Mourning the loss of a special interest and banning yourself from it

Well if you want to do a PhD anyway, and it certainly sounds like you have more than enough experience for it, what you could do is look at other PIs and even other universities and see if you can arrange a PhD at one. That way if you go back to work and things can't be fixed you can quit and just say, 'well its the PhD you see, I really wanted to do one over in this or that lab.' That's your escape route if you can't straighten things out with your boss. Its very different being a PhD compared to an employee. You're a student but, assuming you get research funding for your PhD, you're being paid to study and research. To some extent it's the universities job to look after you. And while it's not essential if you want to be in research long term having a PhD really helps.

I don't really know the ins and outs of german employment law or PhD funding so I can't give you much advice there.

Btw mathematical biology is very cool. I get to program supercomputers to run virtual experiments for me basically every day :).

Regarding making friends. It's hard I know. The average post doc is 3 years long which for an autistic person means just as you've started to build up a support network you're looking at relocating. If you have 2 or 3 good friends in a university city ... well that would be reason enough to look at that universities PhD programs. It's so much easier to make friends through friends.

I've known it for decades, probably since childhood as I remember reading but thoughts would distract me.
Most of the time it wasn't intense, but sometimes I would get locked into the thinking over and over about the same thing, usually worries but also obsessions.  Its not really an autism specific thing, but autistic people can find it difficult to regulate thoughts and feelings.

Most people have thoughts coming and going, you can't stop them coming, but latching on to them and getting stuck/obsessed is not healthy for the mind or body.

The main thing that works for me is mindfulness, if you focus on your senses then you can't react to thoughts/feelings - they will still come to you but in the background, but you won't get locked into them.  Our brains will refocus back on thoughts after a few seconds, so you have to keep doing it.  15 minutes a day really helps.  I recommend the book 'A mindfulness guide for the frazzled' by Ruby Wax, she explains about how the brain works and why mindfulness works, and how to do it.  It worked better for me than focusing on breathing, which is a common method.

Another thing that can help is to just shout "stop!" in your mind, it needs to be powerful so its a shock.

You can also try things like 'these thoughts are not helping' or 'i don't want to think about that right now'.

If you can picture a favourite place/view in your mind, but keep explore the view and zoom in/out, so you are focusing on it.

Its really about becoming in control of your mind, choose what you think/feel.  Its not about stopping thoughts, just letting them come and go if you don't need to think about whatever they are about.  

It takes time to get better at it, so just try to take control now and then throughout your day.

Do you have any tips/ strategies on how to manage thoughts? I am constantly thinking/obsessing about something... it just never stops and until recently I didn't even realise it wasn't like that for everyone. It only hit me when a psychologist asked me how many hours a day I am occupied with these thoughts... and I didn't understand the question at first as to me it was like she was asking "how many hours a day do you breathe?" (I guess I also didn't realise as my mum is like me and also had no idea that not everyone had to deal with this...). I just wish my brain would shut up sometimes ... I have tried audiobooks but I have become used to them so that the audiobook gets shut out and the thinking just continues... At least now I know though that I can work on how I manage thoughts so that maybe I can get some peace... 

I always found reading more generalist books about science, well away from my field of work, to be quite soothing. Things like the biographies of famous scientists and books on dinosaurs.

Try not to engage with negative thoughts/worries likes doubts, I'm having to remember to do this after just finishing a course and lost focus and stopped managing my thoughts properly a while.  Its steps forward, not leaps.  Unlikely you could lose interest in science, even if you tried, its just best to get back there in a healthy way, and try and keep it healthy.  Managing thoughts/feelings better can help do that.

Thanks, I am trying to see if I can have some more time to recover. I think in the past I tried to battle my way out of burnout by finding a new goal/target to obsess and focus on, but it hasn't really worked and this time the burnout is worse than ever. My instinct is to withdraw. I had one surprise social interaction (a surprise pre-birthday gathering which was a kind gesture but a disaster for me...) on Saturday and I am still recovering from that... It's just concerning that I still feel so low... I then also worry that I am wrong in my suspicion that I am autistic (thoughts like "what if I am simply depressed and should be trying to do more instead of less" etc). It would make a lot of sense if I was autistic (for various reasons. it resonates with me), but I need that clarity to put to rest that part of me that always questions everything (no matter how convinced I am). I am on the waiting list to be assessed, it will just take time. 

Hopefully I can have some more time off and I hope the desire to engage with my interests will rekindle. That's what happened in the past. I love science too much - so far I have always wanted to come back to it. 

Yes that makes a lot of sense and is exactly what I was thinking- having some clarity would help and like you say if I did get a diagnosis I could use that to access accommodations and figure out coping strategies. I am on the waiting list now, though it will take a while so I'll have to be patient and somehow figure out how to cope at the moment. I've received some very good tips and ideas for coping strategies on this forum and while researching autism. 

Hi Peter,

I am currently in Germany in a lab researching glioblastoma (primary brain tumours). I am a developmental neurobiologist. So cool that you are a mathematical biologist! I always loved maths and had even hoped to do both biology and math at university but I ended up as a pure biologist instead (I didn't do very well in my first year uni maths course). Are you enjoying your work? 

I am actually considering moving to a different lab, especially as I think I may have been exploited where I was and I think it is quite a high pressure environment (plus some issues with project etc). Part of me just wants to 'run away' and have a fresh start. However I am also unsure as I really loved the research here and my co-workers are extremely kind.  Right now I am in the difficult situation where I am meant to return to work soon but feel unable to do so (or at least it would probably not end well... ). If I can arrange it financially I might see if I can take a few months off to recuperate (and possibly do some tutoring or other work). In that case I will see if I can keep the option open of returning here... but I am tending towards finding another lab where maybe it will be easier for me to keep a good work-life balance. I am also planning to talk to the PI and postdoc I work with here to see if they are supportive and offer to try and make things work in the future. I think at them moment the whole indecision and uncertainty is making everything worse...

Thanks for your tips on work-life balance! That is definitely something I have not figured out yet at all... It's made worse by the fact that I have been unable to pursue my hiking hobby (or other outdoor activities) due to injury for a while now... and I haven't found another activity. Though, I think I would have struggled regardless- I never had proper work life balance... I also don't have any friends here ... (all my uni friends are in other countries. Finding the right people is hard anyways for me but it was impossible to make any new friends as all I did was work...) 

Regarding the diagnosis I have already asked for it (the mental health team thought it was likely I was autistic) but the wait in my area to be formally assessed is 12-16 months... I am now also on a second waiting list in a neighbouring town where it is a bit faster (6-9 months). I think it would help a lot to know. 

Thanks for pointing out that the problem is not the science :) that is very true and I hadn't seen it that way. 

Once the crisis of your burnout has passed, I would recommend starting the process towards a formal diagnosis. Once you are diagnosed, there will be more clarity for yourself and for any potential employer/PhD supervisor. You can then read around for practical methods to help you cope with being autistic, rather than guessing and feeling unsure. With a formal diagnosis you will also be able to access accommodations that should make work/study easier for you.

I'm in my sixties. Got my diagnosis two years ago.

I'm tired of feeling like dogpoo, tired of being "at the end of every queue", so I've decided to just do what works for me, and those closest to me.

If an activity doesn't make me happy and content, and particularly if it makes me struggle, then as far as I am concerned, it's someone else's task. 

Firstly I found that I was very idle & seemingly poor... As I restructured my life to do without the latest mobile phone, (don't worry, someone will always give you their discard, so you do at least have a phone, and someone will always pay giff gaffs 6 quid a month to keep you available f you can't pay it yourself.) Yes, I don't drive my (lovely) car any longer, as after a while without paying for an insurance policy, they start reducing your no-claims bonus and it gets prohibitively expensive, but guess what, once all those regular outgoings fell away and my life simplified, (my partner needs me to drive, so I'm on her policy as a named driver) the sense of loss was gradually replaced by a sense of freedom, and confidence in my ability to decide what is truly worth while in life..

Working hard to be able to afford to meet the expenses incurred in maintaining the lifestyle required to go to work, got all a bit to circular for me. Add a healthy dose of normie oppression, and suddenly my normally achievable hourly rate suggested that my career path enviable though it might seem to others, is not the route to happiness.. 

YMMV!

sounds like it's more a horrible work environment and a lack of work life balance than an issue with science tbh. Is your research lab in a uni? Could you get funding for a PhD somewhere else? Maybe a move to do a PhD in something you really enjoy somewhere else might be good?

More generally work life balence is key. My best advice has always been build a social lif hard as that is. Join clubs. If you can't join clubs and don't have friends force yourself to do self care. Go out to the cinema, eat in a nice restaurant, do things that get you out of the house, the kind of things you might do with others, on your own if you don't have friends to do them with you.

Naming no names can you tell me what kind of lab you work in? (I'm a post doc mathematical biologist at a university btw)

Ps: also bear in mind the longer you take to ask for a diagnosis the longer it will take to get one. Sure you might be on a waiting list for a year plus but if you wait a year because of that you'll get your diagnosis after 2 years plus.

Hi.  If you have burnout then its best to rest and not engage in any thinking or activity that is triggering or likely to swap you again.  I had to switch off from some personal interests for burnout and other reasons, its not nice to do that but it wouldn't help to carry on.  Best thing is not to get emotional about it, rather than feeling sad about the loss feel hopeful that you can return to it/them when you feel better.  Burnout means we haven't managed our mind well in the past, and probably need to learn to from now on.  Focus on the present, not past or future.  Things to try are mindfulness and activities that get us away from our thoughts and feelings, like walking or just listening to calm music.

Its unlikely you can just battle your way out of burnout, its better to stop and take care, and then slowly take steps to where you want to be be - or decide to venture elsewhere.