Autistic Burnout
Any of these or all of them, to varying extents, dependent on situations and contexts.
I tend not to worry about too many of these signs. Frankly, ‘unshakable and constant anxiety’ is my normal state, which no doubt accounts for a chronic nervous fatigue which makes me feel forever exhausted. I tend to say that the affliction is not so much one of exhaustion as hopelessness. Having faced the same problems day in day out over a period of years, having sought solutions and found none, you tend to give up. There is a slackening of the internal drive and will that comes with losing the sense of a future that is feasibly different and better than the present. With that, you can kiss goodbye to the urge to undertake commitments that bring you into the world, socialising going by the way for the same reason. It’s not that you are anti-social as such but that you feel the need to protect yourself from others who say and do things – and would have you saying and doing things – you know are not good for you. Many think they have found the solutions you have been seeking; you know that you have been this way many times before and would prefer not to go that way again.
Most of the signs here are so common for me that I don’t see them as alarms I need to respond to. And I also have a view that my irritability with respect to others is well judged. Viktor Frankl argues against notions of equilibrium, the idea that human beings need peace and tranquility in their lives. Human beings need a degree of tension to spark effort and striving on their part, activating their capacities and directing them towards a worthwhile goal. Human beings lacking such tension will go out of their way to create some, both for themselves and, inevitably, for others. Those people irritate the life out of me. And I really don’t think my reaction is the wrong one. The neurotics have taken over media, culture, and politics. And I really don’t care for them. I take my irritability here as a sign of sanity. But what about relations to others? What others!? I am reluctant to make commitments for
the reason that others who make plans for you waste your time and energy and drain your remaining hope in futile ventures. It’s hard to retain your initial optimism after you have suffered a life of constant obstacles and setbacks. It’s foolish to keep looking back to rewrite the past and relive every action, every decision, every choice in alternate ways. The life you never had is the life you no longer can have. Dwell too long in that frame of mind, and you will miss the possibilities for a new life that exist in the here and now. But constantly hustling a tomorrow that never comes does wear you down.
At what point does burnout become so chronic and complete that you just give up? That’s when you have lost the sense of the future and the will to bring about a life you no longer believe in. That’s a serious situation. It looks like depression but isn’t. Four times this past year I have completed a Patient Health Questionaire, each time coming out with depression. I find some hope in the fact that my scores are improving. I have progressed from ‘severe depression’ a year ago to ‘moderate depression’ today. The advice is the same, though: contact your doctor. I contacted the doctor on receiving the first result. I can’t say the discussion was too encouraging. Basically I was offered two routes forward – either tackle the problem myself or go down the route of medication. I have no interest in medication. If I was going to raise the white flag of surrender, I can think of more imaginative ways than that. The second time I scored ‘severe depression’ in a patient questionaire, it was my doctor who rang me, checking first of all that I was not in danger of harming myself or others. This is where things got interesting. I was so happy to have received a phone call I became my usual cheery self, with the doctor laughing at my curious observations on life. She was reassured that I wasn’t depressed at all. I listed the number of massive problems that have been coming my way over the years. It was also understood that I was on the waiting lit for an assessment for ASC. Whatever the questionaires report, this wasn’t depression I was dealing with, and still isn’t. Meet me in the right time and place, on the right occasion, and I’m the life and soul. But there’s the problem: with AS, too few times and places and occasions are right. If I had to put a name on this I would call it a ‘depressive realism,’ less an innate depressive condition on my part than a rationally realistic appraisal of the wretched circumstances I have to face as a matter of ordinary living. I don't just feel overwhelmed, I am overwhelmed! 'But we all are' comes the response. That helps.
Last year I sought help with respect to housing. I was told that I would be classed as ‘low priority.’ You mean ‘low priority’ as in ‘no priority,’ I responded. I was right. It’s hard to remain cheery when you have a talent for shredding the illusions people feed you to keep you hustling tomorrow for that elusive something …
But that’s not depression. It’s more akin to that unyielding, heroic despair in face of a meaningless, indifferent world that Bertrand Russell wrote about in a Free Man’s Worship. The fact that it's a bleak view makes it unappealing, but not wrong. The condition is exhausting, sapping hope and energy. Autistic burnout has many features which look like depression, but are not depression. It needs to be better understood by health professional. The problem is that, once depression is ruled out, especially possibilities of self-harm or harm to others, you cease to be of medical concern and are back on your own. Hence the fact that many of the signs of autistic burnout are my constant companions. I tend to know that I am entering the danger zone whenever my ‘special interests’ no longer incite my passions, when I become flat and indifferent to things, and when I lose the capacity to focus and concentrate. I am always interested in something and always able to give that something my undivided, some would say obsessive, attention. Whenever I stop looking for the things that thrill me, I know I’m suffering burnout.
My test is Elvis and Françoise Hardy, very special 'special interests' – the spirit has never flagged in their regard yet.
