My brain hasn’t been working well lately; this is the third or fourth time this year. Even though this is a common occurrence, I find myself treating it like a surprising enemy. “Where did you come from and why are you here?!” I demand. I scour my memories and the Internet, searching for an explanation, something over which I have some control; fighting against the reality of the situation – this is just normal for me.
While other people get colds, I get “brain storms,” variable periods of time where I can’t think as clearly as usual, where I lose interest in everything, and I become extremely tired. About five years ago I began to see a correlation between these episodes and days or weeks of extra output at work. In the beginning, I thought I was having some kind of mental breakdown. I eventually learned that this condition is symptom of autism, called “autistic burnout,” which is how my journey into discovering my diagnosis began.
Unfortunately, the aging process, perhaps especially for women, exacerbates the symptoms of autism and other neurodivergent traits. The decline of hormones that used to help regulate our systems means greater challenges with mental processes. These days I find my body/mind reacting to things that wouldn’t have bothered me ten years ago. In the past six months, I’ve been thrown off by traveling to visit friends for the weekend, breaking up a dog fight, and trying to create a website with a registration page for my upcoming writing workshop. All of these events required a week or more to recuperate from!
It’s incredibly discouraging in trying to start a business. Especially living in rural area with limited to no access to healthcare providers who are able to help address my concerns, let alone understand what I’m going through. I’m having to figure out how to navigate all this on my own, through conversations with friends, research online, and paying close attention to correlations between how I feel and what’s been going on in my life.
I was deep in it last week and missed my weekly essay. I haven’t been able think clearly enough to follow a train of thought in a coherent way. I haven’t been able to write anything that I’d want to share. I’m reluctant to post this, too, because I hate to whine online. I know that my problems only seem big to me, and that there’s a lot more important stuff going on in the world than my woes. But then I wonder if there might be someone else out there who is also going through this, who might not know that there’s a reason behind it. Before I learned about my autism, I considered my “brain storms” a character flaw, believing that I was a failure for not being able to hold it together.
I don’t have a lot of good advice on how to deal with it, but here’s what I’ve learned so far:
If you’re feeling so tired you want to take a nap, take a nap. You’re not doing yourself any good by pushing through it.
Make sure you’re drinking enough water for your body weight – dehydration makes everything worse.
Avoid eating processed foods.
Go outside, even if it’s just outside your door. Get out and feel the expansiveness of the world around you. Try to notice non-human life forms going about their lives.
Don’t force yourself to exercise. A gentle walk is okay, but exerting yourself only contributes to the burnout.
Basically, treat yourself as if you have the flu. Take a sick day, or several, and allow yourself to heal.
This is difficult, especially for us Type A folks who feel the need to justify every waking moment with productive activity. But I know from experience that the more you push through the early stages of burnout, the harder it’s going to hit when you finally succumb to it. Your body/mind will eventually force you to stop. And that can be a lot scarier and more expensive than if you’d taken the time to nurture yourself when you still had a choice in the matter.
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I had intended to offer Harnessing the Elements: A Creative Writing Workshop Inspired by Earth, Air, Fire, and Water in August, but I wasn’t successful in getting a functioning registration page online and I won’t have time now until late July. I’ve decided to postpone offering this until September.
In the meantime, here’s a prompt to consider writing to or pondering upon: Look at a living green plant. Touch its leaves. Where did these leaves come from? Where did the green come from? Where does the green go when the leaf changes color or dies?
You’re welcome to use your imagination or to describe it scientifically. When I’m considering the natural world, I enjoy oscillating between a scientific understanding of processes and a spiritual or imaginative one. I would love to hear your thoughts, ideas, or research on leaves and the color green if you’d like to share it in the comments!
Thanks so much for sharing. So much of what you say makes sense to me and I’m not autistic. Mostly listen to your body early, or it will make you listen.