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Burnout experiences?

NAS84405
over 1 year ago

Hello community,

Back for a third post, still trying to figure things out following the diagnosis about a month ago.  If anyone would be willing to share their experience of burnout, especially long-term/chronic burnout and recovery, it would be really helpful. Interested also in whether anyone has experienced a kind of repetitive burnout, i.e. crossing into burnout territory, making an incomplete recovery, crossing into burnout again and then doing this as a long-term cycle.  Is there any experience of burnout where executive function seems to switch on for external demands, such as work, but then the entire rest of the time everything seems to be broken and dysfunctional until the next demand rolls in?  Could be I'm mixing burnout and meltdowns, although from what I've studied into meltdowns tend to be an acute event, whereas burnouts are more chronic in nature.

Any insights would be useful.
Thanks.

Parents
  • over 1 year ago

    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. 

  • over 1 year ago in reply to Autumn_Trees

    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.

Reply
  • over 1 year ago in reply to Autumn_Trees

    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.

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