Blood Mage Ascendancy

I've seen some others w/ the same issue:

I recently did my ascension and went blood mage - did all 3 at the same time ... and instantly started crashing w/in 2 minutes of combat - usually when I get hit.

I went to the hood guy and refunded those points and I stop crashing. I can't put any ascension points in or I crash - so I mean, there's a workaround for me, but it's not ideal.