Neurodivergence and burn out

I can relate to all of this so much!! @NightFury

I am thinking @Captain24 and @0ddsidian would resonate with this thread a lot too. 🤩💛

@NightFury ok I'm going to reply properly to this later. But i can relate to this so much, especially when you said about rubbing your eyes and forehead cos that's something I do myself when I get overwhelmed and worked up.

Also I'll add that you are incredibly amazing and strong to have overcome everything you have sweet. I know things are still hard but you'll get through this and most importantly you have the support to help you along the way ❤️.

@NightFury those are great questions to share! tagging some peeps below, feel free to share your thoughts and tag others too 😊

@Blackcloud @creative_writer @Oaktree @Glisten @0ddsidian @Captain24 @Shaz51 @JBG @Morbis @Meredyth49 @Sugarshack @Db1 @SkateyGirl @Abz @PositivePossum6 @Cuddlebear @GezzaP @Katsy @Giraffe @_42_ @D1ng0

Hi @NightFury

You have been through so much. I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you.

You describe the burn out so well. I have been there numerous times and didn’t know what it was. My psych had to tell me what was going on. She as adhd as well.

I feel it’s different to depression. I can’t describe how but when it’s happening it feels different to when I’m going into a bipolar depressive episode.

I really don’t know what helps. I’m heading that way myself at the moment and all I’m trying to do is different hobbies. Make myself do things I haven’t done in a while. Change it up a bit. I’m trying to allow myself to rest as I feel like I need to rest to recharge. I’m hoping it stops it. But I’m saying that I’ve been sitting on the lounge for the last 2 and a bit hours doing nothing but doom scrolling. The tv isn’t even on.

I was going to write something else but it left my brain…

I am so glad you followed-up with creating this thread @NightFury , and I am very interested to read people's experiences and thoughts. Your description with how you have been feeling with the burnout is so similar to how I have been feeling the past 2 years - except thankfully I don't get the brain fog very often (only when super fatigued). I have been so forgetful too (medication, upcoming events, information) - I used to be regarded as having a "steel cage" for retaining information to a high detail with recall even a year later. I have had to start to put everything in the calendar and even create daily alarms to remind me to take medication.

Whilst I am not a specific type of neurodivergent my close friends definitely class me as neurodivergent because I am not "neurotypical" 😅. I've had some interesting discussion with I think it was @Jynx about this. There are key things that would mean I would not be diagnosed as autistic, but I have a LOT of similarities in my thinking and perception 😂 so some close friends and my partner just consider me as autistic lol. Whether my burnout is "regular MH burnout" or "autistic/ND burnout" I don't know. But sometimes I do feel a bit burnout from the "adapting" to social norms -- and I consider that part to be ND-burnout. I have a friend who discussed ND-burnout with me once that was really interesting, I wish she was on the forum to share her experience with you. What I recall was that the "treatment" for depression vs burnout is pretty much opposite. Depression = get involved. Burnout = rest.

The only thing I have previously found to help when I feel like this is extended time off work. And as you point out, that isn't really a feasible financial option for 99.9% of people 😭. I guess the closest other thing I can offer is "get rid of anything you don't HAVE to do (unless you WANT to do it and it brings positive feeling)" but keep contact with a close trusted friend -- but maybe ask THEM to be the one who initiates check-ins with you and comes over to visit you (and bring a meal with them too?). Maybe a number of those types of modifications could help stay connected socially (to preserve MH and supports) whilst also removing as much pressure as you can from yourself. e.g. if physical dog walking is tiring -- can you find a volunteer to walk your dog? (maybe a different person each day of the week? or someone who just loves dogs but doesn't have one?)

Oh, I forgot to tag people. I wonder if @Kashmina may find discussion of burnout interesting (I think we touched on this in a thread the other day?). Not sure if you are ND or not, but I think either way you may be interested in burnout or have some experience/insights.

I love the irony that I forgot to tag people and also that @Captain24 forgot what else they were going to say, and we are talk about the effects of burnout including forgetfulness and brain fog. 🤣. We are in this together.

Thank you @AuntGlow and @rav3n for tagging people in. I appreciate it.

@MissGremlin share/reply when you can...no rush.

Thank you for sharing @Captain24 I try similar things to you. I took myself to the movies this weekend - because it's something that I love to do. The movie theatre was my place to escape, and to just be. It was tough because I was too exhausted to really appreciate it...but I tried.

@AlwaysMyself, @Jynx shared a graphic with me that really broadened my understanding of neurodivergence. I don't have it on me, but it was an umbrella, I think and it highlights that many things fall under neurodivergence.

I don't have the capacity to take extended time off of work, but your advice is similar to my psychologists' who told me to work on being selective about what I invest my energy in.

Gday @NightFury bloody hell mate that's a lot going on at once. I reckon too you are in a combined burnout AND depression because quite frankly, you have received a lot of bad news all at once so, not only have you had your future drastically reconfigured: and you are going through the diagnosis stuff.

I am not formally diagnosed but there was a point in my life living with another diagnosed ND person I saw the similarities and started living my life through ND expectations and found that it got a lot better, also "returning to myself" as I was a very eccentric child/teenager/20s and it was TRYING to fit into society that made my life terrible, so I quit trying to fit in and just kept to being polite and being decent to others to keep and maintain social bonds.

RE burnout strategies and I definitely relate to what you say, when I am burned out or about to, it feels like my arms and legs are too heavy to move.

#1 is try to lighten the load on your mind. For me this is just DISCONNECTING the non-stop stream of thoughts and problems, just forcing them to stop then lying in bed and sleeping A LOT.

#2 eat healthy do not overload on sugar, caffeine etc, go the opposite way and fill yourself with salads, eggs, meat, other things that properly nourish your body and brain. Vitamins and supplements, but dont go kooky and excessive into "detoxing" or "buying marketing fads" just take a full rank of multivitamins.

#3 Cut out EVERYTHING thats not the bare minimum to sustaining life.

#4 Try to resolve and forget what it is that is so heavy on your mind, because I find my mind is like an octopus choking itself sometimes, all the tentacles are tangled up in its own 'body' so try to find why, and unplug whatever that is, truly resolve the conflicts and that includes deciding what something is, and how to approach it. IE last burnout for me was working with a boss who blamed me for EVERYTHING, I spent a whole weekend in bed just chewing over why I wasn't responsible for EVERYTHING and figuring out what HE was doing to be unfair to me. I figured out a conversation and a plan of action, and decided I was going to approach the problem that week - then I got sacked which ultimately saved me from the situation and proved my thoughts about the boss.

Option A I could believe all his BS that EVERYTHING was my fault and I was a shit employee,

Option B I resolved it in my mind I was a good employee and he was terrible at delegating and managing, that he was trying to do all the work himself to prove that he was the boss against his own ego, that he did NOT want to hand over power and he was terribly insecure. His problem not mine, it took about a week to fix that up and believe in myself, then I fell into a cycle of IM USELESS AND BROKE and had to resolve that too. "I am not useless and broke, i had a crap job for a short time which was frustrating but like how I got that job I'll just go back to applying for every job that i can see until I land one". I dont stay within one industry or within my specific training, I find that too frustrating I just apply for every job that I think I can do including whats within my training and background. Yes there's a lack of progress but I'm not a career person, a job gives me money for life it is not my life.

#5 tell anyone who's useful that you're burnt out and half dead but dont bother trying to convince unhelpful people.

#6 I do this thing where I forget all of "my life" and I just walk around in a grey tunnel of nothingness. Then I sorta stare at "my stuff", my eccentric hobbies and I have found that when I start to snap out of burnout it's a process of reconnecting to "my life" so, my goal is to hurry this process up as I forget my own life very often and lose A LOT of time and progress. I am a very object based person, my life is filled with STUFF that means and does things for me.

So early phase I might just stare and look at my stuff for a long time. For example I have a dragon statue which I really love, I bought it when I was out with one of my very best friends, we studied together and also worked in a chinese restaurant, together. One day we went shopping and we each bought a statue, mine was a brass dragon. So when I look at that statue it brings back 4 years of being best friends physically close, and 12 years of being best friends. It can be very powerful for me to just stare at that dragon and think of all the great things we have done and what the dragon represents. That helps me snap back.

Then there can be something which is very overstimulating such as going to the shops, going to the beach, it feels like those two activities kinda jolt me back into proper conscience then it feels like "I am back within my true self". especially at work or in conflict it can feel as though real me drowns inside reality, and I get overtaken by other people's expectations and my desire to please the situation/keep the job/fulfill the obligation that I NEED to do. For example a job interview I might obsess over it for a week until it happens then I feel relieved I completed it successfully. I am slowly learning to prepare failsafe methods so that I can "live my life" and also "fulfill obligations". I do all of my obligatory stuff in advance, pack a separate bag, plan food, allocate clothing, run through the actual day in my mind. Then its planned and I can also perform my "real life" which is playing in my junkyard.

#7 work and disorganisation, I love having a regular job it keeps me very grounded, I know how much time is used to make money and how much time is left over for me. I currently dont have a regular job, my work is all over the place which is very stressful, including budgeting and "being poor" so I have put an anti-routine into place, which involves exercise, cooking and cleaning at home. Not just milling around staring into space feeling stressed. Resolving long term problems and short term problems too, for example I was spending $150/week on food now I have cut it down to $80/week by planning meals and buying all the ingredients and....FORCING myself to cook even if I don't want to. Instead of being stressed, eating out and avoiding the dirty kitchen in my sharehouse I have found that I am reconnecting with my housemates, yes I hate the dirty kitchen but I have partially cleaned it which allows me to use it without doing the cleaning on behalf of lazy filthy housemates.

Thoughts - paranoid, divisive, angry: They are such filthy lazy people I hate the kitchen and I am bad at cooking so I will eat out all the time.

Resolved thoughts - connecting, compassionate, constructive: They are all ND too and I really hate that they don't clean, and I refuse to clean for them so I will clean a small patch, I will pile their dishes in a heap out of the way, I know that the fridge is clean and decent so I will load it up with healthy food and I know that my own pots and pans are clean, and I have worked in worse commercial kitchens so I have to do what I need to do which is cook at home, not sabotage my life, waste my money and create a crisis. I know very well that it is easy to run away from anxious thoughts and it is hard to stick with constructive thoughts, but every day, every year I try to improve on last year and all of my shortcomings so when I cook at home I will be better at cooking and also keep in control of my finances.

Thats all I have time for now but I wish you very well, think back to last time this happened and how you got out of it. Keep building up a "library" of self knowledge and strategies to keep your life on track, and always think back how far you have come. I love to think back how far I have come, especially on a bad day as I have COME A LONG WAY!! Theres a saying "your challenges of today are your dreams of yesterday" and when I occasionally think **** my life I especially think back to when I did nothing but smoke and live under domestic violence/victim complex/denial I actually feel so happy to recognise I kicked most of that out and turned my life right around to the point where it is unique, cool, difficult, challenging but also it literally is my dream life even if my brain whinges about it, the brain used to whinge about needing to smoke more before going to bed, now it whinges about something else so....guess what....MY BRAIN IS A CONSTANT WHINGER!! And I have learned that and I try to just shut it up and keep moving.

Take care "THIS TOO MUST PASS" and it can be very helpful to stay in touch with counsellors, friends etc to help you keep talking and thinking about whats going on. But beware of pity parties they dont go anywhere, you need to stay still/moving sideways but never go backwards. All the best.

Hello @NightFury , how are you doing today?

Others have already made some great suggestions, and I'll add to them here:

At work, see what you can do to reduce your workload. This might mean sourcing lesson plans from your colleagues so that you can save your energy for everything else you need to do. If you do need to lesson plan, get it done to 80% of what you would consider 'perfect', and then just run with what you've done.

In the classroom, pick your battles in terms of what behaviour you will address or ignore. You've been given a big class, I take my hat off to you for managing them! Some behaviours need to be 'nipped in the bud', while others don't need as much attention, so use your judgement.

It's great that you took yourself to the cinema: Keep doing the self-care, it is really important.

It sounds like you can't financially afford to take extended leave: I would suggest that a day off here and there may be helpful to prevent a full-blown mental health episode. As you may remember, I had to take extended leave from last year into this year. It ended up being 5 months altogether. I'm okay now, but the return to work has been more challenging than I had hoped. So do what you can to prevent that happening to you as well.

Keep up the good work, there is light at the end of the tunnel (and the summer holidays are in sight)!