How Much Recovery Time Needed?

[OkRad]

I find it harder to recover from being "out there" and with NTs but it depends on where I was. So if I go to a safe place it is less, but still is.

I lived with another family for a while. Now I understand this autism better, my uncle had pure Aspie without any noticeable co-morbids. It was really great, to be honest. He is brilliant even to this day. His down time is an addiction to reading, so he could go to work and BAM come in, and we knew......let Uncle J read!! He'd read a bit and then was good to go and come and play with the kids and was all refreshed.

My cousin, on the other hand, (his son) is different. He has aspergers but does not function well. He is so smart and so kind but when he goes to work, he comes home and sits on "his chair" and he does not want to be bothered. He is like my ex roomie, actually. A few glasses of wine, bad TV and then he goes to bed, BUT it takes THE WHOLE WEEKEND for him to recover. He does have co-morbids like depression and anxiety and others.

When I lived there, we all knew leave M alone on the weekends. Sometimes he would venture out, but not much. But when he did, he was always nice. Stiff and rehersed kinda, but nice. We did bother him, but we tried not to.

I am in between these two. If I have been out and not able to eat all day or tend to the stuff I need to do, then at night I cannot be talked to either. I get that. I cannot eat when people are talking to me at all.....I have to say, "I can't do this! It is not you , it is me!! I am so sorry!!!!" so they do not feel bad. It takes me some time to recover, maybe the whole evening, but not the weekend.

BUT if I have a BAD INTERACTION??? Even if someone rolls eyes or looks askance or if I misinterpret something or if I cannot understand the meaning behind something? THEN it might take days. I might go into hiding for days.
<Sigh>
How long and how do you guys recover from work or interactions?

 

[WereBear]

The previous weeks have been lots of meetings and training and my new responsibilities.

This weekend it is taking the whole weekend of doing nothing. I love doing nothing!

 

[Full Steam]

I'm just figuring this out.

It seems if I look after myself by taking breaks when I need to I can recover in a 30 minutes break. I play a video game, or meditate.

Before I knew this was autism though, I'd fight it. Day after day, getting gradually worse, and then I'd have to take a few days off work, and even then it would be maybe a week or more before I recovered.

I'm very stubborn though, so when I fought it I'd fight until I was too gone to think at all.

I've been wondering how much is down to shutting things out, pushing things away and trying to filter.

There have been times when I just let everything in, and didn't fight at all, and it seemed like I didn't get as wiped out, or maybe not at all.

That frame of mind though, is a bit "away with the fairys" . Not easy to work.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

It varies for me. When I was working a shift job in a noisy factory I needed all the time I could get to recover and face more of the same boring thing. This was all evening or afternoon and weekend. I was more healthy and productive then. But it was slowly eating me alive. I was relieved when that ended. I couldn't do that job for years on end.

Now, I need several days to recover from tasks. It usually goes: Wednesdays I go to a peer support group, Thursdays is a driving lesson, Fridays is my voluntary job. And I get very tired and hate the thought of having to do it all again even though I do enjoy doing these things, I know they're good and healthy and I want to keep doing these things. But it does take a lot out of me. But the difference is now I have the severe depression, the anxiety is a lot worse, the Tourette's and recovering from the psychosis. It's all just mentally exhausting when I factor in all of that. I'll have an easier time when I pass my driving test and I can get off my motorcycle - which is a cause of a lot of the anxiety; I'm a lot calmer in a car.

Yeah. It of course does vary in a lot of people according to their personal situation. I don't think it's part of their character, just the baggage they have to carry with them.

 

[Suzanne]

It takes 4 days roughly, to recover from social interactions; mainly a break in my routine. During the interactions, I long to be home and back to my rituals and then, when I am, I feel another sort of feeling that I am lost and takes me a few days to bounce back.

The more I spend with NT's then more I do not want to spend time with NT's. But that means I would become a hermit, because all the ones I know are NT's.