The burnout problem

The 30 seconds of this video from 3:30 to 4:00 is post-prophetic to me.  It describes my experience.

Sincere thanks for bringing this video to my attention.  I will probably use it to try and help explain my life to some people who haven't been able to understand / believe my past attempts at explanation but who might be able to further their understanding with this type of "Dr Youtube" format.

In terms of your comment about the video - I'm a bit confused by your statement that;

Jenny Butterfly said:

So...  Is this really ALL burnout?  Should the term have subdivisions (e.g. to cover a range from brief, episodic burnout that is amenable to self help to almost total collapse and withdrawal)?

My understanding of the video is that he DOES refer to small episodic burnouts AND long-term / mega burnouts?

In terms of your question related to this video;

Jenny Butterfly said:

And where are the videos from people who've recovered from, say, years of burnout and needed significant support in the meantime?  Is there anywhere that families can turn for more specific advice and guidance? 

I am in the latter stages of recovery from a very substantial burnout.  Certainly measured in years - but it would be folly to try and put a precise time on it.  Complications regarding the peculiarities and particulars of my life undoubtedly muddy the situation.

Based on my experience, I can fully understand why you (and I) have failed to find any videos regarding recovery from years of burnout.  I'm really not sure how one would (or could) tackle such a task.  It would be even longer than 'War and Peace' and substantially more insufferable.  If not that - it would be trite nonsense.

I feel uncomfortable expressing more to you in public forum, but really want to help if I can because I know just how much;

Jenny Butterfly said:

It's very hard not to feel desperate

I expect that profound and prolonged burnout is a highly personalised and private experience for each human - but if you want, ping me a private message and I'll do my best to help you in any way I can with information about my own experience.

What I can tell you here, is that I managed to survive through my darkest months and years despite being decidedly "average" in the grander scale of things - I'm not especially bright and I'm certainly not especially well resourced.  I've now got plenty of metaphorical scars, caused extensive collateral damage and I still have a monumental 'clean-up' operation to conduct.  But I'm here !  Yay!!!!!!

If I can get this far, I'm sure you and your family can too.  Try and keep the faith that EVERY problem has solutions, even when you have absolutely no clue what they might be.  Stay sane.  Try to laugh about it - I found it really helped to laugh at my own hopelessness - it released a lot of inner tension.

I hope this helps you a little, and thanks again for drawing the video to my attention.

Kindest regards to you and your family.

Many thanks for your thoughts on this.  I maybe need to watch the video again and to be honest it's something that I personally would find helpful and wish I'd had access to in my 20s. 

My impression was that, for Paul and also many others who are or who become good self managers, burnout is a setback requiring a certain amount of down time and self care, but that periods of total collapse and withdrawal in which even basic tasks like bathing are neglected are thankfully brief.  I'm not saying it's then easy, of course, and I've experienced several of these episodic burnouts over my life, but that this seems poles apart from what we're experiencing within our family in intensity, duration and possibly also in the ways it can lead to or aggravate other mental health issues. 

This also typifies the videos I can find on burnout, in that the focus is on self help but there's little in the way of advice for families or carers.  I guess in this case the clue is that this is "Autism from the Inside" so therefore also burnout from the inside, and, as a family, we're left on the outside.  Moreover with a loved one who is in deep, chronic burnout and not in any position to adopt or even listen to these strategies themselves. 

This video does refer to longer term burnout but to me the thrust of it is to recognise the pattern then match or preempt it with a recovery cycle, incorporating play as well as rest.  He refers to "Zombie Mode", which sounds very familiar to me, but it sounds brief and, again, more akin to what i've experienced myself rather than seen in the family members I'm desperate to support.  And the recovery cycle in his case involves friends and activities - again, something I'd have been able to incorporate in my own recovery cycle but not really accessible to someone who, say, has basically sat in an armchair for 3 years and lost all contact with the outside world or who has retreated into one room, in a greasy, dishevelled state and only felt able to play computer games for > 8 years.  Plus once it reaches 10 years, well, is it even still possible to refer to it as a cycle rather than a permanent state of affairs from which we fear the person will never be able to emerge?  

I really appreciate you sharing your own experiences and this does give me some hope.  And I fully agree that this can be a highly individual experience that in its very nature is likely to be baffling and upsetting to other family members who can maybe never fully understand - it's possibly very alien to their own experiences, after all. 

Honestly, though, I feel quite desperate to have that lengthy and insufferable War and Peace style book on burnout.  I would literally wade through any information, however tedious and laborious, to put myself in a better position to support someone through this because, however insufferable that may feel, our situation here seems vastly more insufferable.   It feels as though there is no suicidality at least (although I can't absolutely know due to the lack of communication) but there is still a huge loss here.  And, given how things are, I don't think I'm being overly dramatic in saying that so far 10 years of life have been lost to this.  

We do have a kind of gallows humour going on around here.  Also our own self help strategies to get us through and keep us as strong as we need to be.  That much is good.  But it's also true that we have little clue as to solutions here so anything that has helped other families is definitely of interest.             

Many thanks for your thoughts on this.  I maybe need to watch the video again and to be honest it's something that I personally would find helpful and wish I'd had access to in my 20s. 

My impression was that, for Paul and also many others who are or who become good self managers, burnout is a setback requiring a certain amount of down time and self care, but that periods of total collapse and withdrawal in which even basic tasks like bathing are neglected are thankfully brief.  I'm not saying it's then easy, of course, and I've experienced several of these episodic burnouts over my life, but that this seems poles apart from what we're experiencing within our family in intensity, duration and possibly also in the ways it can lead to or aggravate other mental health issues. 

This also typifies the videos I can find on burnout, in that the focus is on self help but there's little in the way of advice for families or carers.  I guess in this case the clue is that this is "Autism from the Inside" so therefore also burnout from the inside, and, as a family, we're left on the outside.  Moreover with a loved one who is in deep, chronic burnout and not in any position to adopt or even listen to these strategies themselves. 

This video does refer to longer term burnout but to me the thrust of it is to recognise the pattern then match or preempt it with a recovery cycle, incorporating play as well as rest.  He refers to "Zombie Mode", which sounds very familiar to me, but it sounds brief and, again, more akin to what i've experienced myself rather than seen in the family members I'm desperate to support.  And the recovery cycle in his case involves friends and activities - again, something I'd have been able to incorporate in my own recovery cycle but not really accessible to someone who, say, has basically sat in an armchair for 3 years and lost all contact with the outside world or who has retreated into one room, in a greasy, dishevelled state and only felt able to play computer games for > 8 years.  Plus once it reaches 10 years, well, is it even still possible to refer to it as a cycle rather than a permanent state of affairs from which we fear the person will never be able to emerge?  

I really appreciate you sharing your own experiences and this does give me some hope.  And I fully agree that this can be a highly individual experience that in its very nature is likely to be baffling and upsetting to other family members who can maybe never fully understand - it's possibly very alien to their own experiences, after all. 

Honestly, though, I feel quite desperate to have that lengthy and insufferable War and Peace style book on burnout.  I would literally wade through any information, however tedious and laborious, to put myself in a better position to support someone through this because, however insufferable that may feel, our situation here seems vastly more insufferable.   It feels as though there is no suicidality at least (although I can't absolutely know due to the lack of communication) but there is still a huge loss here.  And, given how things are, I don't think I'm being overly dramatic in saying that so far 10 years of life have been lost to this.  

We do have a kind of gallows humour going on around here.  Also our own self help strategies to get us through and keep us as strong as we need to be.  That much is good.  But it's also true that we have little clue as to solutions here so anything that has helped other families is definitely of interest.