What does burnout mean to you?

[Misty Avich]

I think even NTs can get burnout if they're under enough pressure or stress in their lives, but people like us might be more likely to get burnout from, for example, doing a typical 9-5 work day. It would be in my case.

I'm not sure if I get burnout or not, or if burnout is different for everyone. With me burnout affects my executive functioning and makes me feel "oh my God I really can't be bothered" and I get brain fog and lethargy. I also find it hard to motivate myself to get up in the morning.
But burnout doesn't affect me socially. In fact when I get burnout I just want to sit around and talk rather than do any work. I can also get easily depressed and anxious. I know this will happen if I ever had to work full-time.

Does this sound like burnout? Or does burnout mean withdrawal? I don't really withdrawal, I just get lazy and everything becomes an effort, but it's not intentional.
I do worry about what will become of me if I ever have to work full-time. I feel like being stuck at work 8-10 hours a day with only one or two days off each week and only 3-4 weeks off a year will be too much for me and I will have burnout. I mean, doing the same thing every day just panics me. NTs are so lucky they can shrug it off as "well I have to do the same routine day after day, week after week, year after year, to pay the bills". That logic won't stop me from getting burnout.

 

[Misty Avich]

I don't go a lot on the "eat, sleep, work, repeat" lifestyle. It panics me. I don't know why. Maybe I'm just lazy and stupid. Lol

 

[vergil96]

With me burnout affects my executive functioning and makes me feel "oh my God I really can't be bothered" and I get brain fog and lethargy. I also find it hard to motivate myself to get up in the morning.

Same, but there is no deep sadness and catastrophic thinking like in depression.

But burnout doesn't affect me socially. In fact when I get burnout I just want to sit around and talk rather than do any work. I can also get easily depressed and anxious. I know this will happen if I ever had to work full-time.

It does affect me socially. But it likely stems from the fact that I find some things about interacting with other people challenging in the first place and I need a fresh mind to keep up with them, for example, I don't hear very well, I mean, I hear very quiet sounds and they're very annoying for me, but it is to the detriment of hearing speech if there is anything going on in the background or if it's via phone. Speaking isn't an easy task for me either, especially about emotional or other vague or uninteresting topics. For some reason all the eye contact, facial expression and body language stuff becomes more difficult too, but I also have to think hard about movement and the sequence of movements to perform "easy" tasks... Eye contact is the first thing that goes away when I get tired, I just don't keep up with it and try to focus on hearing what is being said - choose the most important thing. And I become irritable when burnt out, so I just want to sit in a quiet room alone and not bothered. Every single sensory issue becomes worse.

I feel like being stuck at work 8-10 hours a day with only one or two days off each week and only 3-4 weeks off a year will be too much for me and I will have burnout.

I don't know how it will go for me honestly. I have still a few months of university. I worked and studied at the same time, but it was hard. But the routine and zero multitasking at work worked in my favour and I was less tired than I thought I would be. I surprised myself that I wasn't even that tired working even more than 8 hours a day if I didn't have to task switch so much and I had a comfortable workplace. However, I always got sick at school a lot and it contributed to many absences and I skipped classes whenever I could. Teachers let me do that during high school in order to study for math and science competitions, I was ahead of the curriculum anyway and went to the library to solve problems and asked the teachers questions when I wanted to.

Some of my family members also have worked part time their whole lives due to getting health problems from full time work, so I expect it could be similar for me. I also don't think the concept of a 9-5 job is necessarily what human bodies are built for - before the invention of electricity, there was no work e.g. in farming after the sunset, so you had 12 hours for not only work but also housework and other responsibilities. There was also no commuting. People took a break at midday. So before the invention of electricity so for most of human history, people didn't work the 8 hours a day + commute. Human bodies aren't built for that.

 

[Neri]

Sometimes, when it's severe, my brain feels swollen, especially the frontal lobes and I get migraines. My eyes hurt too and light is soooo bright and glaring. It feels like "soggy, dirty cotton wool" in my head.

I am in burn out at the moment and I'm so exhausted I can hardly do anything. I am a little better than I was with the social battery being completely flat; my social battery has recharged so I'm not craving alone time, but my executive function is out the window. I'm lucky if I can feed myself or make a meal. But today I cooked twice, and that is all I managed to do.

Sometimes I have to sleep throughout the day, because my sleep cycle is particularly messed up in burn out. I've had really chronic burn out these last couple of years but, that was due to the burn outs being combined with covid, a couple of times and a huge amount of family pressure with me having to be available for various family members in crisis. That hit me hard, in the brain. So so exhausted in the head.

Also, I'm in perimenopause and that's part of this cycle of burn out as the estrogen dip affects dopamine and with my ADHD that's very affected executive function,; very bad executive function. I get more irritable. I have a lot of meltdowns. And it's probably underpining my agoraphobia, that and stupid, trauma-brain nastiness.

I've finally organised some help for myself though, and I'm very optimistic that things will improve, now that I finally have my diagnosis.

Oh and speech can get harder, but, not all the time. It comes and goes. I also overshare without realizing, as well as having difficulty being verbal. Oh and loud noises make me angry. And all I want to do is consume content from autistic content creators, because it's soothing to know I'm not alone in this stuff.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Yes, autistic brains are far more susceptible to "fatigue" and "burnout". Why? Our brains are different. How different? Some of the science behind it:

Inborn Errors of Metabolism Associated With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Approaches to Intervention

Increasing evidence suggests that the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be associated with inborn errors of metabolism, such as disorders of amino acid metabolism and transport [phenylketonuria, homocystinuria, S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase deficiency, branched-chain α-keto acid...

www.frontiersin.org

Neurometabolite levels in the brains of patients with autism spectrum disorders: A meta-analysis of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies (N = 1501) - Molecular Psychiatry

Evidence suggests that neurometabolite alterations may be involved in the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We performed a meta-analysis of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) studies to examine the neurometabolite levels in the brains of patients with ASD. A...

www.nature.com

Oxidative Stress in Autism Spectrum Disorder—Current Progress of Mechanisms and Biomarkers

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a type of neurodevelopmental disorder that has been diagnosed in an increasing number of children around the world. Existing data suggest that early diagnosis and intervention can improve ASD outcomes. However, the causes of ASD remain complex and unclear, and...

www.frontiersin.org

 

[Forest Cat]

This:

 

[Neonatal RRT]

We have a "condition". It just happens to affect our brain. The brain is an organ, like a kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, etc. We have to learn about these differences, take extra precautions, and learn how to take care of our brains in order to maintain its health.

We are not "just" neurodivergent. It's on a whole other level.

 

[Outdated]

When I'm burnt out I lose the ability to concentrate on anything, I sit in a darkened room and attempt to watch a TV show or read a book or play a video game but can't really focus on any of them. There's also the laziness and weariness, my place is a mess at the moment but I don't think I'll be cleaning anything up today either.

I tend to be fairly reclusive at most times anyway, I can socialise well enough when I need to but it's not all that often I'll go seeking company. I don't work and I have no close family though so that makes life easier, I really can retreat when I want to.

 

[autism-and-autotune]

I think even NTs can get burnout if they're under enough pressure or stress in their lives, but people like us might be more likely to get burnout from, for example, doing a typical 9-5 work day. It would be in my case.

I'm not sure if I get burnout or not, or if burnout is different for everyone. With me burnout affects my executive functioning and makes me feel "oh my God I really can't be bothered" and I get brain fog and lethargy. I also find it hard to motivate myself to get up in the morning.
But burnout doesn't affect me socially. In fact when I get burnout I just want to sit around and talk rather than do any work. I can also get easily depressed and anxious. I know this will happen if I ever had to work full-time.

Does this sound like burnout? Or does burnout mean withdrawal? I don't really withdrawal, I just get lazy and everything becomes an effort, but it's not intentional.
I do worry about what will become of me if I ever have to work full-time. I feel like being stuck at work 8-10 hours a day with only one or two days off each week and only 3-4 weeks off a year will be too much for me and I will have burnout. I mean, doing the same thing every day just panics me. NTs are so lucky they can shrug it off as "well I have to do the same routine day after day, week after week, year after year, to pay the bills". That logic won't stop me from getting burnout.

Burnout for me turns my mental state just downward. I don't have the energy to do anything much, let alone think of doing anything much. Everything becomes a chore. Burnout brings out the worst of my PDA, I think. And yes, I agree with your point about executive function; I just cannot if I am in burnout.

I disagree with what you call 'lazy'; while I have yet to read the book Laziness does not Exist from what I've gathered online is that being 'lazy' just means that our energy levels are barely away from being empty, and we cannot do much that requires too much energy aside from necessary--absolutely necessary things, but nothing else. When I'm in burnout, my spoons are zero. Taking away from them and going into the negatives for for days is rough, because soon I'm at -100 spoons. It's exhausting to be exhausted all the time.

 

[Au Naturel]

ometimes, when it's severe, my brain feels swollen, especially the frontal lobes and I get migraines. My eyes hurt too and light is soooo bright and glaring. It feels like "soggy, dirty cotton wool" in my head.

That's possibly a migraine. Have you seen a doctor about it? I take Sumatriptan (Imitrex) at the first sign of one. None of the other migraine meds and pain meds even touched my migraines.

12 Drugs Commonly Prescribed for Migraine

If you suffer from migraine headaches, it’s important to understand how migraine medications work.<br>

www.healthgrades.com