Depression and meltdowns
This started out as a reply to a post, but it was getting very long, so I decided to make it a separate entry.
I have Asperger's and clinical depression. For me the depression often seems to manifest itself as me getting into flame wars with people online! I also tend to interpret things in a negative way. Another thing I do, especially when depressed, is get really pissed when people try to give me advice. I usually end up rejecting all "advice" offered me. Sometimes it's because the advice really doesn't fit my situation. Sometimes it's because no matter how useful the advice is, I didn't ask for advice, but just wanted to vent, so I refuse to accept it.
I also have a tendency to suddenly "lose it" and start yelling at whoever happens to be with me at the time. This usually comes out of a deep sense of frustration. I feel like I've been repeating the same thing over and again, or I feel like I haven't been told something that I need to know, or I just feel like the person is not listening to me or not understanding what I'm saying. This may or may not be the case, but it is how I interpret the situation.
Unfortunately, I have read that one of the side effects of the antidepressant I am taking is "angry outbursts." Oh hey, great side effect for something I'm taking for depression.
I've had a few of those outbursts at work when I've tried my hardest to resolve a situation peacefully and it's not working. For example, the building's heating system wasn't working, I am hypersensitive to cold, and yet people insisted on opening windows in the middle of winter. I asked them nicely to please close the windows. I tried to cope with the cold by dressing more warmly, until I was wearing literally six layers of clothing every day and could barely move because I was wearing so many clothes. I bought a space heater for my workstation, and then the management took my space heater away from me. I did everything I could to try to cope with the situation until the heating was fixed, but the open windows made it worse.
They got a repair crew in to try to fix the heating system, and the crew said that they could not fix the system while there were windows open in the building. The employees and managers refused to close the windows, so the heating system did not get fixed. So it was the middle of winter, we had no heat, and people were running around wearing parkas indoors instead of closing the windows so that the repair crew could fix the heating system.
We had a staff meeting in which somebody asked about the progress on fixing the heat. The manager said, "We can't get a crew in to fix it because all the crews in the city are booked solid for the next couple of months." (Ignoring the fact that a crew had already been in and had refused to work on the system until the management and staff were willing to close the windows in the building.)
I asked, "Could we at least close the windows until the heat is fixed?" That made people start talking about how wonderful it was to have open windows and how fresh air made it easier to concentrate on their work. I finally burst out, "Look, I have circulation problems due to diabetes. I have fibromyalgia, which is made worse by cold. I have asthma, which is triggered by cold drafts. Why can't we CLOSE THE DAMN WINDOWS????" (And yes, I yelled, and yes, they still refused to close the damn windows.) The heating system was finally repaired TWO YEARS after we moved into that building, and only after they agreed to close all the windows for a few days until the work was finished.
I have had a few other outbursts when I have failed to make my point using reasonable means, like when they tried to refuse to give me a meal break even though I have diabetes, and when a human resources person tried to convince me that I should pay $5,000 to buy into the pension plan, I told her I couldn't afford it and she wouldn't take "no" for an answer until I yelled at her that I only made $20K a year and $5,000 was a quarter of my yearly income. Unfortunately, these outbursts have probably harmed my chances at ever getting a promotion in this organization.