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Burnout, don't enjoy my hobbies etc

Julius3997

Hello, I'm an adult male 31 autistic and possibly ADHD it was suggested to go for an assessment for that as well, a bit of a rant I guess I'm frustrated today ha.

But yeah I've had burnout for the last few years, my memory isn't great and I'm always trying to balance self improvement and inner critic, but I can never tell when I'm being completely comfortable and getting into bad habbits or when I'm actually showing signs of being close to burn out. Anyhow I don't have many friends, non that understand my situation really. I want to get back into art or complete some projects, even just read more. But I always struggle with tasks and get burnt out, or it comes randomly like I did just a bit of social activity then bang I can't do anything for days. It's frustrating because I don't have anything that's good to do in this time, I like video games but I'm too tired and strained to play them, watching things doesn't seem to be too good possibly movies but then there is friction with that trying to find ones. A lot of the time I just end up sleeping. Anyhow I am upset I can't really get over it at the moment that I can do things in theory but I can't get anywhere unless at a snails pace because of this, I'm quite an impatient person haha and I'm upset I suppose I spent my twenties living with a lot of anxiety and marginalized and now I feel the grief of the reality that I can't get to things I want to get to. I imagine this is pretty common to go through anyhow. How do people deal with the boringness of burnout? Like it's not quality time at all just milling around, possibly eat the easiest food, noone socializes with me in these times. I try not to catastrophise but I already feel lonely and now more I think I won't meet people as I couldn't find a companion when this can happen and I won't be able to do much. Anyhow it's not all bad I just wish things could be different sometimes and get bored of these cycles and being in a messy flat on my laz etc haha. I did find some autistic events so hopefully will try that I guess it will be more trying to do less and learning not to use too much energy on other people's expectations I just find it difficult as I really want to achieve things and get out of the rut I've been in past few years xD

Parents

  • Hello there Julius. I seem to be in a similar position and finding things difficult too. I get frustrated as I want to achieve things and signal progress to my brain, but just cannot quite make it sometimes (perhaps more than sometimes). My projects are important to me (video games related), but I can only seem to do them in small bites as my brain quickly becomes overstimulated which then contributes to overall fatigue.

    I am trying to find ways to work with this. For example, trying to maintain small engagements with my projects, but then doing something afterwards that down-regulates my nervous system, for example, deep breathing, doing an 'omm' meditation, or listening to relaxing music.

    Each time I do this, I try to learn and make little tweaks accordingly. Overall, I am trying to develop my understanding regarding what up-regulates and what down-regulates my nervous system, to what levels, and then slowly make changes accordingly regarding time engaged in that activity and counter-activities to compensate.

    I can relate to the inner critic. It is not easy. I am trying to consciously substitute the harsher phrases that arise in my mind to slightly softer ones.

    I hope this may help.

Reply

  • Hello there Julius. I seem to be in a similar position and finding things difficult too. I get frustrated as I want to achieve things and signal progress to my brain, but just cannot quite make it sometimes (perhaps more than sometimes). My projects are important to me (video games related), but I can only seem to do them in small bites as my brain quickly becomes overstimulated which then contributes to overall fatigue.

    I am trying to find ways to work with this. For example, trying to maintain small engagements with my projects, but then doing something afterwards that down-regulates my nervous system, for example, deep breathing, doing an 'omm' meditation, or listening to relaxing music.

    Each time I do this, I try to learn and make little tweaks accordingly. Overall, I am trying to develop my understanding regarding what up-regulates and what down-regulates my nervous system, to what levels, and then slowly make changes accordingly regarding time engaged in that activity and counter-activities to compensate.

    I can relate to the inner critic. It is not easy. I am trying to consciously substitute the harsher phrases that arise in my mind to slightly softer ones.

    I hope this may help.

Children
  • in reply to Mr.Methodical0

    Thanks that's quite insightful re down and up regulating. I've got some idea of this I just think of it in terms of energy. But also things that make me struggle I try and give myself breaks more, it takes a bit of self coaching but I guess this practice is good. Yeah I was into mindfulness in the past, I find it a bit harder now because I feel like my attention span is different now it's harder to slow down or stop. But it's good to bring awareness to that as I think I can do some mindfulness without necessarily meditating often.

    I hope you get a compound return eventually on your strategy haha Pray. I am practicing catching when I do things and giving myself some kind of praise, like halfway through the day thinking of all small things I did, package something, brush my teeth, look into and figure out a problem on my phone. Small things that give me a bit of a concept of someone doing things that could be considered proactive and good, and that helps a bit. 

    I do know a few things thinking of it that give me energy. I enjoy things like streamers speed running and chatting, but I don't reliably find it I think scrolling searching is quite demanding. But also I find I like new interests, like for example one week I listened to loads of lord of the rings lore videos and I'm not even interested in lord of the rings or phantasy stuff in general but it was the perfect drip feed of trying to uncover and understand something so it was quite stimulating, recently I was watching people restore vintage ballistics again not that interested in it haha but that's something good to know as it's not that specific and hard to find these kind of genres and feeds on YouTube.