I DON'T EVEN KNOW, MAN. I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

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Have you ever lost a sizable chunk of your sanity, without actually losing your mind?

Has this happened to anyone in their mid 20's, or sometime in early adulthood? I'm *PRETTY* sure I'm not actually losing it, I'm just SO distracted, I don't even know how to pretend to care about what's happening around me, anymore. I feel *less* sane, but not crazy.

It's been this way for about a year, now. I feel very happy, lol, just very tuned out...of *everything*. I addressed a barista with a "HEY YOU" from 50 feet away and can hardly carry on a conversation. Ever.

What is this? Burnout? Has anyone just burned out at a certain age, and stayed that way?

Douglas Adams wrote in one of his "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books the following....

"Why lose your sanity trying to keep it. Better to go crazy now and save your sanity for later when you'll really need it."

Words to live by.

Before I ever heard of AS, I struggled to cope with a world that seemed to be utterly insane. I took this quote and made it one of my life's mottos.

Ever since I accepted that the world was insane and would never adhere to logic, I've had an easier time coping with it.

Actually I know exactly what you're talking about. I went through the same thing in my mid-20s. Of course it was long before I was diagnosed and thought I was just dealing with depression and social anxiety.

My memory started getting really bad, my mind would be a total blank. I couldn't remember simple words or descriptions. I got so frustrated that I couldn't speak, I would look at my husband desperate that he would know the word I was searching for. And then I would cry.

I was super stressed, worried I was some sort of psycho. I was really fearful. I was going crazy. Literally suffering from brain rot.

Some days it was like walking around in a fog, I had the attention span of a goldfish. I couldn't even pay attention long enough to safely drive or I would forget how to get to places I'd been dozens of times.

I was very scared. Not knowing what was going on and I still am not sure what it was all about. I still have problems trying to speak. Sometimes it just comes out disjointed grunts of a single word or two. Very frustrating.

During the past several years, while this was happening, I ended up being honest to my family that I couldn't be the person that they wanted me to be. Everything was stressful enough without having to worry about saying the right things to them or pretending I cared about the mundane things they would go on about. As mean as it sounds it was a huge relief for me.

I would love to be able to get some sort of brain scan because I am positive something permanent took place. In a way it feels like it's still going on, but not to the extent it was a few years ago. I have slowly come to terms with the fact that my memory sucks and I am slowly losing my ability to verbalize.

Maybe it will all be something simple like needing more vitamins and exercise. But I hate exercise.

That happened to me when I was 23. I went into the bank with my paycheque one time and said, "I WANT CASH!" after asking my mum what I should say to the teller.

Yes.

I was warned about "burnout" about 10 years ago.
I was warned by the same people who said that I was being "pushed far too hard" academically.
Ironically, these people said that I was "good at studying" and that I should "keep doing what I was doing" and I "would be fine".


I kept doing what I was doing. I wasn't fine.

Now thousands of images and archetypes pass through my head every second.
Some of them to do with some with women, some with "mental disorders", some with technology, some with computers, some with TV, some with AS, some with video games, some with cartoon shows, some with sitcoms, brain science, educational software, some
with forms to fill in, some with maths concepts...

They all overlap each other and analysis goes through my head at a thousand miles an hour. I can barely keep my attention on one thing for more than 10 minutes at a time

My mind feels like the internet.

Random songs, tunes and lyrics loop around in my head for hours.


I sometimes stare at an object or screen for hours, program in music that no one will ever hear anyway.

Sometimes I lay on my bed listless, immobilised by a feeling of painful brain blocked uselessness. Memories race through my head of angry/drunk/stressed/disabled people demanding that I do this that and the other. A feeling of utter loss of control. Feeling left out by people in high heels and formal attire: I don't understand them or their culture.

Remembering people ignoring me or giving me funny looks.

Or remembering that woman at the school library who didn't want me to take out a "little boy's book". She didn't want me to read about trucks, construction or disgusting things or rolling in the mud because girls weren't supposed to like these things. Remembering feeling out of place at the school engineering club and the boys/men giving me funny looks when I said something enthusiastically, or god forbid, I actually wanted to build something.


I am trying to get help for my "mental condition"' now.

I think a lot of it's to do with people giving me mixed messages:
Half of them wanted me to be nice, caring, emotionally expressive, wear pink frilly dresses, go groupwork, do the okey kokey, bake cakes and look at pictures of boys.

The other half wanted me to study Science, Mathematics, Geography and do every extra curricular activity and get top marks and find the Cure for Cancer without fainting and play video games and do lab reports and mentor students who were stuck on the work and go on field trips and look after my disabled relatives and learn an instrument and do design and work on computers and be assertive and not
shy and be independent.

I'm confused.
I'll stop whining now. I signed up for most of this stuff anyway.
I accept a lot of the blame for my current state.
I was the one silly enough to watch all those edutainment programs, do all that educational software and do all my homework at the expense of learning to talk to other people, go to the shops and actually have a life.


Wow. I don't know what they can do with me.

Last edited by AmberEyes on 18 Mar 2011, 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What is the difference between losing one's sanity and losing one's mind?

I think I have had a similar feeling or experience, for example the "HEY YOU" incident...I have had a period where I was somehow disconnected from whatever should have been moderating my communication or language facility. Instead of addressing someone appropriately, I called out loudly in a manner utterly incongruous with the setting.

I like the picture. It looks like a 'pensive' Velociraptor, except he is thinking complete gibberish English.

Yes, I can relate to burnout. The historical context for me is being identified as a gifted individual since elementary school. I have had several episodes in my life which were especially stressful. They were accompanied by things like depression, memory lapses, a general feeling of decreased cognitive ability, lack of interest, et cetera. At 25 years of age, I don't feel I've recovered. Also, I have read a number of anecdotes on this site that seem similar to what I have experienced.


For what reason do you feel you may have lost your sanity, lost your mind, or burned-out?

Last edited by axeb on 18 Mar 2011, 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can relate to everyone's comments here. PinkFeelingBlue's in particular seems to describe what I have been going through for the past year and a half.

And I am also a fan of Philosoraptor.

I'm going through it right now. It's predominately a feeling of extreme apathy (even for me). I don't know, I don't care, I don't even need to get to the heck.

I've definitely done the "brain rot" thing -- and it started when I was about the same age (19). Also felt like I was literally becoming brain-damaged (and still do). Since then, I've found that whenever I have to push back into the "burnout zone" I never quite come all the way back; permanently a little more out-of-it, more short-term memory, word-finding (and more than just word-finding) speech problems, and worse executive functioning.

My nerdy/techie & academic skills went out the window due this stuff, but I've mostly made my peace with that. Reading and writing is a lot more 'challenging' that it used to be, and that is still a bit frustrating, though.

I had a neuropsych testing done, and enough weirdness showed up for diagnosis of "cognitive disorder: not otherwise specified" -- so if you need to prove it (i.e. if you can't work anymore & need SSDI/SSI or something), that worked for me.

It would be interesting to see a brain scan, but the trouble with those is if the changes are microscopic they don't show up at all. (Like with some Iraq vets; some have explosion shock-wave disruptions to the connections in their brains that are very debilitating, but don't show up on scans at all.)



I have heard people reporting getting better with reduced stress and time. I am a bit more functional due to not being fried every day from work, but the underlying brain changes don't seem to have budged in 15 years. I've somewhat re-learned how to use my brain, which helps a bit, though.

There are some threads here about "burnout" in the archives here. It seems like there is a specific phenomenon happening, but there is virtually no professional awareness of it (and thus virtually no research into it (that I'm aware of)).

Oh, and, there was an essay I saw a few weeks ago mentioning that piling shutdown on top of shutdown too many times seems to lead to losses of skills. That definitely fits my experience. And I've seen someone mention that it is (scientifically) known that a certain portion of autistics have "regressions" (losses of skills), though that terminology mostly seems to apply to kids (I think), so I'm not sure if I'm properly understanding what that person meant.

I've heard that it helps to practice concentrating on things more, like one book, one movie, etc. I havent managed to improve it myself this way though, through not trying hard enough. i prefer low concentration things, like flicking though forum pages, radio stations, and short videos.

Reading all the replies, nice to know other people get it. Although you were all much better at wording it.

1000 thoughts rushing all at once, then other times nothing but empty space. No fun.

I like the burnout terminology, I usually think of it as prolonged nervous breakdown.

nm.

Last edited by KBerg on 20 Mar 2011, 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think I've ever felt that way long term, but I've had episodes similar to what you've described.

One time I walked into a class at college, sat there, and figured out after it started it wasn't my class. I was so freaked out about making such a silly mistake. I wondered why I made it. I felt panicked, quietly got up and out as unperceived as possible, and promptly exited.
I was late for my class that evening.
But, college put me in that state of mind. It was a challenge juggling all those classes.

Are you quoting Senses Fail? I've been wondering if that quote is original or from somewhere else.