Burnout experiences?

Hi I had a massive burnout in 20/21. Started 2020 with going to my GP with the news that I though I had ASD(still waiting for a specialist assment). Then came along Covid and I was on furlough. Within 3 weeks my dad was in hospital with Covid and he passed away on 14th April, my mum and I also had mild Covid around that time. My dad was mums carer, she had parksinsons and was getting less and less mobile. I could not cope with caring for her and the council provided 24hr care after a week of battling. I was totally overwhelmed with everything, couldn't sleep, maximum anxiety, every day ending in tears. What with lockdown I had no escape, I could not persue my interests, not even go away for a night somewhere diffrent. 

In mid May 20 we had my dads funeral, just me, mum and my wife. Although I don't think I could have handled any more people to be honest. Then we had to move my mum into a care home due to cost to the council. I then had to clear their council house of over 40 years. By the end of July 20 I was totally exhausted and massivley burnt out. In late August I started to go back to work on flexable furlough and that saved me to be honest, it was a real escape. Through the rest of 20 and 21 it was a slow process to get back to some normality. I lost many of my masking skills, and any self confidence I had. Last November I lost my mum. To be honest it was probably a blessing as physically she could do nothing, not even talk. Even now I am not the person I was then, much more anxious, I do less, avoid social situations even more. 

Going forward we have a plan that in 2025 we will move to Lincolnshire, be totally mortgage and debt free and have a much simpler life. I will be 55/56 and can work in a simple job while my wife continues hers working from home. I just can't wait. 

Thanks.

Thanks. I'm better than I was, but by no means "normal" (whatever that means for us).

You're welcome NAS84405. I'm happy if my post has given you some clarity. 

I'm sorry that you're not feeling better, the holidays seem long before they happen, it's the big rest of the school year, so how is it the time seems to go so quickly? 

I've come to realize the need for space in life to switch off. If I don't have that, every day, I soon begin to struggle. Previously, there was just too much in my life and no real time to switch off from it all. Now I think of it like a balance - if I want to do high-demand activities like working, or spending time in busy environments, then I have to have time to shut everything out as well, otherwise... Boom! Meltdowns, shutdowns, and if I keep doing it, burnout. 

It can be challenging finding time and space in your everyday life for yourself, I know. It might help if you can though. 

I have concluded that relying on holidays, which are occasional things, to resolve exhaustion arising from the stressor of everyday life is not the best solution - in my own experience at least. 

Thanks Autumn_Trees. 

Thanks for this, Pegg.  It's helped give clarity on long-term burnout, which I think I may be experiencing as a kind of cycle.  I was finding that in between externally imposed demands, like work, I just couldn't function.  The concerning thing was that much of my work is around the school term timetable, so in the middle of the holidays.  I began the holidays with a plan to rest for a week, but now almost four weeks through and feel like no progress has been made.  Every day has been a cycle between small bursts of interest / energy and a feeling of complete inability to function coherently.

Sorry to hear that. It sounds like you have a lot of stressors in your life. I can't comment on the religious aspects but I generally wish you well. 

Thanks for sharing this perspective. Although not a business owner, I'm self-employed, have a moderately large family, plenty of financial and other external stressors (including working as part of a lay clergy), and then a number of 'internal' stressors, including insomnia, that I think are a legacy of traversing a few decades without a diagnosis.  I'd had occasional severe meltdowns and burnout in the past which weren't identified in autistic context because of the lack of diagnosis.  The current cycle of burnout that I have tried to describe above began about three years ago, but I haven't yet mastered strategies to get out of it - can't seem to allow myself to rest.

Thanks for sharing that. When I was a teenager, I had less severe but still impactful symptoms and likewise was diagnosed with depression.  That was decades ago and is only beginning to make sense as part of a wider pattern now.  Hope things pick up for you.

Really helpful post....I've been recently diagnosed and now suffering what I now know as autism burnout. I've had to have time off work and reduce my hours and just feel so overloaded and fatigued with anything. Any advice or tips would be so helpful 

Yes, I have been in long term burnout. My last job was extremely toxic and I only coped by trying to shut myself down so much when I was at work that I could survive. I did my job but nothing else would function. I felt that I couldn't leave for financial reasons so I had to stay. After about a year I was suicidal, it doesn't sound right to me now but at the time it seemed like a sensible idea - the only idea in fact. I was saved from that by being in a car accident, which injured me sufficiently that I couldn't work for quite a while.  

I have had other, less severe burnouts which led to me shutting down for weeks or months at a time. I didn't realize what they were then, and was told I was depressed, a diagnosis that never really seemed right. 

I don't think I've had burnout but I am going careful as a friend has warned me of it's potential effects.

Sorry to hear that.

I hope you're doing ok now.

Hi there! 

YES I can def talk about this. 

During 2019 - 2021/2 I was experiencing what I realise now was a repetitive loop of burnout. I had worked EXTREMELY hard, all hours of the day and night 7 days a week to get a start up business off the ground and by this point it had grown and grown and we had lots of staff but I still felt 100% responsible for everything that happened and so I took on the emotional burden of any and every tiny thing that didn't go right, even though I now had people to share that load with. 

I ended up having to take weeks at a time on sick leave then I'd come back to work and stagger on for weeks/months just barely coping, then break down again and be bedridden for weeks again. Eventually I met with some people on my team and we were like 'this can't go on' so I was tasked with figuring that out. My only solution was: work less. I asked if I could start to work part time and after some negotiation, this was accepted. 

I now work 3 days a week and my life has never been so good. I work REALLY hard those days but then the 4 days off I sleep (I sleep soooooo much) eat well, go for walks, curl up and watch Netflix and generally do whatever the *** I want on my own time, in my own space. I don't have kids or a partner or pets, so it's just me and my house plants. It's bliss. Financially, sure, it can be hard, but the benefits of having the time to myself are so worth cutbacks in other areas. 

SORRY that was a bit of a ramble. 

Is this any help at all? Please feel free to respond, I can try and word things differently or explain from another perspective if not. 

I suffered from repeated bouts of severe burnout through my late teens, twenties and thirties. At the time, it was all diagnosed as depression. I was depressed, but I think the depression was a consequence of burnout. I do seem to have low level exhaustion/mild burnout much of the time, but still work (part-time) and do other essential things.