AuroraBorealis
Well-Known Member
I spent yesterday and today completely focused on preparing a statistics presentation. I was really productive, and I felt great during it. Yesterday a bit shaky maybe, a bit too driven, a bit nervous and jumpy, but good in general. Today I felt great, energetic, my brain was on top, I worked on this thing from 11:00 till 21:00, almost straight. I had lunch, but apart from that, I pulled through, feeling awesome. Even talked to a friend for an hour, everything was great. But then, in the evening,one little thing happened - my partner corrected something on my presentation and I will have to make a graph again - and I crashed. Got super irritable, all of a sudden, it really tilted. Thank god, by now I recognized what was happening and was able to tell him thank you for his help, but I'm gonna go to the other room now because I'm about to have a meltdown. And then I went into the other room, dimmed the light, grabbed my plushie and crashed. Spent several minutes completely curled up, pressing my eyes shut and the plushie to myself. After that, my mood was fairly calm again, but I felt really exhausted all of a sudden, like all the energy had just left me within 5 minutes.
This happens to me, not often, but on a fairly regular basis. I am in a good mood, have a lot of (social) energy, get a lot of intellectual stuff done, hyperfocus easily (I'm fairly sure that I spent a few hours hyperfocusing today and yesterday because suddenly I noticed, god, I'm thirsty, oh, and really cold so I must be hungry too). But then the next day, I crash, either feeling just really tired and worn out and hypersensitive to sensory stimuli, or even having a real meltdown.
I find it very hard to recognize the signs of overstimulation early. And I have trouble interrupting this hyperfocus or telling myself to go easy and have a break while I still feel good. Because I want to get the most of this energy as I can, and also it just feels great. But if I pull through, although I feel great, I usually end up heavily overstimulating myself without noticing and not resting enough, and paying for that with a sudden crash. It's a bit like my asthma: I don't notice that it's getting hard while biking up the mountain, I feel great and I pull through. But once I'm up the mountain, I get a full-blown asthma attack, which could have been prevented if I took a break earlier.
While feeling great, I don't want to pace myself. But I also don't want to have these ups and downs of energy and having meltdowns. It's exhausting and annoying.
Do you have advice?
This happens to me, not often, but on a fairly regular basis. I am in a good mood, have a lot of (social) energy, get a lot of intellectual stuff done, hyperfocus easily (I'm fairly sure that I spent a few hours hyperfocusing today and yesterday because suddenly I noticed, god, I'm thirsty, oh, and really cold so I must be hungry too). But then the next day, I crash, either feeling just really tired and worn out and hypersensitive to sensory stimuli, or even having a real meltdown.
I find it very hard to recognize the signs of overstimulation early. And I have trouble interrupting this hyperfocus or telling myself to go easy and have a break while I still feel good. Because I want to get the most of this energy as I can, and also it just feels great. But if I pull through, although I feel great, I usually end up heavily overstimulating myself without noticing and not resting enough, and paying for that with a sudden crash. It's a bit like my asthma: I don't notice that it's getting hard while biking up the mountain, I feel great and I pull through. But once I'm up the mountain, I get a full-blown asthma attack, which could have been prevented if I took a break earlier.
While feeling great, I don't want to pace myself. But I also don't want to have these ups and downs of energy and having meltdowns. It's exhausting and annoying.
Do you have advice?