Can men get menopause, cause I can't explain it!?

Factual Questions
1

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I’ll find out soon out.

Lately, I’ve been feeling out of touch. Kind of weird in explaining it. But its like I can’t concentrate anymore. At the beginning of the semester I was doing fine, had two exams in Calculus which I studied for, but by the third exam I couldn’t focus. It was like there was some kind of mental wall that I couldn’t get thru. I couldn’t explain it. I knew I had to study, but I just couldn’t do it. I kept getting distracted by the smallest things, which made no sense. I work full time also, so I was blaming it on my work, but I still feel there’s something not right. I’ve got finals this Thursday, and I still can’t study. I went from high “B” to an “F” from my 3rd exam, I’m now at “D” and need to do a 70% on the final to get a “C” in the class. But there’s still something preventing me from studying. Here I am, 1am pacifica standard time, can’t sleep and I’m not doing what I’m suppose to be doing…studying for my finals…I’m freaking posting on straighdope instead!?

What the fuck is wrong with me? My roommate said, I might be suffering from depression. I was like WTF? Aren’t you suppose to be strung out on alcohol or popping pills to be depressed? I don’t know what the hell it is…its just weird and I can’t explain it, even writing about it is hard, because there’s more to it…is this some form of stress I’ve never encountered? I’ve never had problems with stress. Am I losing it? I don’t hear any voices, will not yet that is, but damn I can’t shake this weird vibe.

Anyone ever gone thru this before?

2

Sound like some possible ADHD symptoms but that’s just an armchair speculation, and with not much to go on… IANA pscyhologist, and even if I was can’t diagnose you over the internet, etc.

How old are you by the way?

3

Nope. You can perfectly suffer from depression without having ever used any kind of drug whatsoever.

4

34

5

I cautiously second that it sounds like it could be ADHD but it could be a lot of other things too.

Some authorities claim ADHD symptoms can actually get more severe as people age, especially those who never knew they had it and so never learned coping skills.

6

Time to see a doc. Yep, either depression or ADD/ADHD (not the same thing at all) are possible, as are SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), brain tumors, seizure disorders, humors of the liver and just being a flake. Best to get the bad things ruled out when a dramatic change in your body or behavior occurs.

7

I had the same sort of thing at about the same age…and higher level math and science in grad school was involved.

For me, I think it was a mental reaction to too much stress, but a specific kind of stress.

I’d be taking some heavy courses that required much work, much memorization, and much understanding of high faluten concepts.

Things would be going pretty good, but I might be on the ragged edge time, memory, or conceptual understanding wise.

Then, say something tripped me up, like getting deathly ill for a few days, or the car breaks down, a concept I can’t quite understand clearly, or two proffessors assign ALOT of work at the same time.

At some point, I would just get overloaded. Now whether it was actually true, like say you just can’t DO 80 hours of work in 2 to 3 days, or a “just” a mental mindset is hard to say. It was probably sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes a combination.

But, when I reached that point, my mind would do what it sounds like yours is doing. Studying just didn’t work, it just went in one eyeball and out the other. And, I’d get to point that I could BARELY force myself to do stuff, no matter HOW important it was. And it could even be something REALLY simple, like a few minutes of relatively easy work, and it would be shear torture to do it.

I’ve always had a few traits that probably didnt help. Always a procrastinator. Also a perfectionist. I would almost rather NOT turn in a crappily done homework assigment that would at least get a decent fraction of points, and would be tempted to just not turn it in and get a zero instead. Also, I 've been “smart enough” to realize that any subject I am learning I am just barely scratching the surface of the topic, and I always “worry” about that vast parts I don’t know or know I don’t know, rather than focusing on what I do know.

Combine all that with a situational overload, either real or perceived, and hello mental shutdown time.

As I’ve gotten older, its also now manifesting in mostly physical tasks like yard work. Say its spring time and I am busy getting yardwork done and planting a garden, nearly fully booked time wise. Then, a hurricane comes and blows a tree over and that added task maxes me out. The “overwhelming” (not really) causes me to shutdown, or at least have to really force myself to do critical stuff, like say get something planted right now because thats when it needs to be done.

I have learned to cop to some extent by just not caring. If it can’t get done without me flipping out, it just doesnt get done, damn the consequences. Of course that mindset is hard to maintain at a proper level without either just never doing anything or trying to do to much so that it spirals out of control, causing overload, and end up doing almost nothing anyway.

Maybe your just overloading too?

8

billfish678, that pretty much sums up whats going on with me. Maybe it is an overload, but does it last this long??? I started feeling this in early November. How did you overcome it? Right now, I’m resigned to not taking the final at all. And the weird part about it all, is that I don’t even care…

9

As others have noted it would probably be a darn good idea to see a health professional.

For me it lasted as long as I was overloaded and then some.

More specifically, it really didnt go away till I took a good long breather.

If I had a major meltdown during a semester, it wasnt like I could just step back and regroup for a few days/ a week. Instead, at best I operated at a much diminished capacity for the rest of the semester.

Then, that burned out feeling would usually continue on into the NEXT semester, even with the few week break inbetween. IFFFFF I skipped a semester, or had a VERY easy semester, then I could recoup.

The worst thing was there were several semesters that I really should have just quit or officially withdrawn once the overloading was starting, because all I was doing was spinning my wheels, getting disqusted with myself, getting embarrassed at my performance, wondering why the hell I couldn’t do this when its stuff that really is almost second nature to me, and just generally getting depressed as hell.

Now I KNOW to just NOT let myself get into an overload situation.

Note that what was going on was NOT apparent to me at the time, its an awareness that I’ve developed over the years and looking back. Also, over the years the symptoms and frequency got worse, making the pattern more obvious as time went on.

Iff you are really trying to just make it through the next few days for the final and do okay on it, I would do this.

Really drill the instructor, in class, and/or in a private session about what the test will be like, so you dont get freaked out/surprised during the test, which never helps either.

Abandon virtually every other task between now and the test. Just study and sleep, don’t worry about anything else beside maybe the house is on fire. If it doesnt absolutely need to be done NOW, don’t worry about.

10

It might be as simple as not enough sleep and poor eating habits.

11

Another vote for depression. You don’t even have to feel sad for it to be depression. I’ve had various forms of depression over the years, and when it was a matter of neurotransmitters gone haywire, as opposed to something in my life I had reason to be upset about, it never felt like “sadness.” It felt like mental fog: lack of clarity, unable to follow logical trains of thought, unable to concentrate, photophobia (sunlight made my brain hurt), and an aversion to interacting with other people, even to order coffee. For me such symptoms were 1> pretty obvious and 2> easily corrected with medication. It was a temporary brain fault, and once things got stabilized I was able to go off the meds and live normally again.

YMMV. When it’s a strictly chemical disorder, I respond very quickly to meds and everything balances itself out in short order. Other people don’t show obvious improvement for weeks, and/or cannot go off them without relapse.

I wouldn’t tend to suspect ADD, since this seems to be a recent change in mental processing for you, and my understanding is that ADD is something you’re born with.

It could also be burnout, possibly compounded by poor nutrition, exercise, and/or sleep; or a thyroid disorder (lethargy is a common symptom); or something I haven’t thought of.

Go to your GP, she can recommend things to look at, and a psychiatrist to evaluate you if necessary.