Published on 12, July, 2020
For me, the two seem effectively the same so its hard to know what I should do when I'm in this state. I've seen a venn diagram online showing the seperate symptoms of each with a few overlapping ones but as someone who finds it impossible to distinguish feelings anyway, that venn diagram isn't all that useful to me. I know I have physical symptoms like wanting to sleep all day, low energy, no motivation to do things or just feeling in general "off", but how do people with the same sort of struggle with identifying emotions know what state they're in to then know what to do?
Alexithymia, as a sort of aphasia is the first hurdle: identifying how you feel is useful to understand why you feel in such a state. The classic state of depression would've been identified with embarking on the next phase of life-cycle: death. Finally, we are released from the chains Survival Mode, a sort of mechanism all humans have.
However, I would argue it's not necessary to first understand Emotions in order to examine the animations as a response, or consequence to other factors and actions. Erich Fromm posits the root of most dependancies, which can produce depression-like symptoms as a feeling of defeat, sadness, polarities of expressions from contentedness or happiness, is Isolation.
Isolation is an overwhelming state of being. One feels they cannot relate with others, and this lack of relatedness is key to the 3 fundamental needs of Being as Self Determination Theory suggests.
Instead of listing personal symptoms, I would list Situations. Instead of attempting to list feelings, find consequences or reactions which would be appropriate in response for any cause and effect. Modern life is overbearing at best.
It's good to remember that one is not actually depressed when it is the deflating of a heightened sense of joy, as all things in the Universe are cyclic: rise and fall, wax and wain. We sometimes need days to catch up on sleep. We need to cry through a heartbreaking process, we need decompress and reinvent our selves. The Darkroom is for Development, dark before dawn and so on. I've read therapists who have said there's nothing like taking a full year from a social group to regroup one's self.
There is a big overlap. In both cases there is a lack of energy to do things.
The difference with burnout is I feel like I have no energy but I want to do things (my special interests). If I take a week off from work then it all comes back very quickly, and I just need more time. I really want to do my special interests above all else.
With depression, I don't want do do anything, and I wish I was dead and didn't exist. My special interests don't matter, I just wish I was dead.
With autistic burnout, I have been trying really hard, and there is no end. I can't pursue my interests even if I wanted to. I've just been trying so hard to be like everyone else and I reach the point where I can't do it any more. And I have no energy left for things I want to do.
As much as I appreciate that sentiment, I feel it might be important to finally understand or at least get a minimal understanding of my feelings because I'm now in therapy for a drug addiction and my mental health because I've always used something whether it be food, my special interests (to the extreme i.e. not eating, sleeping or drinking) or as of the last 8 months, opioids to numb intense feelings because I've got no idea how to interpret them and I feel the best thing to do is silence whatever emotions I felt at times of intensity
Getting to the root of understanding my own emotions not just autistic burnout or depression, I feel would really help alot given I've developed very unhealthy habits, addiction and an eating because I've associated intense feeling to "I don't know what this is, therefore I don't like it so I must do something to get rid of it". If I knew that certain sensations mean feeling x and this is how a person with feeling x deals with it, then that would help at the very least alleviate the usage/need to use food or drugs. Sorry this turned into a long-ish response.
Yeh it’s hard I mean it’s quite a deep topic in general, but I would say it is subjective and everyone is different. I don’t know why autistic people are so depressed to be honest. Chemical imbalance in the brain maybe is the cause. Not enough dopamine perhaps maybe that explains the link between autism and ADHD, tremor, tics, sleep issues and stimming. Nobody knows though I wouldn’t worry about the deep explanation for why you’re depressed. Just focus on what works for you and do that. Forget what everyone else wants to do just do you.