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New member - can I get advice please? Severe autism burnout :(

NAS84562

I'm using a throwaway account for this since I wanted to see what it's about. I've been looking on the NHS for support since I've been aware I'm autistic since 2019, and had suspicions as early as 2017. I'm 18 now.

I live with my partner, and have a job alongside education. I don't work a lot, and my class schedule is barely packed. Yet, for the past several years I've been in a burnout. It's becoming really debilitating on most days. I hardly have a week where I can function with everything under control.

I know I'm an adult now but I'm genuinely considering asking my mum and dad to make me little calendars and help me. It's getting so hard to stay on top of cleaning, a masking retail job with sales targets and constant belittling (I know that's just retail but it's the only sort of job I can get with my age and availability, but it's so hard for me energy wise), doing the equivalent of a first year of university, all while loads of changes in my life (socially and stuff like that), as well as driving (a whole other autistic nightmare), and just *screams*.

I'm high-functioning, incredibly smart (apparently), socially apt, and it seems like I am just lazy.

But I'm realising I'm just burnt out constantly, and with the amount of trauma I've been through (a whole other thing), I'm regressing quite a lot mentally to my child self.

I know this can be a universal experience, does anyone have any advice on what to actually do?

I just want some form of relief, but it really comes across like nobody ever takes my disability seriously.

Parents
  • NAS84562 said:
    I know this can be a universal experience, does anyone have any advice on what to actually do?

    I would recomment making notes on what you spend time doing each day and mark on these your stress levels.

    Once you build up a few days / weeks of these you can use one of the superpowers on Autism and process the info - I suspect you will find where you are wasting your time on things that make stressed and can make an informed decision on whether to cut back on these or remove them altogether.

    Look at the info in front of you, compare this with the tasks you need to do every day / week / month and the future events / projects and build these into a schedule that has plenty of space for your favourite decompression activities, and (important this one) make sure your partner is included so they know they are important. Make date nights a thing and once a week or so be sure to go out to do something with just the two of you - maybe just a walk, a visit to the cinema or role play night, whatever brings you closer together.

    For the admin tasks like cleaning, look at your schedule and work out where you can make a routine to do these - maybe clean the bathroom & kitchen every Saturday morning before going out and keep Sunday to lie in bed late. Do the ironing while watching one of your weekly shows that does not require your full attention.

    I found that by making these routine and fairly easy to do then you get into the habit of them and they become second nature after a few months, so are less of a drag.

    Housework should not take more than a few hours per week for somemone your age so it can be easily integrated into your routine so long as you don't pad that routine with things like 8 hours a day gaming.

    Learing to drive is most likely a finite time thing, but it gets easier quite quickly (after about 10 lessons you start polishing your weaknesses and by 20 you are probably making almost no mistakes) so allow some time to decompress after a lesson in the early stages and things are likely to improve fast.

    As for asking your parents to make you calendars - this may be part of the childhood regression and I think by doing this yourself (with the help of others maybe) then you will start to rebuild control and confidence.

    These are only my thoughts - you need to use your judgement but more importantly you need to own whatever you decide and make it happen.

Reply
  • NAS84562 said:
    I know this can be a universal experience, does anyone have any advice on what to actually do?

    I would recomment making notes on what you spend time doing each day and mark on these your stress levels.

    Once you build up a few days / weeks of these you can use one of the superpowers on Autism and process the info - I suspect you will find where you are wasting your time on things that make stressed and can make an informed decision on whether to cut back on these or remove them altogether.

    Look at the info in front of you, compare this with the tasks you need to do every day / week / month and the future events / projects and build these into a schedule that has plenty of space for your favourite decompression activities, and (important this one) make sure your partner is included so they know they are important. Make date nights a thing and once a week or so be sure to go out to do something with just the two of you - maybe just a walk, a visit to the cinema or role play night, whatever brings you closer together.

    For the admin tasks like cleaning, look at your schedule and work out where you can make a routine to do these - maybe clean the bathroom & kitchen every Saturday morning before going out and keep Sunday to lie in bed late. Do the ironing while watching one of your weekly shows that does not require your full attention.

    I found that by making these routine and fairly easy to do then you get into the habit of them and they become second nature after a few months, so are less of a drag.

    Housework should not take more than a few hours per week for somemone your age so it can be easily integrated into your routine so long as you don't pad that routine with things like 8 hours a day gaming.

    Learing to drive is most likely a finite time thing, but it gets easier quite quickly (after about 10 lessons you start polishing your weaknesses and by 20 you are probably making almost no mistakes) so allow some time to decompress after a lesson in the early stages and things are likely to improve fast.

    As for asking your parents to make you calendars - this may be part of the childhood regression and I think by doing this yourself (with the help of others maybe) then you will start to rebuild control and confidence.

    These are only my thoughts - you need to use your judgement but more importantly you need to own whatever you decide and make it happen.

Children
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