Burnout

Prior to my diagnosis I couldn't work out why I was always getting so tired (falling asleep early in the evening and, rather embarrassingly, regularly falling asleep during Zoom or Teams meetings) then when things got really bad I was struggling to concentrate, communicate or really do anything much. A lot of the problems were work-related so for me a lot of it has been about trying to manage stress - I'm useless at noticing that I'm getting stressed until it's too late but I've found a couple of little indicators that help. For example, if I find myself getting restless when listening to music in the car (constantly flicking to the next song on Spotify, for example) then it's a sign that things are getting on top. I've also tried to work out which environments give me sensory overloads and tried to either avoid them or manage them better. Weirdly, I can do long car journeys on my own but if there are other people in the car it's much more of a struggle. Like a lot of autistic people I also struggle with shops so need to take a minute to work out the layout of a place if I have to go into one (i.e. can't get what I need online) and I've only just got back to attending social events after about 10 months of not going to any. Planning in advance, working out the layout of the place, who will be there and even thinking about one or two things to say and do, also helps to keep the stress down. That and taking regular breaks to decompress also helps. Last year I had a serious burnout in Blackpool and it got me into all sorts of trouble but knowing what I know now, I would do the whole thing differently. A long car journey followed by a social event followed by a theme park - three sensory onslaughts in a short space of time and my brain basically switched itself off. I've found that reading about the condition and then trying to apply it to your own personal experience can really help in identifying the things that work or don't work for you.

Prior to my diagnosis I couldn't work out why I was always getting so tired (falling asleep early in the evening and, rather embarrassingly, regularly falling asleep during Zoom or Teams meetings) then when things got really bad I was struggling to concentrate, communicate or really do anything much. A lot of the problems were work-related so for me a lot of it has been about trying to manage stress - I'm useless at noticing that I'm getting stressed until it's too late but I've found a couple of little indicators that help. For example, if I find myself getting restless when listening to music in the car (constantly flicking to the next song on Spotify, for example) then it's a sign that things are getting on top. I've also tried to work out which environments give me sensory overloads and tried to either avoid them or manage them better. Weirdly, I can do long car journeys on my own but if there are other people in the car it's much more of a struggle. Like a lot of autistic people I also struggle with shops so need to take a minute to work out the layout of a place if I have to go into one (i.e. can't get what I need online) and I've only just got back to attending social events after about 10 months of not going to any. Planning in advance, working out the layout of the place, who will be there and even thinking about one or two things to say and do, also helps to keep the stress down. That and taking regular breaks to decompress also helps. Last year I had a serious burnout in Blackpool and it got me into all sorts of trouble but knowing what I know now, I would do the whole thing differently. A long car journey followed by a social event followed by a theme park - three sensory onslaughts in a short space of time and my brain basically switched itself off. I've found that reading about the condition and then trying to apply it to your own personal experience can really help in identifying the things that work or don't work for you.