Burnout / overwhelm

I've been dealing with another acute burnout since around the beginning of October. It got very bad by mid December but having a few weeks leave has done me a lot of good. On the mend but not all the way there yet.

But something has now happened twice in the last month that has shaken my confidence and frightened me a bit.

Both times I went into the office, which was mostly okay but is always taxing. On the drive home I became disorientated. Yesterday I was stopped at some temporary traffic lights and when they changed it was almost like I couldn't process what I was seeing. I could see every cone, every part of the road, etc but I just couldn't make any sense of it or where to drive. I had to pull over on to the pavement and give myself a shake. Basically the same thing happened before Christmas.

Does this sound like overwhelm or burnout or have I developed a whole new problem?

Parents
  • Sorry that you have been feeling like this. Sometimes depression can creep up and give a feeling similar to disassociation. I think that when autistic people are struggling with burnout due to environmental pressures, depression can sometimes go unnoticed. Or it could be an autistic freeze. What you describe sounds remarkably similar to my experience of an autistic freeze. I used to freeze more often when younger, possibly due to the pressures of work. 

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  • Sorry that you have been feeling like this. Sometimes depression can creep up and give a feeling similar to disassociation. I think that when autistic people are struggling with burnout due to environmental pressures, depression can sometimes go unnoticed. Or it could be an autistic freeze. What you describe sounds remarkably similar to my experience of an autistic freeze. I used to freeze more often when younger, possibly due to the pressures of work. 

Children
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