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Evenings Are a Struggle

Tim
7 hours ago

Hello,

I've recently been diagnosed with Autism/ASD and I'm also being assessed for ADHD in November.

All day, every day I mask my true self to my colleagues at work, and I've been doing it for such a long time, I've forgotten how not to mask.

When I get home from work, or even when I get home from anything, if it's at the end of the day, I get stuck. When I say stuck, I mean I cannot move, or sometimes even speak.

This used to happen after I parked my car at home after a day at work. As soon as I turned the ignition off, I suddenly felt overwelmed and found that I couldn't open the car door. I've been stuck in there for hours before my wife got home to help me out and into the house.

I've recently been able to circumvent that by opening the car door and putting my feet out of the door before turning the ignition off. But as soon as I get into the house, the same thing happens and I find that I suddenly get a feeling of being overwelmed. Most of the time I thankfully manage to get myself upstairs to either have a shower, or dunk my head into a sink of cold water. Both of these essentially reset me for a few hours, letting me enjoy the first part of the evening.

After dunking or showering I always make my sandwiches for work the next day. I then usually watch a TV Show or play a computer game on my xbox. My wife usually gets home at 19:30.

Further into each evening, at around 20:00 to 21:00, I start to feel overwelmingly tired and mentally drained, and 20:00 is usually when I have my evening meal. Recently I've been feeling completely incapable of making my own dinner, and my wife has to help me make a simple microwave meal.

I usually have to dunk several times in an evening in order to cope, but I have been known to get stuck on the couch while watching a TV Show, leaving my wife to help me get upstairs and dunk. 

Does anyone have any advice that they can share with any coping techniques or with anything I can do during the day to help reduce the feeling over being overwelmed in the evenings?

Thanks,

Tim

Parents
  • 5 hours ago

    Hi Tim

    Congratulations on your diagnosis and welcome to the community!

    What you're describing could be autistic fatigue. This NAS article explains more and suggests various strategies that you might find helpful:

    NAS - Autistic fatigue - a guide for autistic adults

    Masking can definitely contribute to fatigue / burnout, along with potentially contributing to various other issues. Again, there's a helpful article that explains more, including about the impact of masking, strategies for self management and links to further resources:

    NAS - Masking

    There's also an excellent article about getting support at work:

    NAS - Support at work

Reply
  • 5 hours ago

    Hi Tim

    Congratulations on your diagnosis and welcome to the community!

    What you're describing could be autistic fatigue. This NAS article explains more and suggests various strategies that you might find helpful:

    NAS - Autistic fatigue - a guide for autistic adults

    Masking can definitely contribute to fatigue / burnout, along with potentially contributing to various other issues. Again, there's a helpful article that explains more, including about the impact of masking, strategies for self management and links to further resources:

    NAS - Masking

    There's also an excellent article about getting support at work:

    NAS - Support at work

Children