#neurodivergent burnout

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

Since there's been some discussion of this on a prior post I made, let's address

Neurodivergent Skill-Regression: What is it & Why Does it Happen?

Content Warning! This post will make brief mention of various topics, including: childhood abuse (not explicit), depression, suicidal ideation, car accidents, the COVID-19 pandemic, and throwing up.

Okay, let's begin with a quick preface. I'm writing from the Global North, in a capitalist economy, and in a country founded on (ongoing!) systems of colonialism. Therefore, that's how I'll be situating this discussion (just because it's what I know best). Neurodivergence and Capitalist Exploitation Under capitalism, productivity and extraction in the name of profit become of the utmost importance. Extraction can take place in the form of extracting physical resources (think fracking on Turtle Island), extracting labour, etc. Ultimately, neurodivergence itself is not an ill-formed or "bad" mind. It is only conceptualized and coded as such because capitalism and various other interlocking systems of oppression are actively hostile to minds that, in some way, subvert capitalist and colonial ideals. (however, this is not to negate, invalidate, or trivialize the fact that adhd/asd/ocd/bpd/etc. are disabilities. by their very nature, they impede and disrupt functioning. what is considered "functional", however, is determined by this capitalist/colonialist state and the things it values. this is all simply to say that we would be able to more easily exist and thrive within a society that doesn't reward self-destruction in the name of accumulating capital for the upper class) Of course, living in a system that is not built for you is going to be exhausting—it takes a toll on you, both physically and mentally. This can be further compounded if you are marginalized in other ways; for instance, if you're a person of colour, working class, a woman, 2SLGBTQ+, an immigrant, or a combination of these.

Masking and Burnout Many neurodivergent folx are forced into positions in which they have to mask. For the sake of clarity, "masking", in this case, involves concealing one's neurodivergent traits. For me, that might look like suppressing compulsions, consciously regulating my facial expressions, working longer and harder to accomplish tasks because I can't focus, or scripting conversations before I have them. These manifestations are often invisible to outsiders, but they take a heavy toll on us, and can often result in neurodivergent burnout. This is where the skill-regression comes in. An Example... Let me give you a personal example of what neurodivergent skill-regression can look like! Prior to the pandemic, I was a highly productive person. I was designated "gifted" (whatever that means) and was top of my class in every single class. I was participating in (and running) multiple clubs, working a steady job, volunteering within the community, and learning new instruments and languages. I was a skilled pianist and painter, and also very athletic. From the outside looking in, I appeared successful: I had a massive scholarship lined up at the most prestigious university in the country. I was generally well-liked. I was creative and skilled in both the humanities and STEM (mostly humanities lol), etcetera etcetera. But I was in no way okay. I was incredibly depressed and suicidal. I had multiple undiagnosed anxiety disorders and neurodivergencies. I was experiencing relentless abuse at home. I was throwing up every few days out of pure fear and stress. I was constantly sick, crying (in secret, and then later too numb to cry), overwhelmed, exhausted, and apathetic. And yet I refused to stop pushing my body and mind to their limit because I had this ingrained belief surrounding my productivity—if I slowed down, would I be worth anything? At the time, to my mind, the answer was a staunch no (even though I didn't apply this thinking to anyone but myself lol). So I repressed everything. I pushed it all to the side and kept moving forward. To put it in perspective, I got hit by a truck at one point, but I was so scared of being late to a thing and disappointing my parents that I just apologized and kept going. This kind of behaviour went on for close to a decade. And then the pandemic hit. And I was forced to stop. I was made to (by virtue of my relative privilege) take a moment to sit down, look around, and actually feel things. And it hit me like a ton of bricks: All the weight of the anger and fear and everything that I had been repressing for the sake of survival came RUSHING in. Now? You want to know what I'm like now? I am very burnt out and incredibly unproductive. I have the attention span of a gnat. Where I used to be able push through exhaustion or else tamp it down with consistently high levels of adrenaline, I now almost ALWAYS feel tired, to the point where I have to lay down. I used to be able to toss together an essay in the span of a couple hours. And, yes, while I can still put an essay together quickly, it’s not going to necessarily be good. Likewise, where I used to be able to mask my neurodivergent traits, I'm now hyperaware of how exhausting it all is, which makes it more difficult to appear neurotypical in public.

The thing is, when you have something like adhd as well as an anxiety disorder, the anxiety can pretty effectively mask the adhd. But once I started medication and more intense therapy, I got a hold on my anxiety and alllll of my coping mechanisms fell away. I no longer had that constant, vibrating fear to force me to maintain attention, and push myself to the breaking point.

It’s like not aging for 80 years and then suddenly having decades collapse into you in the span of moments. So Where Does This Leave Us? Okay, that was a loooong tangent, sorry. Returning to the original point. As the infinitely cool and talented @revenantscholar mentioned in a previous post of mine, when you exist in an unsafe environment (or one which is generally not built with you in mind), it's difficult to hold onto the skills you once had. Your body goes into survival mode and prioritizes keeping you alive. Once you have returned to a space where you can unmask and be physically/emotionally/mentally SAFE, you have the capacity to relearn some of those skills. Not all of them, necessarily, and not all at once. But these things do return—and even if they don't (listen to me, this is important), that doesn't make you stupid/bad/worthless. You are living in a world that is not built for people like you and I, and it sucks, and it's painful and scary, and we will continue to fight for a better future. In the meantime, it's important to remember that you are worthy of care, compassion, empathy, and support regardless of what you can contribute/do. You are incredibly important and I'm so glad you're here. (Thank you for listening. I'm drawing on my human rights knowledge from my degree, and also my own personal experience. However, feel free to correct me or ask any questions you might have! I'm also happy to provide resources/citations if needed. Now go drink water and rest if you need to! Ily!)

[my-gender-is-void]

The "gifted kid who didn't need to study" to "neurodivergent burnt out college student who doesn't know how to study" pipeline is very real and I don't like that I'm experiencing it, I need to graduate to get a job and get out of my parents house and get better mentally and physically. 🥲

[accidentalslayer]

Pictures you can feel.

[mandiweirdmore]

The Change Paradox

Change is difficult for almost all Autistic people. This is often very hard because the one constant in life is change. We can try to always avoid change but it is inevitable and will always find us. Aging for instance is a change, I honestly think that is why such a high percentage of us hate birthdays. The Earth must have had a sick sense of humor when it made chronic pain and health conditions much more common in Autistic people than neurotypical people. (This fact is supported by many studies and the National Library of Medicine.) I am part of the high percentage who have chronic health conditions. It just feels like another thing I can't control because some days are good and sometimes are bad but I don't get to choose and my body doesn't like to give me a week's notice like I prefer. Everything is changing and everything will remain changing because that's a sign you're alive. Shouldn't this comfort me because nothing really is a change because change is guaranteed to happen? The thought unfortunately does not comfort me... it makes me a control freak. I compensate for change by having everything in order. I never change the way my medications are organized and the system works. If I am to reorganize my office I plan it out; I write, I journal, I draw. I control the things I can so when change happens I am prepared. This doesn't work when you share a home with others. Others enjoy change. Spring means change and time to reorganize. I don't understand why others thrive on change when I can not. How does it not drive them insane to not have a plan? It makes me angry and bitter my words don't make sense out of my mouth because I simply cannot process my thoughts that way. I just like notice and plans so that's what I say but it doesn't encompass the feelings. Of course, others won't get it if I can't describe it. I'm worried I will always be this bomb that blows up at the sight of change. I still hope though that I won't be a bomb anymore but that would be a change too.

[necroticghost]

I gave up on my life

[dragonheartstring360]

was anyone else raised in purity culture, or any misogynist-heavy environment, where you were taught that your life was over by 30 if you were femme or AFAB? Like by then, you’re supposed to apparently already be married, own a house, and either have or be thinking about kids? And you know in your head logically it’s 100% okay if someone doesn’t have or even want those things, but then you watch all your close friends get married, buy houses, and have kids in their early 20’s, meanwhile you’re now about to turn 28 soon and you don’t have any of that and are experiencing neurodivergent burnout so intense that you’re starting to get skill regression and had to quit your job just to stay alive, but you also can’t rest cuz you feel guilty for resting cuz you feel like you’re running out of time and 30 is some magical cutoff date for you and only you, so you can’t do any of the things you want after that? And you know logically this is bullshit, but you can’t get it out of your head that these are all mile markers you specifically have to hit???

[schattenhonig]

Just sharing this awesome magic moment: we had a two week heat wave and I haven been on edge for days, feeling completely overwhelmed, in sensory overload and deeply in neurodivergent burnout.

Today, we finally had a thunderstorm, and it's still raining, so now I'm sitting here, listening to some blues music and the rain while enjoying the cool evening air.

I can't really describe how good that feels, but I feel like a new person. Calm, not sticky and sweaty any longer and like I'm finally able to feel again.

I always knew heat was a problem for me, but I never thought it was such a huge source of discomfort and overwhelm.

[simplybybea]

hey, yeah, sorry I can't get anything done right now I flirted a little too close to the edge and dropped all my spoons down a well so now I'm spoon-less and easily irritable and distracted. Yeah sorry I just need like 5-10 days of sleep but I have to go to work so any spoons I do manage to conjure also fall down the well... yeah you're right ill get there but I do need to start keeping back up spoons

[rye-enjoying-things]

People I know keep calling me autistic or some sort of neurodivergent (I'm not diagnosed if I ever will be)

And I'm realizing that if I am neurodivergent then I've been masking almost my entire life

So like

Is this burn out that I feel? Where I'm almost constantly bored??

Kinda like a numb feeling???

Idk but like for the past two weeks I've been feeling kinda like the noise of a deflating balloon, sad and pathetic.

I don't know how to explain it but now I can't keep my happy smile and colorful voice. Now I'm just like the -_- emoji and my voice is monotone most of the time.

[my-gender-is-void]

I remember when the overwhelming pressure of a due date or exam week would generate enought anxiety to get me to do everything I had to and now I just sit in front of my desk wallowing in misery with the same amount of anxiety but an incredibly debilitating amount of executive disfunction that doesn't allow me to get to work until the same day I have to submit something or do an exam.

I really did peak before 11 and from then on it has been a downwards slope of me driving myself to burn out over neglecting myself, academic perfectionism and crippling amounts of untreated issues (as well as a very likely undiagnosed autism).

[muted-eternity]

Today on conversations I wish I could have with my parents...

-- -- --

I'm exhausted. "Why?" you ask. "How could you be exhausted the way that you are while you live your life the way you do? How are you exhausted?"

The real question is: how could I NOT be exhausted?

This week will be the first week in a long time that I have worked full shifts 5 days in a row. For many, many, many people that is the norm. If they are exhausted by it, it is all but background noise now. For some, like my dad, it's just a fact of life. You work all week, nonstop, for hours on end, and yeah you're exhausted by the end of it. But that's life. That's work. (That's late-stage capitalism.) That's how it works.

But please consider, just the once, that it has not been my norm. Consider, just today, that I am mentally ill and have perhaps been chronically burnt out or cascading through the atmosphere into burnout for the last three years.

No, I don't work 40 hours a week. No, I don't pay many bills because I live at home. No, I am not homeless or at war or starving or any of the other high-stress, truly exhausting things you might through at me. Yes, I am privileged enough to still live with my parents (for all the damage its caused us...).

And, actually, yes I am too young to feel like this. To feel bone-deep mental fatigue that wears me down and saps my energy and makes me want to lie on the floor and feel and do and see and hear and be nothing for a while. I am too young to have survived years of crippling depression and suicidal ideation. I am too young to fear that I might never climb out of this hole your generation put me in. I am too young to be fearing a world war. I am too young to in debt and financially struggling. I am too young to fear that I might never, ever own a home or live a comfortable life because my country might not exist in a decade or two, at the rate its going.

I am too young! You're right! That's what makes it so damn wrong to feel this way.

Not only is work tiring (I work retail 3-6 days a week with an inconsistent schedule that fights my circadian rhythm and drains me emotionally, mentally, and physically), but so are my other two "jobs." In addition to my "real" job, I'm struggling to build up my artistic portfolio so I can actually get a job in my field. A field that might not exist in a few years if the studios that employ my heroes don't get their shit together. I also manage this fucking house because my dad can't, because he works too much (for context: he's the director of a niche museum. He gives himself his own giant workload. He doesn't have to). So there are also those 2 things to worry about, and of course the crippling fear of someday becoming obsolete in the face of AI.

Then there's the state of the world, oh, don't get me started! You want to talk about exhaustion? There are (were) over 800,000 Palestinian people in Gaza this time last year. Now, anywhere from 10-20% of them could be dead -- that's 80,000-200,000 people. That's 80,000-200,000 people who I've watched die on my phone. My exhaustion is nothing compared to that of the survivors. I am not a victim of genocide, and I am still exhausted watching them. There is a genocide happening thousands of miles away and it's a constant weight on my mind, and I'm so fucked up I can't even do anything about it because I'm too goddamn tired...

I can't help them. How sick is that? How sick is it to be watching them beg and die on my phone screen thousands of miles away in the United States of America, the country whose military supplies their oppressors, and not do anything about it? I have to live with my in action. I have to live with the fact that, right now, the best thing I can do for them is keep myself alive, and talk about when I have the energy. Someday, I can help. Someday, I won't be a wreck...

Someday, maybe, the rest of the world will realize the weight those of us who are watching carry (although it will never match the burdens of those we are watching die before our eyes).

Someday, maybe, it'll click for my parents. That I'm working 30 hours a week and that's nothing to them, but there's so much more to be tired about. There are wars going on that I can't stop. There are lives being lost that I can't prevent. There are stories not being told because I don't have the energy to illustrate them (mine and others'). There is art being and not being made. There is life that I can't live because I'm watching the lives of others be destroyed.

There are political movements to end the existence of trans, queer, mentally ill people like me. There are movements to render disabled people unequal. There are movements trying to silence us, and the media, and anyone who dares speak out against any given regime.

If the wrong candidate wins this fall, a few years down the line I might end up in a concentration camp. Right now, thousands of miles away, hundreds of thousands of people are in a city-wide concentration camp. If the wrong candidate wins, people like me who stand up, are queer, speak out... we could be silenced in more ways than just social.

I haven't felt at home in four years. I haven't been called by a name that feels like mine within my own "home" in almost two. I have to hide my identity from people I grew up with for fear I would drown in the backlash from everyone else. The stupid "I'll pray for you"s and the "you don't know what you're doing"s and the insistence that I'm sick, sinful, broken, wrong... I couldn't handle it. I can't handle thinking about it.

...

And you ask me why I'm tired?

[rottenlittlefink]

Vent in tags lol I’m good just frustrated

[mandiweirdmore]

Is it still a nightmare if it’s just reliving your life in your dreams?

[neuroticboyfriend]

chronic fatigue from mental illness and neurodivergency isn't something you can just will your way out of. your nervous system is part of your body. your brain is an organ. the fatigue is real. you're not lazy. so be kinder to yourself. be gentler with your bodymind.

[it-is-only-a-novel]

Reminder to self:

[dragonheartstring360]

Does anyone else with a CPTSD + neurodivergent combo feel like you exist outside of humanity now? Like you’ve seen too much and been too much and grew up constantly told how since you’re doing everything wrong, your entire existence is wrong and you just don’t feel like a person anymore and don’t know how you’ll ever clear a path back into society and lowkey just wanna give up on it. And it feels like you’re the exception to recovery and the rules of grace you extend to other people don’t apply to you, cuz you’re not a person. And that thought makes you really sad but at the same time it’s kind of a relief to not have to constantly mask and perform for other people and a world that you assume will tear you down any chance it gets.