Burnout and the consequences of recovery

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I watched this video last night.

I was already aware of the general idea of burnout, but hearing some accounts of specifically what it feels like, and worse, how long it can take to recover, and especially how little many people are capable of doing while burned-out REALLY screwed with my head, given how closely it seems to match my experiences.

The cue point skips past the boring intro:



I need to be careful to avoid having this info make me feel even worse, at the moment, but it seems SO relevant and important.

Although living a much simpler life is almost certainly what I must resolve myself to, right now I'm stuck right in the middle of multiple very stressful situations, and hope I can get through them without totally losing my marbles. At least I now think I'm aware of what's behind much of my stress, so I have that awareness as a last resort to fall back on in seemingly dire moments.

I'm most interested to read what others have experienced regarding the consequences of the way that you've found you must live, in order to recover from burnout. Specifically, the consequences of people in your life believing that you're "just making excuses" for not being more functional, and the demands that you apply a thoroughly conventional "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" approach to recovery from what may seem to others to be "just" depression.

Darron

I'm 20 minutes in. I'll watch the whole thing before replying properly.

I've spent a LOT of time making and hearing comments in this area based on deep experience and reflection.

It's jumping out at me that this research is a detailed reflection of my experience, and the experience of others I've read about - AMAZING stuff.

For this post I'll leave my sig enabled, it dates back to 2018 when I was newly diagnosed and highly challenged by these issues.

to be continued ...

In this video, they run through most of the essential concepts which I recognize from my experience with hard-won survival and recovery from autistic burnout.

There's a lot there to unpack.

Permitting myself to rest was a big problem, because I still wanted to be a high achiever at work - I needed help recognizing that sufficient rest is prerequisite to achievement. The book I linked on the sig in my last reply helped me with that, and with strategies.

Unfortunately my need for recovery and accommodation is still denied and gas-lit. I need, and would jump at the chance to accept, simple services like cleaning, gardening, cooking and assistance accessing exercise - unfortunately these sorts of help are non-existent.

It's a long road from where you are now, accept small wins and gradual progress. If you're lucky, you might ask for some kind of accommodation and assistance from those around you, based on the knowledge in this video.

I didn't have those, I eventually came back from the worst bout, though I'm on red alert now, with a new round of burnout - work performance has slipped a lot in the past fortnight after I had to deal with all the things in xmas / holidays.

I really loved that they are also cognizant of the social justice aspects around neurodiversity and inclusion. I'm increasingly aware that we are owed, and are decades behind PoC and LGBTIQ's on our path to collect, our fair share of the social contract.

The world needs more of this kind of work. With other developments in inclusive research, we look set to get it too. Unfortunately, I end up feeling like I know now what's right and proper, and I worry it might take 20 years to see the mainstream discourse come up and present this as some great epiphany.

We autistics need to double down on efforts for social justice. I'm questioning whether I might be able to bend my career in that direction.

I'm giving the current burnout until next week and then I'm done with it. It's lasted around one and half months and I might have milked it slightly some. Not bad tho, I had seven months 24/7 with a psycho and other mentals, three weeks emailing with a corporate as*hole, and a month of traveling across country while systemizing.

Since retiring, I plan a month or two "me break" every year and then spend a season volunteering with travel back and forth. This year's break was a full on burnout and I would guess my fourth major, so one every ten years ignoring the first twenty as a youth.

Overall I'm proud of myself for learning to cope with 'em but feel kinda ignorant for letting them happen in the first place. Especially this last one but I had no choice in preventing this burnout due to a gov't's ineptitude and my own persistence to do the right thing. I felt it happening as early as June.

The video was good for a review but I don't see it educating the NTs. I hope I'm wrong but I have so little expectations from them based on experience.

One big revelation for me was the increase sensory, I have noticed an increase and thought it might be due to the discovery and I just was looking for it more often, instead of an impact from the burnout.

Im 35
I was diagnosed with Autism level 2 in May 2019. Lost my apartment and car I had paid off and it’s been a nightmare ever since.

I live in Louisville , Kentucky
When my disability was denied the person on web cam that did the evaluation said “you have pretty eyes”

I have a head injury from when I was 3. I can only raise one eyebrow, one eye twitches , one eyebrow can’t produce sweat.

It’s been really scary having private landlords in backwards Louisville , Kentucky .

Like I’ve definitely learned, if you tell someone you have autism, they will mock you, be curious, think about your diagnosis like they are re diagnosing you themselves and convince themselves basically that you don’t have autism if you can respond with a sentence.

I struggle a lot . I was able to keep a health insurance job working remotely but landlord threatened my life and showed up without notice when I was living in a ghetto apartment on the west end of Louisville. I am smart , but I have all the difficulties you can think of with autism and for me to do social interaction is a lot of work.

1 on 1 , I can do a lot easier. Because well I’m talking usually , but my only
Option now is jail, homeless shelter or under the bridge and I really hate Kentucky and the city of Louisville .

Currently I’m too scared to even apply for food stamps and I’ve lost most of my belongings from people that don’t want to ever drive and give them back to me. I’ve lost everything except some old clothes I got in bags .

Wish me luck because I have an infection in my gums from a surgery I knew about since 16 and finally got it.

Nobody cares in this backwards state of Kentucky if you’re an adult with autism. They just want to mock you and challenge you and laugh.

I don’t think I’m going to be alive much longer so wish me luck.

Not to scare anyone but I've been in burnout for over ten years. I consider it permanent.


I haven't found a way to recover, but instead I've learned to accommodate and accept it.

This is perfectly normal and okay.

I'm not a fan of long videos, or watching things in general, so I can't speak on that...it's just too long for my attention span.

I've had burnout episodes, some I'd call 'small' others 'big'. I used to have several small ones that would end up being bigger ones. The last major one I had I still haven't completely recovered from. I doubt I ever will.

The people in my life don't really understand. The last major one I had was when I stopped working. That was ten/fifteen years ago now? I don't know. My memory sucks. My spouse at the time supported my decision to quit, but it did our lifestyle no favors since I was the one who made the most money in the house at the time. My kids had no idea what was going on with me and thought I was being lazy or was mad at them. It was a rough time.

These days, I really have to watch myself and if I take on too much in a day it takes me weeks to bounce back. God help me if I do too much for too long. I did too much over the end of summer/early fall, and I'm still not back to 'normal'. I'm still paying for that.

People in my life (not that I have a ton of them) don't really understand what's up with me and why I get like this and need so much recover time. They don't call me lazy or think I should walk it off or whatever. They just don't get it and as a result, they get their feelings hurt when I tell them no, I can't do that, I can't go here or there with you or come visit or whatever. They take it personally even when I tell them not to and explain why I am hiding from the world. It's like they don't believe me. That sucks.

in 2007 my husband was murdered by my younger brother. and i was asked to be at the trial 1800 miles away. They were prosecueting the wrong person intentionally, Was not able to attend the trial, it was a show trial To get the murder offthe books for the prosecuetors office. And the homicide investigators or the prosecuetors office did not presentthe firearm that did it. It was too large of a pistol to fit the womens hand to be able to fire it. The woman was my brothers GF , she and her son were said to be the only witnesses , She would not let her son testify , just barely underage . But the gun was the same one my brother had me handle 6 months before the event. which fit his 6 foot tall persons hand well .
which he told me he was practicing one shot kill gut shots .which is right where my husband was shot
i am 5'8" tall my hand is not too small. I could not get my hand around it to fire it .But this woman was,about 5'4" with small hands . So she could not fire the gun .The homicide team investigated the scene in the dark,And could not find the single bullit casing from the single lucky shot they claimed that killed my husband. And prior to this the sheriffs there were trying to convict my husband of shooting a dog that was attacking me in our fenced yard. And our lawyer told us to move away for the court to stop prosecueting us. So we could not move everything and my brother convinced me to put the house in his name ,,before the homicide happened. So the prosecuetors office mis filed charges intentionally and the woman got acquitted( found innocent) claiming my husband attacked her. Which my husband was never that kind of man . My brother claimed not to be there that night.Later on he called me and told me he was .Now he owns our original home on top of it all .And i was here taking care of the husbands family house 1800 miles away.And alone , being extremely mentally disabled from the event , so much do that i could not function except to eat. So that is the cosequences of Burnout .
which have never quite recovered from. Not being able to address any of the situation. inspite a phone call to the homicide detective about the gun and a talk with the victims advocate about it.
but it never got brought up in trial . And the prosecuetor would not take a deposition. Am still messed up on the topic . And repeated calls to the FBI have never helped . So burnout can be a life changing thing under the wrong circumstances and you might not ever recover .Burnout is a very real thing ! . People can and will
victimize Aspies but not all people.. Be careful .

.

I can imagine….sorry you had to go through this.

Jakki, that is so much to deal with and family on top of it. I wish you peace.

Thank you both/ all, it has been this long before , i could openly write about it.
Seems like a lifetime of therapy and medicine afterwards , that helped very little
Have had a few issues to stuggle through ,that the cosequences of which last a lifetime.
But did make it through a pretty serious Covid experience. And related stuff..ty again.

I'm terrified that what burnout recovery "looks" like from another's perspective is completely indistinguishable from malingering. Why should anyone who has not lived through it believe that what is being described is a genuine inability to be more than minimally functional. And worse yet, how and for how long a recovery must proceed doesn't seem very predictable (yet), especially when compared to what triggered it (if that is even known, at the time!).

"Last time, you popped right back into gear in a day, this time it's been WEEKS!" (or, in my case, as long as 5 months).

And worse, I've noted that when I am able to be "spurred" into action, this will often lead to further damage, if it's too soon. I've at times welcomed being spurred into doing something simple, like taking a walk, but "if I can do that, why can't I do X?"

Who am I to even ask for, much less demand such accommodation? No one owes me a life such as I imagine may be necessary for me to not end up as yet another sad statistic.


My greatest fear is that there is no way for me to communicate this to the one who is most important, and closest to me. I can't say that I've "laid this all out" yet to the person in question, but I'm nearly certain that based on experience, my explanations, however impassioned and thought-through will be met with a reaction somewhere between thinly veiled contempt and outright disaster.

I have a strong inner desire to run far, far away. But to where, I can't say. Based on experience, even a brief "bolt" will lead to a whole new layer of strife.

I dunno, anyone have upcoming winning lottery numbers in their head?
I don't know if even that ridiculous fantasy could lead to a way to fully support myself. Just having a huge pile of money is not the only consideration of being able to cope with what I'm just starting to figure out about how I must live to avoid further disasters. I am now certain that I have cravings for deep personal connections, but also a need to achieve such connections in a way that will likely be very difficult for even the most accomodating and understanding people.

Had anyone here gone through such added anxiety in the period right before your official diagnosis was delivered to you? I have enough money to buy a plane ticket, though to where is an open question. And I'd have to hope my ancient crappy truck would run long enough to carry me the 185 miles from here in the boonies to the airport in Reno.


Do you have any initial thoughts on how you might be able to assist in this effort to spread awareness?

Darron

What a shocking and horrifying story! Being able to live through something like that must be considered a "superpower", in my opinion.

Darron

Can you explain what systemizing means, to you? I'm seeing the definition online of:

"Talent in autism comes in many forms, but a common characteristic is that the individual becomes an expert in recognizing repeating patterns in stimuli. We call this systemizing, defined as the drive to analyze or construct systems. These might be any kind of system. What defines a system is that it follows rules, and when we systemize we are trying to identify the rules that govern the system, in order to predict how that system will behave."

But I've found specific real-life examples to be much more useful to my understanding of aspects of autism than clinical language.

Darron

So much hardship here. It's difficult to read. I'm relatively fortunate, but still struggling.

I've had 3 clear cases of burnout, the first when I was 12-13 and had no idea what was happening to me or even that I was autistic. The other 2 were 6 years ago and last year. After each of these, I never fully "recovered"--which really just means masking successfully and accommodating myself to the NT world, including suppressing sensory problems. I'm still the same inside, but to observers I seemed to have become less functional and "more autistic."

I actually like this, as it means I'm more myself and less anxious about masking, and generally give no f***s anymore about others' opinions. On the other hand, it's terrible. I'm freelance, and my work is already reduced and threatened by COVID, so I can easily imagine the terrifying possiblity of being utterly without income as the single parent of 2 young teenagers (which is itself a huge source of stress).

Last edited by Benjamin the Donkey on 13 Jan 2022, 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.