Burnout absences at work

Rosebud said:

what adjustments help in this situation.

These will vary from person to person so it would be best if you can think what would reduce your stress at work.

To be honest these tend to be sticking plasters on the issue - it really takes a whole life approach to reducing the stress / anxiety for it to have a chance of working in the long term.

I would recommend getting a psychotherapist with experience of helping autists and work through the options with them. They should have the skill to identify your main triggers and help you develop skills around how to reducxe their impact.

In my experience both in work and speaking with people here, most employers will only offer token adjustments - a better chair, changing the light bulbs above your desk, allowing headphones to be used at times etc.

What we probably really need is for managers to give explicit and reasonable work orders, for work to be structured and regimented, for our colleagues to treat us with understanding and for people to not drop in without scheduling.

None of this tends to happen in reality - the odd exceptional manager can offer some bits but typically we are seen as too much effort and are squeezed out until we quit. I wanted to be blunt about this so you do not have unreasonable expectations.

In essence, take charge and help yourself by getting a gopod therapist and you have  a chanc of living a much better quality of life and work with less hassle.

Just my opinions of course - feel free to ignore.

Hi, thank you for replying. Practically everything stresses me out at work, I have to share an office with three other people, people walk in as they please, if I need help I have to go into my managers office which has three people in it sometimes more. It's a very busy noisy reception area where everyone s offices are. Meetings stress me out but I have an adjustment where I can join via teams but even then if people ask me things on it or something that embareses me is when they say can you hear me and sometimes there's been glitches and I've heard people laughing. Somedays I have more courage than others sometimes I just can't physically do part of my job which requires walking into another department. Thing is burnout affects every part of my life, I can't go out the door, if I need shopping I get it delivered, if I have appointments I cancel them. I just can't be around anyone don't want to talk to anyone. Those interactions. It feels really harsh that I've been informally warned. Yeah I agree with you employers need to do so much more, I know for a fact that my employer just doesn't understand autism he asked the OH clinician if burnout would be reoccurring and the OH clinician told me themselves that tells them they lack understanding. I was originally going to see the same OH clinician not only for my autism but for my back issues, I said no I want to see an autism professional someone who specialises in it not just a general clinician who will also tell me about my back. It's just terrible. What sort of help can a psychotherapist give me? Can I request to see one through my doctor? Do you mind me asking if you have had help this way before and did it help you? Thanks very much I appreciate your reply. 

Rosebud said:

What sort of help can a psychotherapist give me? Can I request to see one through my doctor?

A psychotherapist can help with almost all the areas you are having issues in but will not be able to fix them. They can teach you to cope better but you have to do the homework, apply the techniques, give feedback and work on it with them.

I got one when I was diagnosed 4 years ago now - initially they helped me understand which of my behaviours were autistic and helped me understand the autism a lot with recommended reading. This was the first step.

They then spent time going over my past experiences that had resulted in trauma for me, going back to childhood and helped me realise how much of the way I was raised as through lack of knowledge by my parents, societies harshness of "different" people back then and other people in life who contributed by being unpleasant at best.

By focussing on the big trauma events it steal the power of these hold over you and gives you the chance to forgive yourself if you contibuted to them (often unknowingly) - and once these are de-fanged you can start to heal the damage they caused and change the defence mechanisms you have grown to be able to live with them.

These defence mechanisms can be aversion tactics, prejudice, fear responses etc - they can be undone if you want to - it takes time though.

Running in parrallel with the healing can be the building of techniques to cope with other things causing you issues in your day to day life. Things like:

Sharing the office - tell the others what you need from them, be assertive and set boundaries. If people laugh at you then be confident in calling them out when it is blatant. Be pleasant, confident and articulate and they will crumble.

Noise - noise cancelling headphones are a simple solution.

Visiting other depts - assertiveness training helps here too so you can mask confidence until you really feel it, learn how to make small talk to make the interactions smoother and learn to quickly de-stress afterwards.

Most of the techniqes behind these take month of part time self study and application but the results start to come quickly and your therapist can help guide you and answer questions.

I pay about £50 a lesson which is by Zoom call and I can fit it in whenever it suits and I've had about 18 sessions.

It took 10 to get to the point where I had a good grasp of what I was doing, could do most things myself and could take over from there - the rest were me asking for advice on other things and keeping myself guided along the way.

I found a therapist who had adult autistic children so had a lifetime of experience in helping them - it seemed the best fit for me.

Rosebud said:

What sort of help can a psychotherapist give me? Can I request to see one through my doctor?

A psychotherapist can help with almost all the areas you are having issues in but will not be able to fix them. They can teach you to cope better but you have to do the homework, apply the techniques, give feedback and work on it with them.

I got one when I was diagnosed 4 years ago now - initially they helped me understand which of my behaviours were autistic and helped me understand the autism a lot with recommended reading. This was the first step.

They then spent time going over my past experiences that had resulted in trauma for me, going back to childhood and helped me realise how much of the way I was raised as through lack of knowledge by my parents, societies harshness of "different" people back then and other people in life who contributed by being unpleasant at best.

By focussing on the big trauma events it steal the power of these hold over you and gives you the chance to forgive yourself if you contibuted to them (often unknowingly) - and once these are de-fanged you can start to heal the damage they caused and change the defence mechanisms you have grown to be able to live with them.

These defence mechanisms can be aversion tactics, prejudice, fear responses etc - they can be undone if you want to - it takes time though.

Running in parrallel with the healing can be the building of techniques to cope with other things causing you issues in your day to day life. Things like:

Sharing the office - tell the others what you need from them, be assertive and set boundaries. If people laugh at you then be confident in calling them out when it is blatant. Be pleasant, confident and articulate and they will crumble.

Noise - noise cancelling headphones are a simple solution.

Visiting other depts - assertiveness training helps here too so you can mask confidence until you really feel it, learn how to make small talk to make the interactions smoother and learn to quickly de-stress afterwards.

Most of the techniqes behind these take month of part time self study and application but the results start to come quickly and your therapist can help guide you and answer questions.

I pay about £50 a lesson which is by Zoom call and I can fit it in whenever it suits and I've had about 18 sessions.

It took 10 to get to the point where I had a good grasp of what I was doing, could do most things myself and could take over from there - the rest were me asking for advice on other things and keeping myself guided along the way.

I found a therapist who had adult autistic children so had a lifetime of experience in helping them - it seemed the best fit for me.

Hi, thanks for this I do like the sound of it and I think every part of the therapy is what I need. I will look into this thanks I really appreciate you explaining where and what it can help me with. It helps me understand what I need help with too. What should I look out for so I know the therapist is legit? 

Rosebud said:

I have had CBT before but the techniques never helped me

CBT can actually work very well for autists but not in its default format. It needs to be adapted quite a bit though, so if the people supplying it don't kneow if it has been adapted then it probably isn't and wont work.

A good therapist will use a range of techniquess that suit your needs and abilities - there is no one-size-fits-all.

I think almost everyone here has suffered bullying at school because we were different and some had (myself included) had some horrible experiences.

It can be surprising how much the trauma from these specific events still influences our behaviour even decades afterwards

Rosebud said:

I don't like to use both ear pieces together in case I don't hear someone or I end up having an awkward glance at someone I didn't know was there and who is trying to talk to me.

This is where advocating for yourself and telling them to signal if they want your attention should work 

Rosebud said:

everytime I try and get the explain my struggles I break down and cry I can't talk about it without getting like this.

This will come with learning to be assertive and advocate for your needs. It helps you build the environment you need while being respectful of others but taking no bull from them.

Self belief feeds into this too and this stems from understanding yourself and finding your self worth - all should be standard tools a therapist can teach.

The NHS don't seem to have capable therapists in these fields so I would recommend going private. At £50/hour it isn't cheap but is an investment in yourself and should help you keep the job more comfortable, have a lot less time off and hence make more money in the first place.

It is daunting to start but I found the whole process very useful and empowering.

Hi thanks for this, i had no idea about this type of help, I have had CBT before but the techniques never helped me, would you say it's similar to CBT where you implement the techniques provided? I have done counselling a few times, CBT twice or three times and worry management and it seemed the best I got from it was what the person got from me and my situation I found that so fascinating kind of what I couldn't see and needed an outsider or this person's perspective to realise what was going on with me. I would definitely like to try help from a psychotherapist, and I too have past traumas like you said, my parents didn't know about autism when I was younger, I was bullied to the point I left school early not just one person but lots. I never got any support as a child growing up, I grew up thinking the way I was was wrong and bad. Which definitely messed with my head. I had a late diagnosis. I really appreciate you giving me this advice. I do use active noise cancelling earphones however I don't like to use both ear pieces together in case I don't hear someone or I end up having an awkward glance at someone I didn't know was there and who is trying to talk to me. I think I have many underlying issues one being not accepting myself even though I am diagnosed I know what's going on I just can't get out of the habit of thinking I'm wrong because it had been so long that people treated me like that including family. It's hard to break that habit. And everytime I try and get the explain my struggles I break down and cry I can't talk about it without getting like this. I will have a look into psychotherapy and seeing if I can do it via NHS as I don't think I could afford to pay for them. I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to me and I'm really grateful for your help.