Fatigue

okay yes, i wish my periods would just bog off now too!. sorry to hear it's so hard to get hold of what you need, i hope you feel better soon 

Exactly! I always think I'm happy within and by myself. It's other people who've negatively affected me. Take care!

I'm sorry to hear this is happening for you too, we have so much trauma that's being unpacked every day.  I hope in time we can settle into ourselves and be content no matter what environment we are in. :)

That's my dilemma too. Who am I? I accept my Autism but I want to be comfortable too. I'm ok indoors unmasking but I think I still revert to the masked "me" when I'm outside. I also get overwhelmed with anger at birth family and relationship dysfunction and being treated terribly in some of my past work environments. That rubbish can stop me falling asleep at night. So there's more fatigue!

Very true, I'm home except for medical appointments and it's hard to be outside after unmasking for so long. I remember my first outing after finding out that I'm Autistic, I kept repeating in my mind "I'm Autistic" like I was in shock. It's getting easier, slowly. I'll look for the book Unmasking Autism. Thanks for the reference to it  

Possibly. It's widely accepted wisdom that it's not possible to earn a living doing what I do because the pay rates are too low, but when I'm focused I'm earning £50+ an hour because I'm fast at it.

I just used to be better though? Like I could focus on things that were actually difficult for long periods.

Sounds like you are already doing the right thing by lying down quietly. I used to do the samecwhen working from home. Our Autistic minds tend to work very hard for short periods of time and then need a complete rest to recharge. Overall, you are probably achieving more over the course of your day if you average it out. Also, I found that, as I got older, I did slow down a bit but I more than made up for it in experience and the knowledge I had gained. In the end it is what you achieve that matters not how many hours you spend getting there. 

I feel much better overall since I started on progestins, rather than estrogen-based BC. I am thinking of switching to a synthetic androgen (danazol) instead, but it's harder to access and expensive so I don't know if I'll keep it up. It depends what dose I end up needing to keep my cycle suppressed, as that's the priority for me. I would rather die than menstruate.

I suspect T would help because obviously my levels are way below where they should be as a male, but that's gatekept so hard I don't know if I'll ever get it.

Melatonin has been the only thing to work for me without feeling groggy.. I hope this is helpful for you! 

thankyou that's interesting, I've been reading up on melatonin and might ask my gp and see if she'll let me have a try of it.  anything that works I will gladly take! 

Sleep is sooo difficult! I've tried Nytol (the non-herbal one as herbal stuff has never worked for me) but it leaves me feeling really drowsy.. the only thing that has given me the best and most restful sleeps is melatonin.. (I took it for years when I was a teen experiencing burnout.. apparently it's something autistic individuals can lack) which I've recently been prescribed again. Maybe ask a doctor for help.. (if not done so already) sleep is so vital for anyone let alone autistic individuals and yourself with thyroid and premenopausal. 

you are so right, i was obsessed with walking for miles too and I just think that wore me out even more! Now I'm content with an hour and half pottering around with my dog out in the fresh air, some of it is actual fast walking, but the rest is just him sniffing and me staring aty surroundings or daydreaming :) I think if I could get a good 8hours sleep every night I would be a different woman but my autism has never let me rest properly so I think my body can't live at high energy on little sleep anymore and is letting me know about it!

I think the idea of what we are "supposed" to do differs per individual depending on circumstances. I've had Doctors say to me I should be doing 10,000 steps per day.. but I also have POTS along with ASD, so this is not physically possible and can cause POTS episodes...  However, my literal brain took this as a set rule and I made myself VERY unwell a few years ago because of this.

Speaking with a physio therapist they believe between 3,000-5,000 is good for me depending on how I am feeling.. I now just do what I can based on what my body is feeling and tend not to log steps anymore.

makes total sense and this is how I am at the moment .  I have this sense tgat i want to be back to my 'old self' but I don't really know who she was as she had high energy and being everyone's clow Now this new me is knackered and lost and watching endless late diagnosed female autistic youtubers to somehow get a clue of where I go from here, whilst being angry that my birth family treated merap all these years. utterly exhausting jist existing some days

i have to say when im on the progestogen part of my cyclical hrt this really wipes me out even worse.  could you be progesterone intolerant?  i know i am but i still have a womb and if i want to connue taking oestrogen as part of my hrt for perimenopause, i am forced to take the progesterone as it protects the womb.  its so complex and a real battle to get right unfortunately.

i started perimenopause at 36, so its not unusual mid to late 30s to start haveimg these changes.

hi hp35, thankyou for this post highlighting fatigue.   This is something I'm struggling with terribly.  It's definitely linked to my perimenopause , as I've got my thyroid medication levels right at the moment.  I take cyclic HRT (oestrogen and progestogen) for perimenopause and it's so difficult to get the hrt levels right as my own hormones are still erratic.  I have weeks with fair to good energy but then I plummet into the depths of utter despair and complete exhaustion, quite extreme in comparison to what I used to have with pms.  I never have the levels of energy I had in my 20s which is very frustrating!

I don't know what to do about it really, i do everything I'm 'supposed' to do lifestyle-wise bearing in mind limitations I have with my autism, but nothing works so I just have to wait it out for it to pass.

Oh yess! Same it's like every time I have burnout a layer of fatigue remains and gets worse after each burnout. After the current burnout I'm experiencing I'm not doing this anymore.. I need to unmask as much as possible because otherwise I'm going to burn myself to a point of no return! 

I get this 10000% I feel I'm at the over analysing stage.. it's cause a bit of depression naturally as I can't function because of it.. but from speaking with my therapist this is part of the process following diagnosis. I started finding life more difficult after lockdown because of being able to unmask for such long periods of time and putting the mask back on used more and more energy. Unmasking Autism is a really interesting book and is really validating for what we are going through.

It does feel like every time I hit burnout, I attain a new level of background fatigue that never quite goes away. Like I go along living my life doing the things NTs want me to do, reach a point of not coping, have a crisis, am forced to cut out the part of my life that was the main source of stress, then after a while recover a basic level of functioning but never get back to the point where I coukd ever mask my way through that thing again.