Permanently exhausted... trying to do too much, or just exhausted by life?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Nexus9, I definitely recognise the treadmill element. 

I too avoid early mornings - I claim that my alarm clock doesn't work for anything less than a "6" at the front of it :-) sleep has to be sacrosanct for me as life unravels pretty quickly without it. 

Good point about temperature, I notice that I get sad if I'm too cold for too long (<15 degrees) and grumpy if I'm too hot for too long (>30 degrees). As I live in the UK, not too much of an issue generally, and I dress accordingly.  Working from home or from training rooms I can usually control the temperature so that's a great help.  Hmm, tricky if someone else controls the heating, grateful I don't have to contend with that one as I no longer work in open plan offices - yuk!

Well I have less energy than I did, but then I am 59. Being self employed there is always that uncertainty of where the next meal is coming from and there are no paid holidays. Not much certainty of what  retirement provisions there will be either, which might come down to paying  g less tax and maybe enough to pay a couple of  bills. I don"t mind working past 60 though, just don't want to have to keep on running g to stand still. So can be the sense of being on the treadmill for life now. What I try to do now is avoid really early shifts, where there is no chance at all of getting enough sleep. And simply doing less, which I can now, having no rent or mortgage to pay right now. A few years ago, there were too many early starts and days lasting until late evenings, then I was getting told off by my language schools for losing it spectcularly with obstructive porters and security. 

It is possible the heat levels in my flat are too much in the winter and there is no air conditioning in the summer, which may be a little enervating....on the whole I would much rather be too hot than too cold though. I hate being cold. I can't control the heating as the whole block is heated from an external source.

The rest of my week is the micro-break - I'm literally doing nothing apart from giving my time to others who need it more than I do. The rest of the time I'm on the sofa - I sleep here, sit here, eat her, watch tv here. No energy to do anything else. (I'm having to drive my daughter to uni & back early in the morning and at lunchtime 3 times a week).  I have a couple of other health problems that mean this is much more difficult than it should be.

Something else is being put in place to take this burden away from me, but for the moment, I've got to do it. (this aligns with my deep seated compulsion to do the right thing.)

Thanks for sharing.  Glad you can still have a sense of humour ;-)

Hi Plastic,

Sounds like you've been paying attention to your energy levels for some time and got some good data on it.  Sorry to hear you're in a bad place, a month sounds like a long stretch - is there any way you can fit in some micro-breaks to rest and restore along the way? Take care, burnout is no fun.

I fall asleep on the sofa most nights, sometimes deliberately (blanky time!!), sometimes accidentally whilst sat upright trying to watch the opening episode of Dr Who...

Trogluddite's excellent post explains how I feel...but I am too knackered to write that eloquently or that much.... 

I have a huge spreadsheet of activities & timings in my head. Each activity has a rating of how tiring it will be. There is a bias applied of how tired I am in the first place before starting the activity ansd how much external stress I'm under. I try to avoid the situation where I can go into negative values on my worksheet because that means I go to sleep for long periods.

What I find tiring is different to most - things like complex project planning - low value - almost theraputic

Doing a theme park - low value - theraputic

Driving 10 miles - shattering. Especially early mornings or if the traffic is bad.

1-hour medical meeting where I have to operate on many levels to do the communicating, to look after myself in case they are railroading me, proposing risky meds, being dismissive of symptoms etc, - shattering - I need to have someone with me to do the remembering because I don't have enough CPU capacity to log it all.

I'm in a bad place right now - external needs/pressures mean I'm forced into doing a lot of high-energy activities in quick succession - it's making me spiral down and I can feel myself deteriorating.

Hopefully, I only need to do this for another month so I should be able to tough it out and then collapse for a couple of weeks afterwards.

Just read the Autistic Burnout blog you mentioned - it's really great, thank you for signposting it. <3

Thank you Misfit61, as ever it's always nice to know I'm not alone in this, and thank you for directing me to the Spoon Theory, it seems a lot like something I call "energy accounting" and I try and plan my diary as to how fatiguing different activities are rather than the time they take.  I suspect I'm in an industry that is not a good fit for me (I only realised I have Aspergers last year) but I'm not sure now what to do about that as I love what I do and have worked hard to change from what I was doing to this. Maybe it's time for a rethink.  Maybe I just need a day for just recharging.  Thank you for commenting.

I’m 10 years older than you and yes I have those issues too and think it’s common in our community. The older I get the more of an issue it becomes.  unfortunately I don’t have any advice other than you need a baseline of activities you can manage regularly, then the other things have to be added in sparingly. Look up The Spoon Theory. It says we have so many units of energy to use each day. Each thing we do uses up these units and some tasks use more units than others. You can use less units or more units but they ideally need to balance. But you have to work out which activities use more units and if this varies. You have to barter with yourself so for example if you have interacted in person/phone/email you then need to make sure you have space from this in the afternoon or evening. It’s to do with the type of energy and what it requires of you.. like you for me interaction of any kind is tiring but green space, trees, nature etc is calming it nurtures, being creative is also, media/films/radio/music can be either because it’s noise and uses different kinds of light and stimulus but it can also be soothing if it helps switching off from other things. 

I’m not sure I’ve explained myself at all well... but yes fatigue is a problem and so is managing it as is learning which things make you more tired and which help. 

Thank you Trogluddite, lots of really useful insights and warning signs in your comprehensive reply - very much appreciated :-) 

I'm 48 now, and diagnosed, and I recognise what you're saying, both the feeling that I don't have the capacity that I used to have, and the contrast between fatiguing and energising activities. I also recognise the problem of trying to find a bar to measure it by, though maybe a little less so since my diagnosis (or rather the awareness I've gained since my diagnosis led me to peer-to-peer advice such as here.)

The fact that the fatiguing activities include social skills and sensory over-stimulation do make me suspect that what you're experiencing is burn-out from maintaining the self-control to function in environments that make a lot of demands on autistic traits. Left unchecked, this is the kind of fatigue that can build over time, and can lead to a much more serious shut-down state, where the brain forces rest by simply shutting down some functions. You might find this article about autistic burn-out a useful read - not all of it will necessarily apply to you, but it might give you some more clues about whether that is what you're experiencing.

Part of managing this, you've already mentioned - making time for the activities that re-charge you by giving those worn-out brain functions a rest. Brisk walks in the greenery do wonders for me too, but other interests and activities in a peaceful environment and which don't make social demands can be equally effective. Making it known that I can't be contacted at these times also helps; my phone, email notifications etc. get turned off when I'm recharging myself so that I won't get interrupted by a social interaction.

Not letting it build up is key to the problem, I think, so I try to find small ways to let out a bit of the stress throughout the day wherever possible. For example; at social occasions, I will now find excuses to sneak out for a walk around the block, admire the garden for a bit, talk to just one friend in the kitchen, or even just to sit on the toilet with headphones on for a while, rather than forcing myself to be present for the whole thing. I've found that most people are OK with just saying; "I'm a bit fried, just nipping out for a bit.", so mentioning autism isn't usually necessary. I also make sure that people understand in advance that me leaving early is no reflection on them, and have an escape plan prepared so that, as a last resort, I can bail out without embarrassment or needing help. I don't make silly excuses for this or for non-attendance any more; they just lead to social complications, so I'm honest that I just have poor stamina, but that I still appreciate invites, and do enjoy people's company when I'm up to it.

Spotting the early warning signs helps a lot, too. For me, it's when I notice that my understanding of conversation is faltering, when I struggle to find a word every other sentence, when background sounds start to dominate my hearing, hand-eye co-ordination starts to get sloppy, rising heart rate or butterflies in my tummy, etc. These may be different for you depending which traits you most struggle with, but generally speaking, you could call any of them signs of anxiety.

I do think that my tolerance has decreased as middle-age has come upon me, but it is also very variable depending on what's going on in my life; it's always worse when there are other sources of stress to contend with, or if I attend too many social events close together. However, managing it, and being honest enough about it to compromise with other people, have definitely helped a lot. Coping with a few little wobbles here and there is much easier than pretending that I'm fine until I have a huge crash that takes weeks to recover from.