Could anyone share their experience of burnout?

Hello.

Note the people's experiences will differ, it is personal, but general trends are below. These are my experiences.

It is not being tired for a few days after a social event, it is not moods lasting a week or two or feeling down. It may coincide with depression, but it is not depression.

It is a consequence of running your nervous system too hot consistently for a long time, many months or more often years. So what does that mean? Long term chronic stress without adequate breaks.

So how do you know you are stressed? There are a variety of signals, such as knot in the chest/stomach all the time, possibly with nausea, feeling hot all the time, shoulders lifted and tense (for years it was painful if anyone touched my shoulders), sweaty palms or elsewhere when it is not hot (I used to do this a lot), chest breathing, strong or faster heart rate, chronic sleep issues, digestive problems, increased salivation. These are not things for an hour now and then but most of the day, everyday. If you really go for it, you can have heart palpitations, lose some hair, have nosebleeds, have eye problems (CSR, which is serious stress), tics like your eyelid twitching, weight gain from constant high cortisol levels (not just from eating too many calories), sudden shutdowns almost like falling asleep, need to drink for relief (which makes better in short term but worse in medium term), etc. I have had all of these.

So what happens?

You start losing executive functions, it gets harder to do things, you put off more and more things, it is just too hard to do stuff. You might prioritise work but drop everything else.

You stop having much fun or laughing.

You become more negative, thinking becomes more constrained. Cognitive distortions take hold, e.g. black and white thinking. You become more snappy, less flexible, more emotional.

You need to sleep.more, or feel exhausted. You may not be able to sleep (I sleep less but some sleep more).

If you have been it through it before, your brain starts looking for what happened last time, replaying things. If this also occurred within bad events, you get to enjoy reliving difficult or traumatic events on a loop. You may then start having dark thoughts. I do.

If it gets really bad it becomes hard to talk.

You want to be alone. Company is stressful.

You will not be able to mask. You will become more obviously autistic.

It is not good. I have done it 4 times. Each time took a 2 or more years to build up to it. The last 2 were 5 years apart but I never really recoved.

The last one forced me to get diagnosed to find out what was happening.

It takes me about a year to recover each time, but it can be less or more for some. The only solution is reduced load. Your nervous system has to reset. You will be fragile for quite a long time.  My biggest problem was being undiagnosed and pushing myself way too hard.

I can look up more details, but there is a a NAS webpage. I am sure someone will.post it.

Thank you so much for your response Stuart333 . I don’t feel quite so alone now. I was late-diagnosed too and have struggled with my mental health all my life. What you have described as your experience, I can relate to in many aspects. My greatest worry is whether I will be able to function properly again in the future because this has already gone on for months. 

I have taken a look at the NAS webpage, thank you. It describes a lot of what I’m experiencing.

Being emotional is part of it.

Emotions are driven by your nervous system. So if it is stressed your emotions become amplified. Since emotions are in a feedback loop with you brain, you end up a bit unstable and can loop it spiral.

I did it first 30 years ago before it was known, I thought I was broken.

Having info and making a plan is a good idea. Even if it is just a couple of simple things 

You aren't broken. You can get back to how you were. It will take some time. Lower stress, don't feel guilty for resting, sleep as best you can,  keep hydrated, cut down caffeine and alcohol as much as you can. Try not to ruminate. In particular, I have just found out, it is best not to think at night in bed, it disrupts your nervous system. If you have to think, try to do it in the daytime and try not to let it get out of control, then try to get some light exercise, like a 10 minute walk to settle things. You will worry, so set aside some time for it if you can, but keep it bounded if you can. It will help. When you get stuck, don't worry, it will pass. Breath deeply, have a cup of tea, wash your hands in cold water, it will ground you. This is a known thing and you can get out of it. It is not linear, you will have good and bad days. You can swing quite quickly too in a matter of moments. But it will pass.

Writing cab help show patterns and progress. It is hard to see as it is slow, but looking at how you felt a month ago or two months ago shows the progress 

Good luck. 

Being emotional is part of it.

Emotions are driven by your nervous system. So if it is stressed your emotions become amplified. Since emotions are in a feedback loop with you brain, you end up a bit unstable and can loop it spiral.

I did it first 30 years ago before it was known, I thought I was broken.

Having info and making a plan is a good idea. Even if it is just a couple of simple things 

You aren't broken. You can get back to how you were. It will take some time. Lower stress, don't feel guilty for resting, sleep as best you can,  keep hydrated, cut down caffeine and alcohol as much as you can. Try not to ruminate. In particular, I have just found out, it is best not to think at night in bed, it disrupts your nervous system. If you have to think, try to do it in the daytime and try not to let it get out of control, then try to get some light exercise, like a 10 minute walk to settle things. You will worry, so set aside some time for it if you can, but keep it bounded if you can. It will help. When you get stuck, don't worry, it will pass. Breath deeply, have a cup of tea, wash your hands in cold water, it will ground you. This is a known thing and you can get out of it. It is not linear, you will have good and bad days. You can swing quite quickly too in a matter of moments. But it will pass.

Writing cab help show patterns and progress. It is hard to see as it is slow, but looking at how you felt a month ago or two months ago shows the progress 

Good luck. 

Thank you, Stuart333 

This makes a lot of sense. I mistakenly thought it would be a vaguely linear process but it really isn’t at all. 

I like the idea of writing. Maybe I’ll start journaling and make a point of writing down what I’ve achieved too, even if it’s something small.