Burnout

Please try not to worry about your ASC assessment.  Just be yourself.

At the moment, I'm in the mood for psychological/supernatural mysteries.  Last night, I watched 'The Mothman Prophecies'.  Today, I watched 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose'.  I find movies to be incredibly relaxing.  Let me know what kind of movie you're in the mood for - comedy, horror, thriller - and I'll make some recommendations.  I watch over 400 movies a year.  It's my special interest.

What was the film Tom? I could do with a pleasant distraction to stop me worrying about my ASD assessment! 

Turned out to be almost half a bottle of whisky, but with half a gallon of water.  Good film, too.  Now I'm going to bed.

That's wonderful Tom, sounds like a great plan. Take care ()

She signed me off for 2 weeks and said I should return to her at the end of that period for further assessment.  I dreaded ringing my manager to tell her, but I did it straight away and she was fine.  Said 'Get yourself better, and don't apologise.'

So... I can relax a bit.  An Aspie friend said to me I should use the time and set myself goals to do a few things every day - like read, go for a long walk, go out for a train ride somewhere different.  Keep myself engaged, but rest at the same time.

This afternoon, I'm going to sit down with a nice glass of weak whisky (1 part scotch, 10 parts water) and watch a film.

Yes, I've read that.  It's very good.

That's a great chart. I also recently read this blog post written by an autistic guy about burnout - imo he nails the description really well: www.theautisticadvocate.com/.../an-autistic-burnout.html

Hope your GP appointment went OK Tom and you were able to come up with a plan. So important not to push yourself too far too soon and to give yourself time to recover. 

I've got an appointment with my GP this morning at 9.30.  I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to say.  I'll tell her what happened, and why it had such a profound effect on me - for reasons going back to childhood.  The last time I felt as bad a I did yesterday at work was 20 years ago.  I had a major breakdown after that.  Then, in 2010, something similar which also led to a breakdown.

I have a lot of support at work - colleagues I get on with, support measures in place, an appointment next week with the behavioural support team.  Yet none of it seems to compensate for the stress I feel each day going in, and my fear of bumping into this woman.  And NT friend said 'Just ignore her and go about your day.'  I wish I could.  But I'm on constant tenterhooks.  Even if it's a day when I'm unlikely to see the woman at all.  And I need valium just to be able to walk up the road to the door of the place.

I don't want to lose this job.  I don't want my position long-term to be called into question in any way.  At the same time, I'm not sure I feel up to the stresses of it now.  One side of me is saying 'Go in again next week and just see how it goes.'  And then the other side of me is saying 'But what if it goes wrong again?  What then?'

I just feel bewildered by it all.  I don't like letting people down.  I don't want to feel like a malingerer.  They know I do a good job.  If this thing hadn't happened, I'd be okay.

I guess I'll just see what the doctor has to say.

I would say you need to consider whether you're likely to "heal" whilst trying to carry on doing what you're doing, or whether you need a break in order to recharge and get some perspective and some defences back in place.

It doesn't sound like you're likely to recover without a break but you're probably the only one that can make that determination.

I had one of managers say to me essentially something like "Do you want to get on, or do you want to be right?"  It seemed like a dumb question to me...

Yeah but you need to - If you want to go to work, you need time to recover and to get yourself back into a fit state to do it. With all the stress this has put you under, surely a bit of time out is a good idea, if only to galvanise yourself for the inevitable interactions with the attack dog when you return.

I think we have something in common: a preference for sticking to our principals, even if it makes us unpopular. I suspect this kind of things makes the others uncomfortable, because you're not supposed to go against the status quo. Well, I would prefer to be disliked for "not knowing how to behave", than to dislike myself for being a hypocrite.

Unfortunately other people's spinelessness in this regard tends to result in precious little backup for the likes of us.

Seeing doc tomorrow.  I spoke to her on the phone and she said I need to be signed off.  I hate doing this.  I want to go to work.  But I can't be near that b****y woman.

I had the same when I worked at the County Court, Moggsy.  One of the District Judges was the most pompous, arrogant, irascible and superior of p****s.  He would barely deign to look at office staff if they went to him with a query on a file, and he usually sent people away with a flea in their ear.  Very much a product of the public school/Oxbridge/gentlemen's club system.  He made you feel like you were definitely one of the lower orders.

When he retired, they held a leaving 'barbecue' in the grounds of the court.  I was just about the only person who refused to go, and it wasn't looked upon favourably.  But everyone hated his guts.  And they were all there, like a bunch of toadies, noses up his back end, etc.  Self-serving hypocrites.

Unfortunately, I thing people are mostly cowards when it comes to speaking up. I remember many years ago I worked in an office with an awful tyrant of a woman, everyone loathed her and she was the most terrible bully. No-one would ever stand up to her, apart from me - she would go purple with rage when I would shrug, say "well you're not my boss, so it's nowt to do with you anyway" and walk off (I was 19 at the time)

Well the day came around when she retired, and a colleague asked if I was going to her leaving do. No, I replied, I can't stand the woman. More to the point, nor can you, so why are you going to her leaving do? They all went, and wished her well, like a herd of hypocritical sheep. It's not like there could be any come-back from standing up to her at that point - she was leaving and never coming back. Unfortunately most people, I have found, either don't have much in the way of principles, or aren't prepared to defend them in the face of bullying and domineering people. And all that does is teach the bully that he or she can get away with it .....

Certainly I think some of the careers I'd be more inclined to go into, such as teaching, were potentially less toxic than they are now.  Sadly my lack of cat herding skills suggests Secondary Education would not be a good fit for me!  And then you have the unfortunate fact that education seems to have turned into complete political football.  So pretty much everybody we knew who went into teaching has now quit.

And in HE it seems there is huge competition for jobs - when I discussed with my Prof. a while back the idea of going back and working in a University, he said even if you had something like 5 notable papers published in well regarded journals you probably wouldn't even get onto the interview list even at a tier 2 UK University.  He said the last lecturer post they advertised they got over a hundred applications from all over the World.  

Well, I got in and popped a valium just to walk up to the building.  First person I saw, waiting outside, was the hostile woman.  She was engaged with her phone, though, and I don't think she saw me.  I went around the side and let myself in at the back door, which leads to a different part of the building.  There, I met another colleague - much more sympathetic, and quite critical of the way the place is run - and the first thing she said to me was 'Are you alright?  You don't look at all well.'  That was all I needed.  I sat down on a sofa and almost cried.  I told her a few things, and she said maybe I should ask to just spend the whole day with our least challenging client.  At least I'd be alone with just him, and he's easy to look after.  But I didn't even think I could face that.  I said I was going to go sick.  As I left, she said 'You can always call me if you want to chat.  I'll keep things in confidence.'  I know she will, too.  But I didn't want to talk to anyone.  I went into the main building, where the senior was putting up the allocations for the day.  I could see it wasn't a bad day for me.  But I knew I still wouldn't be able to handle the stresses.  I said to her that I don't feel good and I'm going home.  She was fine with that - she knows the score - and told me to just keep in touch.

It was such a relief to walk away from that building and come home.  I shut the door behind me when I got here.  I don't feel like opening it again.  I shall probably go to bed later, but I rang my GP and she's going to ring me with a telephone consultation at 11.30.  I don't really know what to say to her, except I don't want to go back to work.  At the same time, I don't want to lose this job.

I just feel so relieved to be at home now.  I wore my mask yesterday, but it was slipping.  Today, I left it at home.

It's a tough situation to be in Tom. Try and do everything you can to look after yourself  - breaks, refreshments, positive self-talk -  whatever coping strategies work best for you.