Not directly tied to neurodiversity, but Autistic people tend go be extremely mentally exhausted regularly if they’re forced to heavily mask all day long with both jobs and family or other social situations and overwork themselves for decades without being able to drop that and not allowed to sleep as long as they need due to work and responsibilities. I’ve had to go without any sleep for days at a time in the past due to work, school, and kids and I was in the Navy. Trust me, it’s a very similar feeling to that a large part of my life.
For sure that’s a thing, but I’d it’s more related to sleep deprivation than neurodivergence. I have a 1 year old and get sufficient sleep so I’m not zoning out all more than around once a month.
Thanks, I appreciate the different perspective. As some who has experienced autistic burnout and also has sleep challenges, my personal experience is that the impacts are different, but that’s just me.
Yeah, it’s very similar for me. But I’m also AuDHD, So that might be a difference. The worst and best of both. Poor sleep, from ADHD and burnout from masking both Autism and ADHD. Plus a drive to use every last drop of extra mental energy to do what hobbies I can afford the spoon deficit for or the anxiety from ADHD will kick in hard, especially when I don’t have the spoons to suppress it. It’s a vicious cycle of conflicts, but has lots of advantages if I could just find a way to profit off of them. Neurotypical jobs just take advantage of me and kick me to the curb when I break.
I hear you! Getting the balance right is very challenging. One of my approaches has been to try to set up systems to make day-to-day stuff easier to do, which means I have more bandwidth for work and hobbies. But that in itself can be a real challenge, as those sort of systemic “upgrades” are often big tasks that take a lot of time and energy to implement.
The key (to surviving) for me is similar. Simplify as much day to day stuff as I can. Build habits to reduce the cognitive load of doing day to day tasks. I’ve been at it for decades, and it is still a struggle. Always will be I suppose.
Not directly tied to neurodiversity, but Autistic people tend go be extremely mentally exhausted regularly if they’re forced to heavily mask all day long with both jobs and family or other social situations and overwork themselves for decades without being able to drop that and not allowed to sleep as long as they need due to work and responsibilities. I’ve had to go without any sleep for days at a time in the past due to work, school, and kids and I was in the Navy. Trust me, it’s a very similar feeling to that a large part of my life.
For sure that’s a thing, but I’d it’s more related to sleep deprivation than neurodivergence. I have a 1 year old and get sufficient sleep so I’m not zoning out all more than around once a month.
Thanks, I appreciate the different perspective. As some who has experienced autistic burnout and also has sleep challenges, my personal experience is that the impacts are different, but that’s just me.
Yeah, it’s very similar for me. But I’m also AuDHD, So that might be a difference. The worst and best of both. Poor sleep, from ADHD and burnout from masking both Autism and ADHD. Plus a drive to use every last drop of extra mental energy to do what hobbies I can afford the spoon deficit for or the anxiety from ADHD will kick in hard, especially when I don’t have the spoons to suppress it. It’s a vicious cycle of conflicts, but has lots of advantages if I could just find a way to profit off of them. Neurotypical jobs just take advantage of me and kick me to the curb when I break.
I hear you! Getting the balance right is very challenging. One of my approaches has been to try to set up systems to make day-to-day stuff easier to do, which means I have more bandwidth for work and hobbies. But that in itself can be a real challenge, as those sort of systemic “upgrades” are often big tasks that take a lot of time and energy to implement.
The key (to surviving) for me is similar. Simplify as much day to day stuff as I can. Build habits to reduce the cognitive load of doing day to day tasks. I’ve been at it for decades, and it is still a struggle. Always will be I suppose.