Published on 12, July, 2020
Something I've posted about before, I know, but because of the deep seated and longstanding issues within my family, I'm always on the lookout for further information. Now, I've just been watching this video on "The Burnout Recovery cycle", which admittedly will be useful to some to enable them to plan and cope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG_41uh-WAIAnd yes, It might have been useful for me in the past and I can see how it works for a well motivated individual like Paul Micallef. But, like many of the speakers and advocates I follow, there he is looking well groomed, organised and very much in control of his life. I accept that appearances can be deceptive and we don't know what goes on behind closed doors in a person's private life. But even taking that into consideration, this still feels very different from our family problems with burnout. All the speakers and autistic advocates I can find seem very well informed and motivated, not to mention very well groomed and presentable. And within our family we see a very different picture. People who opt out or withdraw altogether, never rejoin society, major difficulties with personal hygiene and too burnout to do very much at all other than very basic things like eating and going to the loo. Motivation is low, especially given the mental health issues that then accumulate (unhelped by services who have been able to offer nothing - we've tried) and anything else is understandably a low priority (if basic survival is a problem, you're not going to be thinking about how greasy your hair is, for example). And they're not really in any position to use self management strategies such as those outlined in this video. If they were, they'd already be well on the way to recovery, with only minor support from others. 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)? How can we best support someone in this situation? 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? It's very hard not to feel desperate about this.
When I was younger I would go until I'd break down, never really with any clarity about what I wanted or a manual on how to approach life. A few key things helped, one was learning to envision a version of 'me' that I wanted to be. Learning to dream intentionally. Writing down 10 attainable small goals yearly and 10 long-term ones. Being asked "what do you want" can act as a trigger. And then engaging in small disciplines regardless of how I felt, but I was quite good at mental escape anyway and this can be a form of it. What is important is to not just commit to a thing like making a bed daily as an act of rewarding my future self, but practicing small indulgences, as all disciplines should equate to reward (not having to straighten out my bed at the end of the day when I'm exhausted. Or spending a little extra time parking backwards when home so I can leave in the morning with fluidity. These are essentially future rewards I'm paying myself.) These things are better to do by starting small. One thing until it's part of my daily script as in "stick to the script". Going for a walk is a discipline. The important thing to remember is life should be about living, being alive - there will be more than enough time to be dead. ;)
The harder aspect of this is the practical daily small steps - always one thing at a time, and always doing a little each day. Which ones to take. Now, I've had to invest in specific matters of vigilance with intent to manage future accidents, as well. Not screwing a lid on properly will 9.8 times out of 10 result in a disaster. Not being detailed with diet will create painful results. To someone on the outside, I may even appear a bit OCD with this kind of detail. But a psychologist would know the difference. Being practical and reason-ing with my self is different than being compelled by impulse.
I also appreciate philosophers who appeared autistic in nature and thought. Kant had to be autistic. He made some really good progress in making all kinds of distinctions and self-programmable actions which make sense.
I feel your passion :) Maybe something here helps... I don't know. The will-to-life is a difficult struggle.
Yes, I am thinking about the will to live and what might be called the more general life force. It looks as though it's being sapped or (necessarily?) redirected towards basic functioning after various shocks, changes and traumas on the way towards adulthood really took their toll. I'd like to focus on small steps but I'm in the position of parent/very concerned observer and wonderng how we can foster such developments.
Psychologists have let us down as they have indeed focussed on questions like, "What do you want?" (and their allies, "What are your goals? and "What do you think you need from our sessions?") All directed towards somebody who has closed down and is probably very afraid of the answers being explored, probed or challenged. There is huge mistrust and this adds to the difficulties. I think our own goal is to somehow restore trust and maintain a sense of safety and acceptance, but as to the nuts and bolts of this and whether we might be, in the process, focussing on the wrong things or being rather clumsy in our approach, I cannot know without any feedback which, like engagement, isn't going to happen. So we're stumped. I wish I could see signs of recovery from burnout from the person themselves, then we could get behind it and support, but as it stands I'm just beyond concerned.