut, trying to get through the bad experience day after day for years.  I've found that depression, and thoughts of suicide, can be comforting, because even though they're unpleasant, they're familiar.  This state of low emotional energy keeps the mind in the rut that's been worn.

One thing that can help is to challenge the brain to survive in different circumstances.  Knowing depression, I've found it to be a self-developing system, it doesn't want you to get out, it wants to trap you.  It makes you do things that keep you depressed.  Obviously, there's no actual volition, but that's a description of a rut.  It made me stay inside and be bored, and focus on being depressed, which was exactly what I didn't need.  Changing your circumstances: living conditions, employment, and daily routine, and especially increasing social involvement, can force your brain to get out of its rut, because the programming there is no longer needed.  It has to start drawing on different wiring to survive the different circumstances, accessing different parts of your source code.

That change in mental activity, breaking the default status, can improve the energy level by challenging the brain with new conditions.  This is like working your muscles a different way to develop more strength in them.  In my experience, this perspective was very insightful and has shown itself to have some validity.  To me, the basic meaning of depression is that you don't want to get better.  That's the rut.  I've never gotten better because I tried to and made enough effort.  Whenever I tried to get better, I was punished for it.  My lowest states have been punishment for trying to get better.  It's like trying to stand up, knowing you don't really have the strength for it, and then falling down.  It hurts more than staying down.  It's evil.  The only times I got better were when I was dragged forward by changes not of my own choosing.  It isn't necessarily that the changes were to better circumstances, but what matters is that they were different circumstances, which is almost like rebooting the mind.

I suggest things like going outside and walking around.  In part it's because I like to do that and believe that it's a good thing, but also because if it's a variation from your routine, that's what really matters.  Not that it be better, just that it be different.  Better, of course, is good, but different is enough.  You may not be able to change things drastically, but changing something, reading different material, spending time in a different place, spending more time with people, can help.  Consider it the same way you think of physical exercise, strengthening organs and muscles.  Mental exercise strengthens the brain.  Note that I mention reading material but not viewing material.  Video can be very informative and educational, but passive watching of entertainment and distraction is not a workout, it's more atrophy, so be careful about your selection of viewing material.

This description is based on what I've experienced and learned from observation and instruction.  It's been helpful to me.  Since not everyone is in the same condition, not everyone will benefit in the same way, but I think it's helpful to understand the principle because it may be adaptable to your circumstances.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

formerly Aspergers? Changing the name of the condition doesn't change the condition.

I believe the term is still in regular use in the UK, while we have phased it out largely due to its namesake's association with Nazism and eugenics.

[kphoger]

I hadn't heard until this thread that it isn't still called that.

[Max Rockatansky]

Trying to keep track of all the different names gets pretty confusing. 

[Scott5114]

People often think of depression as sadness, and it does include a lot of sadness, but it's more defined as a low state of emotional energy.  For me, this generally means that how I feel is from inside, and at times that's little more than a baseline sadness for prolonged spells.  In that state, I don't react much to what happens, either good or bad.  It isn't constant crying and overwhelming despair (in general, it can be that at times) but it's a state of low energy.

To emphasize this, I had what my psychiatrist agreed was a bout of depression last month. (I was able to more or less pull through it; our current working theory is it had to do with me going off of a medication.) The main emotion I had through that time period was just an overwhelming feeling of not giving a shit, like life was a book I didn't care about the ending of enough to keep reading. The low point was when I was at the gym in the middle of a workout set and I decided I just didn't care enough to finish the set, so I racked the weights up and just went home.

formerly Aspergers? Changing the name of the condition doesn't change the condition.

I believe the term is still in regular use in the UK, while we have phased it out largely due to its namesake's association with Nazism and eugenics.

Well, that, and it's more or less redundant with "autism"—what "Asperger's" refers to is just a small slice of the autism spectrum, so it's not really useful as a term, especially since any individual patient probably isn't going to be neatly contained entirely within the "Asperger's" slice.

[kphoger]

Well, that, and it's more or less redundant with "autism"—what "Asperger's" refers to is just a small slice of the autism spectrum, so it's not really useful as a term, especially since any individual patient probably isn't going to be neatly contained entirely within the "Asperger's" slice.

My general impression, just from hearing people use the term, was that Asperger's was a relatively mild, high-functioning sort of autism.  Is that not true?  And if it's true, then isn't that useful?

[Scott5114]

My general impression, just from hearing people use the term, was that Asperger's was a relatively mild, high-functioning sort of autism.  Is that not true?  And if it's true, then isn't that useful?

Not really, because one can have some symptoms that are mild and allow them to be high-functioning in those areas, and others that significantly impair functioning (it's not hard to imagine someone who handles social situations all right but has debilitating sensory issues, for instance). More to the point, there isn't much practical benefit in having it be a separate diagnosis since most of the therapies and strategies for managing it are the same as for managing other autism-spectrum disorders.

[kphoger]

Not really, because one can have some symptoms that are mild and allow them to be high-functioning in those areas, and others that significantly impair functioning (it's not hard to imagine someone who handles social situations all right but has debilitating sensory issues, for instance).

Yes, that makes sense.

More to the point, there isn't much practical benefit in having it be a separate diagnosis since most of the therapies and strategies for managing it are the same as for managing other autism-spectrum disorders.

I meant useful for the rest of us.  Like, if someone says they have Asperger's, we normies would think to ourselves, —Ah, OK, so, autistic but just barely.