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It's that time of the year! (work and family burnout)

Pieceofmind

Active Member
Is anyone else going through the same? It all started the day before Thanksgiving when my hours got a lot more crazy like usual and it's really taking a toll on my physical and mental health. I see the family on Thanksgiving after a super early shift to eat food I never normally eat and too much of it as everyone is being so loud and hyper social that I feel my mind is being weighed down by a lead weight and the fatigue due to the food (there was a lot of gluten) was also getting to me making it worse. I was pretty beat by the time I got home and went to bed shortly after.

Only to wake up the next morning at 4:30 AM to get ready for retail work to do it again. I do the thing feeling pretty unstable but I make it through the lengthy ultra early morning black friday shift. I already ate dinner for the past 3 days but to push out the garbage I ate the other day I spent more (as if I haven't spent enough already refilling my supplements compounding the stress more) to make myself a good dinner I was comfortable with. The next day I'm slightly recharged with my guts still feeling a bit messy but when I went to work again holiday music was finally in full swing making my head swim with negative emotions because it reminds me of all the things I don't have in my life I feel are essential dragging me down weekly as is. The comfort of love and support from others, the feeling of belonging. My sensory issues also began to flare, I felt like I was losing my mind on a bad trip I could not exit. While this was happening the traffic was non-stop of course, wave after wave of holiday shoppers spending more money on christmas items at a time than I make on 2 paychecks. I wasn't even on a register as main cashier and I was up there most of the time and when I was off it didn't even feel like a break cause of the constant chaos with people to avoid and messes everywhere. I began to get lost in a whirlwind of negativity with no way out and my senses were going nuts.

Then came my body's only solution "ready the adrenaline cannons!" which made me become ultra hyperactive and ultra productive to the point of getting so many reward sign ups and taking care of people so fast that never mind the employees but boss was baffled too and didn't know what to tell me. I was on high speed robotic autopilot and I didn't even drink any extra coffee (which I've been staying away from for the past months). When I got home later at night I felt paralyzed, I sat in my room with door closed spacing out to music and trying to keep up with messages from friends on Discord but I could barely handle it. I eventually tried to go to sleep but didn't sleep well and woke up today exhausted already with work coming later. I need to now keep this up for the entire rest of the month. I don't know how to get through this besides complete social isolation and making and reaching routine comforts a priority. It also hurts that it feels like I'm not getting anywhere as I need to get more money to refill my out of bank balance and spend much of a paycheck to get at least some of the immediate family gifts then bracing for the Christmas party too which I'll be exposed as a final blowout to more sensory chaos and food I don't handle very well. It's gonna be long, bumpy month. Anyone else got a lot going on? Sorry for such a long post, I don't know where else to reach more people with this or what it'll even do for me besides get things off my chest.
 
Learning how to pace yourself even in a shifting environment is a very valuable life skill. I don't know any special tricks other then to try and watch for good and bad days and then to try and figure out what may have made them so. Then I start to amass a list of things to avoid and another of things that is ok to do. One thing I have learned to definately avoid is throwing caution to the wind and going into hyperspeed. The body tends not to realize the damage being done in the moment. Perhaps it's adrenaline or something like that. For when I have, often the price I pay is very high afterwards.
 
Learning how to pace yourself even in a shifting environment is a very valuable life skill. I don't know any special tricks other then to try and watch for good and bad days and then to try and figure out what may have made them so. Then I start to amass a list of things to avoid and another of things that is ok to do. One thing I have learned to definately avoid is throwing caution to the wind and going into hyperspeed. The body tends not to realize the damage being done in the moment. Perhaps it's adrenaline or something like that. For when I have, often the price I pay is very high afterwards.

Yeah one thing I learned is that going completely with the wind on a adrenaline panic is not always a good thing, maybe if you have nothing to do for the entire day as a last resort but definitely not when you have strings of days after to deal with that will be more of the same. I also need to start taking things apart and probably finding some sort of micro-triggers that are making things far worse here. I have started cleaning my room a bit though that got out of hand during the time and that has helped somewhat as I guess having a messy space is also something really problematic to me despite the executive dysfunction that comes with this to push through. I also bought melatonin and I hope it'll be effective enough to make a dent in this too. CBD alone doesn't really do it for me and especially not the broad spectrum I have that doesn't have the same exact feel that full spectrum does that goes so well with melatonin at night for a real knock out and deep sleep.
 
Yes, I can relate to needing an uncluttered space. Clutter is like mental noise to me. I have learned to live with people with different needs/habits but require my own spaces to be neat and organized. By Full Spectrum do you mean the type of light bulb? We got one of those, a big double flouresent unit which I hung above one of my main hobby areas. I am not sure if full spectrum helps, but know light in general does help my mood during the darker months. And it certainly doesn't hurt to try. Just as a bunch of little bad things can add up to push one over the edge, so I think a bunch of small good things can add up and improve life quality.
 
Yes, I can relate to needing an uncluttered space. Clutter is like mental noise to me. I have learned to live with people with different needs/habits but require my own spaces to be neat and organized. By Full Spectrum do you mean the type of light bulb? We got one of those, a big double flouresent unit which I hung above one of my main hobby areas. I am not sure if full spectrum helps, but know light in general does help my mood during the darker months. And it certainly doesn't hurt to try. Just as a bunch of little bad things can add up to push one over the edge, so I think a bunch of small good things can add up and improve life quality.

Oh no when I said CBD I meant the cannabinoid and full spectrum being the trace amounts of THC compounds. But on that note anyways the lights here are fine, I don't have any floresent bulbs and have a radiation filter on my sceen here anyways since I'm also still EMF sensitive even though I made a lot of progress there. Little bad things do add up though, I just need to learn how to at least destack that now just enough to get over the humps of the holiday over worked, under paid load.
 
You have painted a picture that I recognize well.

Right now I am staying with my husbands family. They are big, loud and self important. Not unlike holiday shoppers!

Since I can't escape them I do a lot of silent counting. The counting gives me a quiet focus so that I don't focus on the triggers. It is not perfect but it is better than having a meltdown. I do a lot of deep breating and reminding myself that everything is temporary. Good luck. You will make it through!
 
Get out of bed in a morning and take on each day with the perspective that you only need to reach 'clocking off' from work after which,
you may choose how to spend the rest of your day.

Yeh, sure, there will be more of the same tomorrow but you're not there yet,
focus on calming your system in the free time available after work.
Stay in the moment.

Walk, stim, exercise, listen to music, write a computer programme, soak in the tub, breathe, tidy a living space... whatever it is you do for yourself to actively shift from 6th gear down into 2nd gear.

If you focus on the bigger picture, ie, the whole month ahead and it's challenges,
your soul may start to surrender as you wonder how in the heck you're going to get through it all,

try getting through one day at a time instead.
Note down some of the things you like about how you handled a situation during the day.
Note down something you're looking forward to doing for yourself after work on that particular day.

Retail can see some of the craziest shoppers in the run up to the holidays. Your post reads like you're handling it pretty well, all things considered.

Getting through one day at a time is mentally easier than getting through a whole month at a time, particularly at this time of year in the job you have.
 
Is anyone else going through the same? It all started the day before Thanksgiving when my hours got a lot more crazy like usual and it's really taking a toll on my physical and mental health. I see the family on Thanksgiving after a super early shift to eat food I never normally eat and too much of it as everyone is being so loud and hyper social that I feel my mind is being weighed down by a lead weight and the fatigue due to the food (there was a lot of gluten) was also getting to me making it worse. I was pretty beat by the time I got home and went to bed shortly after.

Only to wake up the next morning at 4:30 AM to get ready for retail work to do it again. I do the thing feeling pretty unstable but I make it through the lengthy ultra early morning black friday shift. I already ate dinner for the past 3 days but to push out the garbage I ate the other day I spent more (as if I haven't spent enough already refilling my supplements compounding the stress more) to make myself a good dinner I was comfortable with. The next day I'm slightly recharged with my guts still feeling a bit messy but when I went to work again holiday music was finally in full swing making my head swim with negative emotions because it reminds me of all the things I don't have in my life I feel are essential dragging me down weekly as is. The comfort of love and support from others, the feeling of belonging. My sensory issues also began to flare, I felt like I was losing my mind on a bad trip I could not exit. While this was happening the traffic was non-stop of course, wave after wave of holiday shoppers spending more money on christmas items at a time than I make on 2 paychecks. I wasn't even on a register as main cashier and I was up there most of the time and when I was off it didn't even feel like a break cause of the constant chaos with people to avoid and messes everywhere. I began to get lost in a whirlwind of negativity with no way out and my senses were going nuts.

Then came my body's only solution "ready the adrenaline cannons!" which made me become ultra hyperactive and ultra productive to the point of getting so many reward sign ups and taking care of people so fast that never mind the employees but boss was baffled too and didn't know what to tell me. I was on high speed robotic autopilot and I didn't even drink any extra coffee (which I've been staying away from for the past months). When I got home later at night I felt paralyzed, I sat in my room with door closed spacing out to music and trying to keep up with messages from friends on Discord but I could barely handle it. I eventually tried to go to sleep but didn't sleep well and woke up today exhausted already with work coming later. I need to now keep this up for the entire rest of the month. I don't know how to get through this besides complete social isolation and making and reaching routine comforts a priority. It also hurts that it feels like I'm not getting anywhere as I need to get more money to refill my out of bank balance and spend much of a paycheck to get at least some of the immediate family gifts then bracing for the Christmas party too which I'll be exposed as a final blowout to more sensory chaos and food I don't handle very well. It's gonna be long, bumpy month. Anyone else got a lot going on? Sorry for such a long post, I don't know where else to reach more people with this or what it'll even do for me besides get things off my chest.


I wish there was an image to put here to show you just how much I feel you. Been working on a supermarket for nearly a month now and I feel like the holidays passed and I didn't even understand anything (I usually love Christmas save for the awkward social stuff), due to the tiredeness and pressure on work. I have sensory overload on a daily basis in my new job (this type of job and all retail jobs in general are not helping with our difficulties, if anything they make them even worse I'd say), and whenever I'm done I just sit in front of the computer for a while to cool down and then go to bed and listen to music before I sleep. As for the social stuff I know exactly what you mean. I have felt the exact same things you describe but with different situations and yes the sensory overload is just too much. Sometimes I feel that I will faint one day out of the extreme stress and sensory overload in my brain. I sometimes feel I put too much pressure on myself to be and act 'normal'.
 

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