>>5678192Unfortunately, medical science currently doesn't have a way to bore into your skull and determine which combination of brain chemicals is causing your problems. Medication is prescribed on the basis of which combination of causes are most common or most likely given the symptoms you describe, and then revised on a trial and error basis. That means some medications can exacerbate negative symptoms, but it is fundamentally a trial-and-error process and if it's making things worse then you should be talking to your doctor and revising your medication accordingly. And remember medication isn't a cure, it exists to help you manage the issue so that you can remain functional enough to continue to support your mental health with proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.
>>5678224Aside from medication, the best things she could do is learn to cook and change her diet to be more consistent and nutritionally complete. If nothing else, that will at least eliminate common female vitamin deficiencies like iron and vitd as possible contributing factors. She also has chronic sleeping issues tied to anxiety (which is a common ASD thing) which are definitely a contributing factor but I don't have enough experience with treating ASD-related issues to know what the best approach to ameliorating that would be.
The cyclical nature of the issue points me to vitamin D or iron as the first things to check. Vitamin D levels fluctuate with season and weather (the so-called "seasonal depression" is caused by vitamin D levels dropping in seasons where someone experiences less sunlight) and can lead to depression that comes and goes seemingly arbitrarily. Vitamin D deficiencies can also cause chronic joint pain as the vitamin is an essential component in your body's joint maintenance--if you're deficient then your body repairs itself less and more slowly, creating chronic soreness wherever you frequently experience physical stress. Women use up a lot of dietary iron during menstruation and need more in their diet to compensate, which can also lead to seemingly cyclical depressive episodes. Alcoholism can also cause sudden and irregular deficiencies because of the stress it places on your liver. Those are easy to eliminate as suspects by just improving your diet, and from there she could look for more obscure causes
