Nobody Anticipates Regression in Burnout
Nobody Anticipates Regression in Burnout
*But we should, because we can't always keep up the pretence that everything is okay, and we shouldn't have to.
*But we should must, because we can't won’t always keep up the pretence that everything is okay, and we shouldn't have to can’t.
I am so tired. Exhausted.
Not a societally desirable “OMG I am just SO BUSY but good busy” kind of tired.
I am exhausted in a way that goes beyond burnout, and into a soul-numbing, loss of self, a regressive state.
Burnout is getting a lot of media airtime currently, which is a good thing. But I am not experiencing a mainstream executive style burnout.
Meditative mindfulness can offer some relief, but it can not provide a cure.
My burnout is an autistic, perimenopausal burnout.
Beyond the burnout where, if I am lucky enough to see it coming, I can preemptively use KC Davis’ advice from her book, ‘How To Keep House While Drowning’. Advice such as putting all my fitted sheets on my bed at once, then removing one sheet at a time over a matter of days weeks months, revealing a cleanish layer by layer as needed when I remember.
The kind of beyond burnout where the ADHD favourite term “goblin mode” - concept of sitting in my unwashed clothes, eating from unwashed dishes, laughing at the losers on social media expending their energy on hashtag-self-care - feels positively luxurious.
Mine is the kind of burnout beyond a capacity to follow advice gleaned from the popular Facebook post “Run the dishwasher twice”, taking note that this domestic hack permits me to load dirty dishes directly into the dishwasher. The first wash cycle will rinse; the second wash cycle will leave those dishes dazzling sanitised.
I’m now too exhausted to notice when I’m hungry, tired, need the toilet, need to find relief in scrolling my phone, and when to put it down because I’m overwhelmed.
My capacity for interoception is numb.
When I do remember to take my meds, I take that as an enormous win. Especially as I take medication that supports me in regulating my emotions, mood, energy, sleepiness and focus.
I use timers to remind me to take my medication. I have reached the point where I am considering setting up hourly reminders that I have a bladder, and that I need to empty it regularly. Although emptying it less often when I am too exhausted to feel thirst, and thus forget to drink.
Being autistic and having ADHD makes my life and I a living contradiction.
My autistic self refuses to watch my ADHD self sitting around doom scrolling for hours, getting every last drop of dopamine from raging virtually at The Not Yet Burntout crew I once called hashtag-friends pouting and living their hashtag-best-lives.
No! Autistic Sam I has a favourite mug, from which I must drink my first coffee of the day, everyday. I know that unless I can follow this (autistic) routine, I am likely to have a (autistic) meltdown or shutdown.
ADHD Sam never remembers though that caffeine can affect her stimulant medication and reduce her executive functioning and capacity further than is her baseline lower than low norm.
Despite this inner slump, I continue to ensure that my children’s needs are met according to their own schedules.
Despite this inner slump, I continue to ensure I’m available to co-regulate them emotionally, sensorily and energetically.
But it comes at a cost to my own wellbeing.
All of this whilst also advocating for our collective disability rights at a time when these have suddenly become under threat here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
All of this whilst advocating for the needs surrounding women’s menopausal health, and self-advocating for my own access to essential hormone replacement therapy, amid a global supply shortage of oestrogen patches.
All of this whilst feeling numb, forcing out words into socially accepted verbal coherence, even when I know my very being requires me to be mute.
All of this whilst having to outwardly convey my innermost thoughts, emotions and support needs, in order to get any kind of response from people who hold all the power and are gatekeepers to my survival.
All of this whilst it feels as though those people holding all the power are gripping me in their balled fists and squeezing me, pummelling me and trying to make me stay mute.
All of this whilst having to take my own communication needs and strategies, silence them, and perform in a way that is socially acceptable and bureaucratically appropriate.
All of this whilst trying to compose this post sitting on the toilet because it’s the only room with a lockable door where I can get some fleeting privacy. And simultaneously empty my bladder.
My finite energy can only go so far. Once I have taken care of everyone else, shouted and cried for help and systemic change, it would be unreasonable to assume that any subsequent inability to function in other areas can’t be considered a regression. And that’s okay.
I am so tired. Exhausted.
I am exhausted in a way that goes beyond burnout, and into a soul-numbing, loss of self, a regressive state.
My burnout is an autistic, perimenopausal burnout.
Nobody anticipates regression in burnout.
But we must, because we won’t always keep up the pretence that everything is okay, and we can’t.