 Hello everybody and welcome back to my channel. My name is Thomas Henley and today we're going to be talking about The autistic burnout roller coaster. Yes We're gonna start off by looking a little bit into what actually is burnout what it looks like as well as Contrasting that with the autistic experience of going through burnout. Is it different? Is there some different signs that are the different causing factors that may Contribute to an autistic person going through burnout We're also gonna look at the six main reasons why people in general go through burnout as well as obviously some of the more autism related stuff And then we're gonna have a look at The burnout roller coaster. What are the four stages of this very repetitive, cyclical Life-destroying cycle in some respects. How does that happen? How to stop it from happening? How to get off the get yourself off the roller coaster? Back into normality. We're gonna address all of that within this video So what is burnout? Burnout is a state of physical and or emotional exhaustion that many people have experienced at some point in their life It is something that's very heavily characterized in terms of work. It can be a physical state in terms of exhaustion from you know, perhaps Exerting yourself physically too much obviously going to the gym Working a very manual labor type job as well as emotional exhaustion which can come through the roots of work Sometimes can come through relationships. Sometimes come through friendships Living situations a whole host of different possible contributors to it The important thing here is that it's not a medical diagnosis It's not some thing that you can go to a psychotherapist It's not something that you can go to a anyone really doctor And say like okay, diagnose me with burnout condition. It's not something that happens It's more of a characterization of someone's mental state It can be acute So it can happen for you know people sometimes might say that oh This way this week is really difficult this weekend. I'm just so burnt out. I can't do anything It can also be a you know, kind of a weekly thing that happens You know, perhaps you've been working for the past month and you know, you have one week and you just say oh Can't go into work today, but the thing that I want to Focus in on a little bit more would be the chronic side of things Which tends to happen a lot more with autistic people. I've heard people going for weeks months years even Going through a very very long burnout not being able to get back to normality So it's it's a very variable thing and it can sometimes be used as with most things in life very loosely subjectively Whatever you want to call it and as I said in most situations when you go up and look at burnout on the internet It's gonna come up with a lot of stuff related to employment Related to work, but it's not always the case. It's not always a case. There's always caused by Work. Why does burnout happen? Well, there are a number of different factors that contribute to someone getting into a burnout period The kind of the basic kind of entry-level description would be that We're not robots. There is a lot of things happening in our society at the moment There's a lot of hustle culture that's going on particularly online where people are Feeling almost rushed to fast forward their lives in certain areas And if they don't manage to do that, they feel bad about themselves. They overwork themselves They put a lot of their emotional energy a lot of physical energy They don't sleep as much and the thing is is that we're not these robotic creatures We are human beings. We have emotions. We have limits our bodies run off biological energy supplies, you know We're not robots and unless you are some kind of Strange psychopathic individual and you just don't require sleep. You might be a somniac You might just not you might just find work so fun that you just want to do it all the time And you just don't want to do anything else. Perhaps it's it's easier for those types of people, but for most Regular humans hustle culture 24-7. It is a recipe for burnout. So you've come into the doctor's office We're going to do a little bit of a diagnosis checklist even though it's not a diagnosis Let's have a look at some of the symptoms. What can you expect from going through burnout? Of course, this is going to be heavily subjective. You're not going to fill every single category here It's not going to be like this list this checklist And if you fill off all the checklist, then you you're a burnt-out individual It's a little bit more complicated than that the core. It's it's feeling exhausted. So Lacking energy you might feel a bit helpless in terms of your ability to deal with the situation that you're in You might feel quite alone quite lonely. I mean might feel very cynical perhaps irritable Overwhelmed, you know, when we are chronically exhausted little things get to us a lot easier than usual there's also the like The side effects of these symptoms which could be things like procrastinating So you might take a very very long time to transition between tasks, especially if you're autistic You may also Find that work is a little bit harder to get into You might be finding that your work is very slow You might get distracted very easily your mental clarity might not be there as as usual You might be fairly disorganized, you know, you miss things You don't put things into the diary little little things that have a big impact on particularly your working life, but also your personal life Emotional outbursts and a self-doubt so emotional outbursts you can imagine anger sadness scared anxiety panic, that's also Definitely something that can occur if you are in a burnt-out space a lot more frequently and what are some of the consequences of of this kind of period of time these emotions these States of being these these effects on your working ability Insomnia you may find that You meet me you may actually oversleep Or under sleep depending on what type of person you are You may find that you you know, you see see those Nicotine pouches in the corner that you've been eyeing up or you've gone to Asda and you go to the checkout and that you can see them They're right there. I'm looking for something To make me relax on an evening and you're like, oh, I don't really have any time to spend actually relaxing I'm gonna go the chemical route. I'm putting this very lightly, of course, but substance use is something that People do when they don't want to put any active effort into rest Something else that they can do some they might even want to escape. They may not even have the capability like myself to really relax properly and So people might turn to different various substances not all equal just paying heed into that but We can also have definite impacts on health long term in terms of, you know, raised cortisol If you go to the gym You might find that you testosterone might drop because of the the raised cortisol that you're experiencing just from being so active all the time and you may find that Your vulnerability to getting sick is a lot higher for me Really big factor in terms of burnout if I if I am chronically stressed I mean obviously I can tell that I'm chronically stressed But one of the actual physical signs that I am way too stressed is that I will develop What do you call them? the chicken box the the varicella disease now Shingles that's it. I will develop shingles because my immune system drops the virus is like hey, it's it's all clear guys send out the troops Send them into the immune system make make this this man have lots of horrible Red bumps on his skin. They're very painful. That's something that happens. You can become more vulnerable to illness the thing is if you have experienced mental health mental illness and You are listening to me talking about burnout. You may find that you're thinking Is this is this this sounds very similar to depression? This sounds at least very similar to one of my severe periods, you know, you might be sitting like myself about mild to moderate most days Sometimes throughout the year you might have a severe period where where it drops. So is it a depressive spell? The answer is sort of the thing is is that burnout is not a diagnosis So it's it's very difficult to try and Say, oh, is it is it depression? Is it burnout? some of the things it Is a lot to do with the reasons for why you're in that state Sometimes we have it characterized as situational depression there's some depressive period that is caused by a real-life situation It's not neurochemical. It's not psychological It's literally some things happen to put you in a worse state and you've become feeling hopeless and you can feel down and depressed and wanting to shut yourself off That is situational depression and that is very very similar to to the experience of burnout because You're in a state where you're working all the time You're perhaps overreaching in terms of the amount of emotional physical energy that you have per day and so You go into a low mood period you you can't do as many things as usual. You don't enjoy things as much It's it's quite similar in a sense, but without going too far into it. Let's get into The big six causes In work. Why does burnout happen? We're talking of course in the context of everybody everybody's experience of burnout I will be going into the more autistic side of things just after this and one of the big first factors is a lack of control Within the workplace. We're gonna be talking about the workplace a lot because that is the context of a lot of these kind of studies a lot of these articles written in context of and Lack in control lack of control Basically means that you don't really have the decisions in in your working world in your life And that can cause you to feel quite hopeless quite obviously out of control not being able to have agency not being able to self-advocate not having Having the ability to place boundaries either emotionally physically In terms of the amount of work that you take on what you take on that can be a big contributor towards burnout A lot of these things that I mentioned It's it's a lot to do with the combination of a lot of different things. Perhaps you might not have all of these Six things in control Everything's all golden, but you might have two three four five of these aspects which definitely contribute to You becoming burnt out and over a long period of time. The second thing is fairness So do you feel that your working environment is fair? Do you feel like you're given the resources that other people are given? Do you feel like? Perhaps your boss is a little bit too harsh on you in comparison to other people Do you feel like even the fact that you're disabled isn't isn't being adjusted for and that caused you to feel like you're not Being put on an even playing field with your colleagues. Do you feel like you're not getting as much validation? Validation positively from the people around you your colleagues your boss people not putting your salary up to Reflect the workload that you're you're experiencing. That is definitely a contributor towards burnout The next thing which I feel a lot of people can relate to it's pretty obvious Tiredness. Are you working at your max capacity? There's a really interesting conversation that I had with Vera on my podcast where we were talking about burnout and she was comparing Capacity with capability capacity is basically this this mindset where if you have time during the day To fill up with work, then you would fill all of that time up That is your max capacity or at least to to a very very high degree most of your Waking life is spent working capability on the other hand Factors in is this going to be sustainable in the long term is this Routine that I have Allowing me to rest allowing me to enjoy life Allowing me to have at least some semblance of energy at the end of the day in order to do the things that making me happy that you know allow me to Build relationships to maintain relationships as friends and family and and partners these these are really important factors in Having someone who is healthy obviously bar those kind of crazy Psychopathic people who can just work and work and work and work probably shouldn't say a psychopathic Might but might be taken as an insult to somebody conscientious overly conscientious to it to a very unimaginable degree It's a tiredness. Yeah, if you're working in your max capacity, obviously, you're gonna be a lot more tired If you're not sleeping as well, obviously, you're gonna be a lot more tired Insufficient reward. Do you work all the time? Do you have no play? Do you have no pay to show for it? there is a very subtle difference between Rewards in the sense like if you work as a volunteer if you work within a charity Perhaps a lot of your reward from doing that thing is fairly intrinsic You feel good that you're doing this kind of thing you're contributing society and making someone's life Better you making some some people's lives better. That is an intrinsic reward. There's also a extrinsic rewards Are you being rewarded with money for the extra hours that you put in are you being rewarded extra money for the Like competency at which you do your job, which you feel like you should be if you're not You're gonna feel like the the extra work that you put in the extra effort that you put in It's not gonna be enough for for that. It's good. There's gonna be a little bit of an imbalance and so you're gonna feel Upset you're gonna feel annoyed. You're gonna feel like there is no point There is also a very very very heavy factor, which I feel Definitely covers a lot of the experience of autistic people and that is lack of community. Do you have friends? Do you have a romantic partner? Do you have a casual partner? Do you have family? Do you have community? Do you have a Six-person polyamorous relationship that you you you're engaged with all the time. There's a lot of different aspects of community a Lot of autistic people a lot of people in general. I Feel lack that this aspect of things, you know, perhaps if we went back back in the day when we went so atomized from the use of social media and People that we knew and then we talked to were actually around us physically and we engage with them We went to church and we did all of this kind of stuff not say that that's a good thing But we had a community If you if you have a good relationship with your parents, you feel supportive of them You mean you engage with them and you ask them how they are you have regular contact with them You have friends you have people to go out and do stuff with people who share your hobbies Whether you can physically go and like get a coffee with or grab a beer with you know, there's Those factors are very underrated in terms of overall burnout because we get a lot of our emotional validation Social validation and from talking to people who mean something to us. That's not even considering The input of them on your life you explaining your situation and them offering you New pieces of information that will help improve your situation That's very useful as well. And if you're not getting your your touch needs met perhaps you're not In a romantic relationship, you really really want that that is a big thing for a lot of people You may want to start a family you might just want someone to snuggle on the sofa watching some One of those crime Netflix dramas that you can see I don't understand how people don't understand how people watch those Before bed like I feel The quarters all that you explain the adrenaline that you experience From watching those types of things. That's definitely not a good thing to have before you like voluntarily comatose for about six to eight hours Ten maybe for me the last aspect is Values mismatching do the values of the organization that you work with Match with your values what you find valuable about life Your meaning if you work for a big corporate job you work at a bank They're all about money. They're all about getting sales. They're all about the numbers going up and ticking up You know, you really want to get those numbers up. Do you actually like that? Do you find that valuable? Do you find that meaningful? I know that I don't that definitely would not Give me any semblance of value for other people it might do It might be like oh Money that is that is great that that gives me a fun time. I can do what I want I can buy what I want and I can feel financially stable. That is a good meaning for me. I am happy with that But it's very dependent on the person that person that I characterize might be very very happy doing that doing that banking job For me not so much. I would really like to highlight The podcast with Vera because a lot of the stuff that I'm going to be covering today Or at least some of the terminology particularly around capacity versus capability and also You know drawing my attention to these six causes of burnout in work Very much came from from Vera So I definitely go and check out. I'll put a link down below to happy artistic lady if you want to go Check out our stuff and also to the podcast if you want to learn a little bit more about burnout, so Let's look into some specific causes because it's all well and good Like saying okay here here is the six things that cost burnout. It's a little bit too subjective It's not it's not really like it's it's it's not really relatable like what situations are going to put me in burnout Obviously you're going to be subjective dependent on lots of different factors The more factors that you have the more likely it's going to cause burnout. You guessed it too much work Obviously not going to go into that too much with with covered that already It could be pulling all the weight in your home life perhaps You're with somebody Could be a co-flat owner. It could be a romantic partner could be parents. Are you actually Having to pull all of the weight. That's in that sense. So you're having to do all of the chores Are you having to do all of the bills? Are you having to do all of this stuff? And there's something that is not fair in terms of you know, you're both working And then I have to do all of these things in the home going to be a big contributor to overall burnout It's going to cut into your rest time. It's going to Make you feel a bit Like obsess at the end of the day that you got to go home and you got to do all these chores Make sense Also stressful friendships dating relationships, familial relationships. If you have stressful toxic Relationships with people. I use toxic lightly because it's it's a very overused term But if if you are finding that You know these relationships that you have They're causing you a lot of stress. They're obviously going to eat up into your energy supplies day to day It's going to be something that you think about It's going to be perhaps an environment that you're going to be in Where you're not feeling completely safe. You're not feeling like everything is quite calm and chill and you can just actually relax Big contributor bad sleep schedules Obviously, if you're not getting as many much sleep if you're not in a sleep schedule You just wake up at whatever time you go to bed at whatever time Your circadian rhythm is going to be all messed up Going to contribute to you not being able to sleep as well And therefore not have as much energy being and feeling alone Now I say both being and feeling because sometimes they can be separate things If you are alone You're obviously going to like that community You're not going to have as much validation. You're not going to have as much input from people And you're perhaps not going to have as much of your physical needs met in terms of like hugging or You're not going to have someone that you can talk to while you you play in a video game or something And also feeling alone and if you are just not really feeling like you are a part of the community or a part of the relationship Where you feel satisfied Where you feel Like this person really gets you you're obviously going to feel more alone And I say no no progression in video games is because some people do get burnt out from playing video games uh One thing that I'd like to highlight is I I really enjoy a game called RuneScape I play old school RuneScape. There is a lot of people who Don't have jobs Who play all the time? Sure, you can get burnt out from playing video games. You just can't see the point in playing them I I would argue that perhaps that's a good thing and you can get out and do other stuff, but You can definitely get burnt out from that And personality really really big factor Are you conscientious? Are you like do you like to work? Do you like to Get on the ground? Do you like to go for it as I give you fulfillment? Do you do it? Are you a perfectionist? Obviously going to provide you a lot of emotional distress when you don't get something absolutely perfect You may spend a little bit more time than most people in order to absolutely perfect something to um 100 percent magnificent like standards That you have in your your eyes And I guess that that takes us on to low self-esteem and high expectations. That is a recipe for success for a lot of people. It's a recipe for success for some people It's a recipe for um endless burnout for other people if you have low self-esteem And you have high expectations of yourself You're going to be constantly chasing these ridiculous expectations that you have in your mind They might sound not ridiculous when you're watching some hustle content online, but they they they are You know you you feel bad about yourself and you feel that the way that you're going to do that You're going to feel good about yourself is by Setting and achieving these extremely high expectations. Sure. They are going to but guess what happens when you get to that place You're still in the same place. You still have low self-esteem. You perhaps have a little bit of a confidence boost Yes 100 percent um, but you don't have All the factors in your life put together to a point where Work and achieving things is not the only thing that brings you Joy and meaning and helps you feel like you're worthwhile being on the earth God this got really deep very quickly. I'm I'm The reason why I'm so deep into this is because this is exactly my experience with life with things with with burnout High expectations require quite a large amount of the video in already didn't realize that But let's talk about autistic burnout. Is it different? Hmm, maybe some could argue it's more intense I think it was very dependent on the person I would say that in general it's definitely a lot longer For most autistic people that I've talked to and there were also very different possible causes and symptoms of going for autistic burnout versus non-autistic burnout Let's look at the extra factors in autistic burnout the extra Sort the the extra causes the extra situations that might push you a little bit Further towards that that edge of the cliff that burnout cliff that you know You're teetering on you know, you've been working at your max capacity and you haven't factored in Random situations occurring that could cause you to tip over the edge a little bit. We're going to get into that in a bit Social things hit harder for autistic people. We may have much lower social battery We may really struggle a lot more with confrontation difficult situations In terms of managing it Managing our emotions around it if we are around someone who just keeps pushing us to Do more social things to engage with them more when we really need to Step back and have our alone time Obviously going to contribute a lot to tiredness There is the lack of routine and uncertainty if you don't have a solid routine as an autistic person what you're doing You need that That's going to make life so much so much more easy. It might make it a little bit more boring I I I guess I understand obviously you can have aspects of your life where you can set a time Sat Can set time aside to be impulsive and to do whatever During your week during your day if you really want to but routine is going to be a massive thing We really don't like uncertainty as entity causes us a lot of stress In comparison to most people everyone experiences it to some degree Because it can just hit just a little bit harder inadequate work slash personal supports and adjustments in work You may not be allowed to have the adjustments that will help make work life easier and you really need them But you don't get them Big factors involved in that Also big changes like large change large life event changes Obviously, this again is going to impact everybody to some degree But for us we can find it a little bit harder sensory overload. Are you Managing your sensory environment quite well, this is kind of going into those personal supports and adjustments, but is your home environment Like provoking overload from you. It's causing you a lot of stress It could be are you going out in the world without Headphones or sensory supports shades. Are you Making sure that you have breaks, you know, there was a lot of different aspects um two sensory overload and also to personal adjustments which could impact Autistic burnout if you if you don't do them Um to a larger degree. There is also um overindulgence on your interests. So what I'm talking about is those special interests Strange terminology where we become very hyper fixated on something if you are overindulging in something You know that you're overindulging you you're forgetting about it. You're deciding to be ignorant of the facts that okay Perhaps maybe this project is good for me in the long term But perhaps it might be good to step away for like 10 minutes to drink some water To eat some food to go to the toilet Perhaps like have some time before bed to actually relax rather than like knocking yourself out with a melatonin tablet definitely a big thing And that kind of leaves us on to the last point which is hyper focus and interreception, which is very very similar like If you are hyper focusing for long periods of time Sure, it's great. It's a superpower wherever you want to call it. You can work for as as long as you like. It's great. Well done It's brilliant Also going to make other aspects of life a bit harder. You're going to flat pretty much Flat your battery every single time that you you finish one of these Very long stints of of work These these stints where you you don't go and get food. You don't go to the toilet. You don't drink Something that happens interreception the ability to kind of monitor your own bodily signals Something that autistic people can struggle with and especially if you're very hyper focused It's going to be even more difficult To notice those signs So let's have a look at a little bit about my work My burnout cause is just for a little bit of example Uh, we're going to talk about it in the context of social media Okay, and also my my current situation I if you didn't know I went through a long two three month burnout Very recently. I've only just come back from it trying to get back into my regular routine of creating stuff I reached capacity So I I filled up my day with as much as I could I didn't give myself enough time to work. I didn't give myself enough time to socialize to to engage in hobbies and it it got to a point where Little things would push me over the edge Little extra things that I had to do my executive function went down because I just couldn't manage any more work any more like Active brain engagement to do stuff This is very much like a lot over the long term. So of course I can manage it for a month two months three months. Maybe But after that it kind of racks up and if there are situations that come come to you, which calls you greater stress That is definitely going to like Overreach the amount of capacity that you have for even also insufficient rewards With social media, I have been doing pretty well particularly on instagram With a podcast with youtube It's it's pretty good like I've had enough reward But as I said on one of the previous slides, I have very very stupidly high expectations for myself So that that always causes me to feel to feel bad Like to feel like I haven't achieved as much as I wanted to Even though it is some good ground that I've covered lack of community um really struggled coming out from university to Surround myself with friends maintain making friends is not too much of a difficult thing to meet for me But maintaining that friendship over a long period of time Definitely like something that that that's very difficult, especially if I'm at max capacity If my social battery has been taken up from podcasts You know, I'm not giving myself enough time to chill and like actually have a good time with my mates And I'm always thinking about work Definitely going to be a factor lack of control You know feeling like I've always got to produce things that I'm always Waiting for the next time where you have to put something out and read the comments and definitely not a bad like job to have or like Job to kind of shoot for but and definitely of over the course of time If you're feeling like you you just on this kind of gravy train where you just got to keep pumping stuff out Um, and you don't really have enough time to kind of sit back and rest unless you do large amounts of work Prior to doing that rest It's it can be very difficult Especially if you're max capacity because you don't have that extra wiggle room to do to do more work Um prior to a rest period and change. Uh, so I went for a big break Breakup recently. It's you know has very large impacts on my on routine Um seeing this person quite quite regularly They were a part of my life for a long time Um, I also didn't get as many of the touch needs Met that that I would have liked that make me feel good. I'm not talking about a lot of stuff like I mean like Literally like touching people. Oh my god hugs Holding hands Pecks on the cheek That's what I mean Dirty person self-employment I'm moving to being self-employed. That's a big change Obviously going to have lots of impacts on every single area of my life going to have to rearrange my schedule going to have to think about different things take care of different aspects of Um work life that I wouldn't have had to do if I was employed And also exciting developments that I can't really talk about Some new things new things that are happening new exciting things. Um, they also take up some of my energy So all of this in one, you know, it's it's an it's an example of why I went into burnout It's not going to be Incredibly applicable to most people But at least it's it's something to work from so What about the extra symptoms? from autistic burnout Executive functioning becomes worse You know, I'm talking about taking a shower brushing your teeth cooking meals Not just getting a takeout executive function can be a lot worse and things like Cleaning maintaining those these bog standard things that every single adult should be be able to do to some degree Not to say that there is anything shameful about it It's something that I've always struggled with to to a very high degree Something that very much varies on the amount of mental energy that I have the amount of executive functioning I have the ability to pop myself Into a situation where I'm transitioning between lots of different little chores that I have to do every night or every week In the midst of burnout No chance Need need a lot of support from other people sensory sensitivity increases. You may find that Things that you could usually deal with perhaps walking outside perhaps going to the gym They're a lot harder to deal with than usual the people that are around you the noises the lights even They can become a lot more intense and Your ability to like manage that and the amount of time that you can spend in those highly Sensory environments is lower and so it can really have an impact on a lot of different areas of your life You could have an extremely low social battery to the point where you want ghosting people That you like and you've got no reason to ghost people for you could withdraw from people You could Not go to certain social events so that you can do more work like So that you can just relax like you just literally can't Add that into your to your daily life or it would cause you like panic and put you at risk of having like a shutdown or a meltdown Is a very real thing that happens socializing becomes a lot more difficult as I said Masking if you're a heavy masker you're going to find it even more difficult and also increases in support needs as I said So there could be some things that usually you could do like drive yourself. Maybe Places get public transport on your own Make food clean do all those executive functioning stuff You may find that you do need that extra little bit of support You could lack focus on anything and I mean anything not just lacking focus in terms of work but talking to people but Your hobbies things that you enjoy usually things that you would really love to do and they bring you a lot of joy You may just find that you just have no focus like you just can't focus on anything You got even watch a tv program properly. You're just off in space staring at a a blank wall in the corner of the room Applying a little bit of paint just to just to watch it dry over the course of two hours of existential misery That kind of focus What are my burnout symptoms again? I'm gonna try and apply it a bit more as I said notice. I felt to Does I all like focus on anything even tv? Most people can't even imagine that it's like at the end of the day This is how I this is why I do to like numb my brain. I couldn't even focus on watching a tv program No energy for it. Genuinely. It's crazy loss of executive functioning focus as I've said mental health break work um mental health break from employment and social media had to take a long time of not doing anything It's just something that happens if I'm going to overwork and reach my capacity And I'm not giving myself wiggle room and not take care of myself during those periods where I'm feeling good And I just overwork myself I'm gonna have to deal with this long period of not being able to work at all And having poor mental health And that is the the next thing it's it's definitely additive to my mental illness Which you know for as for anyone who knows you might not know I've been depressed since the age of 14 Very quite badly actually high anxiety levels Have a lot of medication have had a lot of psychotherapy in my time One of the reasons why I started the channel It becomes a lot more severe I'm a lot more at risk of myself during this time and it's not something fun That I love to to talk about but it's the truth and I think is is worth saying just in case you are in a situation like this where your mental health is deteriorating a lot due to this burnout It is something that can happen and you need to put steps in place to Make sure that you you have some level of support around it withdrawal 100 we're drawing from friends we're drawing from Like the dating experience we're drawing from relationships um with my family with Get going out and doing stuff and going to the gym even sometimes Which is very very rare for me because I love the gym and it regulates me and Is just very very Unlikely that I will miss a day at the gym that happened. I lost my appetite. I just didn't really want to eat Or at least when I would did want to eat. I just didn't have the energy to go and get something That's something that can happen and a lot of emotional dysregulation So a lot more sensitive a lot more likelihood that I would go into panic attacks and meltdowns Okay, so here we are at the meat of it the burnout roller coaster What exactly is that thomas? Why are you pulling? names out of you of your arse Random stuff the burnout roller coaster is a good way for me to understand I guess what I need to do a particular points of like my capability my my energy levels My stage of burnout if you want to call it and and try and Have different approaches for each of these Areas of burnout if I if I find myself in one of them and it basically describes the cyclical nature of energy in and energy out During burnout periods during this this cycle of burnout from the bottom of burnout to the highs of being way too productive So let's let's go let's go into one of these things. So we have You know stage one which is capability Which is the place that you want to be Next we have capacity which is exceeding your capacity Next is burnout Not being able to do anything and recovering from said burnout and getting back to the capability stage Hopefully with this video You won't have to go through this cycle. You won't have to ride the roller coaster. You will be able to manage Your your your state as is and get yourself back to A functional level of working and resting that is that is the goal with this So i'm going to start um estate free as you as you do usually with things, you know, you always start from free if there's a one to four thing Burnout What are some of the suggestions that I have for if you are currently going through a burnout period? You can't do anything number one rest But don't shut yourself away. You can withdraw a little bit more than usual But I always suggest trying to keep some level of contact with people Trying to do some level of activity Even if it's just going for a walk Going doing very easy things playing video games crocheting doing music Try trying new sort of easy hobbies that you can do take more precautions when you do go into these highly Sensory social environment make sure that you implement breaks Make sure that you have your sensory put supports on hand Make sure that you prepare yourself and and make sure that you have enough energy before you go and do these events Possibly make sure that you're you're going with somebody who understands your situation and can Go home with you after this event's over you could ideally Take some time off work Or take more time off work than you usually do if possible You can ask for support You can go to the gp Ask them for mental health support if you're in the uk you might get general health care At the moment, it's not so great. You might want to go private If possible to get get some therapy during this period if you are Um at risk of yourself and particularly if you have mental illness Very very important thing to do not really much else that I can say in terms of burnout because Really it's it's just about waiting out just about recuperating resetting your brain Sadly, it's just something that you're going to have to deal with if you are currently during this In this, uh, hopefully we can move you to stage four, which is recovery So you've gone through a period of burnout you're wanting to get back to to usual things You're feeling like your energy levels are a bit more on point. You're focusing a little bit better You have a little bit more clarity in your mind. Perhaps your mood is elevating um to some degree depending like Comparing to how you were during the burnout. So one of the one of the things that I definitely Encourage people to do during this period is to adopt a reasonable routine in regards to capability Don't go straight into Doing your your like max efficiency Wave approaching life Approaching work Don't just jump straight into that because you are inevitably just not going to be able to do it You want to ease yourself into something and this doesn't necessarily have to be something related to work This could be literally just this is the time. I'm going to wake up this time. I'm going to go to sleep I'm going to try to I'm going to do this at this time. I'm going to go for a walk I'm going to do some crocheting In the evening. I'm going to go I'm going to have a call with my friend and play some video games In the early evening. I'm going to try and you know what listen to a podcast and get some some sleep setting up a routine Very very important Um, you can you can sort of add on to that as you as you as you get better and better Perhaps incorporate more work related things productivity that kind of thing make changes slowly as I said go easy on yourself and take breaks You're not going to be able to fulfill even this the slightest routine changes 100% all the time. It's not going to be a flawless Thing you may have a lot more panic attacks belt down shut downs overload From going into this but just stick at it Take breaks when you need to and go easy on yourself and just realize that it's going to be it's going to be a slow crawl up to capability which is Really what where we want to be put all the adjustments in place As I said the sensory adjustments the breaks all that kind of stuff You still need that stuff It's going to going to help you have a lot more energy for that routine that you're trying to build up and reach out to your closest people Your your your closest ones your special people consider meeting up with them Don't go out and meet new people You can do if you want to but perhaps go with someone that you know About spend time with your family people who are already quite close to you try and spend a lot more time with them And a really important thing that you can do during this time You don't necessarily have to do this you could do this in in the next stage But you can identify the causes and circumstances that have led up to you becoming burnt out What was the tipping point? Why did it happen looking back on? What was my workload like? What was my social life like? What external factors were were into playing into this situation? And is there actually anything that I can do to mitigate that can I give myself some wiggle room in terms of my schedule Can I give myself more rest time? Can I perhaps scale back on the social interaction that I have or increase the amount of social interaction that I have Make adjustments century things, you know, there's a lot of different things that you can consider But once you are able to identify that You can you can have a lot more capability to Like implement that on the on the next time round and perhaps not go through another burnout and stage one Um Back to stage one capability. This is the place that you want to be this is Ideally the final destination Congratulations You're out of burnout and you're back to business. You have a stable routine. You're working But you're also having some time where you're resting and you're doing things that are good and you are On the fly kind of adjusting how much or what you do on a daily basis To try and try and manage your energy levels your work life balance is awesome. You're like, hey Look at me. I'm out of the burnout I'm excited. I'm ready to to To get back to it. I'm doing well. I'm getting my job Getting my get my cash get my dollar my symptoms have cleared up. I'm not getting sick all the time I can actually focus and enjoy things. I've got clear head Uh The thing is is that this doesn't mean that everything is all rosy and gold Especially if you're like me and you actually have long-standing mental illness. This could just mean that you're just feeling mildly bad You don't sound very depressing bad to any of our outsiders, but um You know, if if you have mental illness, uh, you might just be experienced like a mild to moderate level of anxiety and depression that might be the the gold standard for you it could be But you're back to normality and that that's sure So we have the second stage which hopefully none of you are going into but what's that? more work sure I'm doing good. I can I can handle that I can I can take some of my rest time out I can replace that with a with another productivity related thing Sure. I'm a boss. I can handle it. I've been going for a burnout. I want to make the most of this stage two Capacity the place that you don't want to be the place that you're setting yourself up for failure And burnout once again, you're getting back on the railer coaster. You got off the railer coaster at capability You're back on the railer coaster. You've you've got seated up. You buckled yourself in You ready to get ready to take a trip around this this crazy Up and down cycle of feeling good and then doing everything and feeling bad and doing nothing Congratulations. You're taking on as much as you possibly can Burnout is a distant memory and you've decided you're a machine your robot you've been you've been listening to podcasts about hustle culture and making making that dollar you've been um Deciding to to become like an alpha male as as a man or an alpha female and you're like hell. Yeah, I'm gonna Socialize all the time. I'm gonna get loads of friends and party and I sound very cool. Your work calendar is full You're socializing every weekend. Yeah, it's great. You are doing fantastic and what's oh You've made it's been about two months since you've been doing this and and something unexpected has happened Sadly you do not have any more capacity to spare You are already feeling quite run down and exhausted in the first place Just because you just don't have enough rest and you're just doing so much and you're not giving yourself time to chill And yes, the cycle continues you reach a point you reach a breaking point something bad happens in your life Something unexpected that requires you to invest more energy more time More something and you already at your capacity And you have a breakdown or you have a burnout and things just go downhill very very very quickly It's not the place that you want to be it feels great. Sure. You feel like a real boss gonna It's not good. It's You you're gonna continue that cycle. So let's talk about preventing burnout in terms of like General tips stop operating by capacity Capability is key. As I said capacity is the max amount of things that you can do in a day You're filling up all of that time with productive things Things that cost a lot of energy capability It's it's a lot more achievable It's a lot more desired because it means that you can stay productive for a long long long long long period of time Perhaps you might have a break off work now and again, you know I had just a regular vacation things like that But you can you can handle work when it when it comes To need needing to work on a regular basis Capability is definitely key ask others or other autistic people if They think that your schedule is sane and get a sample size make sure to ask multiple people and say Oh, okay. This is this is what I'm doing on the daily You know I getting up at 6 a.m I'm doing 100 pros and then going for a 30 minute run coming home having a cold shower Um going on logging on to my computer right answering all of my emails in like Um a timelink that I've set about 30 minutes and then I'm straight into creative writing and I'm writing up until about 1 p.m Then 1 p.m. I go downstairs and I make a coffee and I grab like a snack on the side And then I'm just backing it and doing more work and then after work about 5 p.m I've got to go to the gym to do some weight training get back about 7 have a have a shower Um have that shower get dried get already have like a tiny bit of tea And then off out on the clubs for for a for a night out socializing with people It's a marathon. It's not a sprint a lot of cases Even you are probably aware that your schedule is too much And it's just being able to recognize that and think okay I'm I can handle it now. Perhaps I might not be able to handle it in a few months Stop consuming hustle culture, especially as an autistic person this can lead to a lot of internalized ableism even stuff around around like Where you should be in life? A lot of us when when we consume this content Um it can put us down a lot It doesn't factor in the facts that we are autistic that we have difficulties in some areas Some things require a lot more energy some things are better even but A lot of these things that people that people put out they're not necessarily designed with us in mind They're not really taking into consideration a lot of the factors that that can make being autistic difficult And needing support and again on the same vein as capability understand your social capability um understand the balance between socializing and feeling good and making sure that you have Some level of interaction with people so your mental health is good But also not too much that you're you're extending your social battery. It's easing up into your energy levels Um, it's not becoming a fun thing anymore. It's actually just like becoming extremely draining your masking way too much perhaps Implement some stimming sensory supports. I've talked about this a lot get some headphones get some shades You know very bog standard thing that you can do perhaps switch out some of the bright white fluorescent lights that you have in your house perhaps Switch out that electrical appliance that's been buzzing for the past five weeks Um, and you just haven't done anything about it. Explore your sensory side Find some stims that really make you feel good for me. That's going to the gym lifting weights that repetitive proprioceptive activity of of going to the gym Very very helpful for me and also asking for adjustments And I want to put a big heavy caveat here only ask for reasonable adjustments in the workplace If you feel safe in your job, do you feel like it's going to be a situation? Where they're going to be open to this and they're going to be like, okay, sure That sounds good. You have a nice boss. Perhaps um someone an organization which is focused on the well-being of people Um, just be careful around this because some people can You know, it's sometimes mandated by law that they do fill these reasonable adjustments But in the same vein They can lie about the reasons for firing you and that is a very rural reality When it comes to self-advocating for this stuff and in the past I've been a little bit blasé about saying like Go and get your adjustments. This is what you deserve Ideally exactly like 100 percent is what you deserve what you need. It's what you should get It's not always going to turn out that way. So in conclusion If you share my personality traits My mental illness, I feel sorry for you. It's not fun having low self-esteem and high expectations It's a potent combination. It's good for overall success in life to some degree but for like Enjoying life feeling good not going through burnouts. Yeah, I feel I feel sorry for you that you're similar to me in that way Burnout can also cause major disruption in all areas of life not not necessarily just work Every single area of your life. It can make it a lot more difficult You may have to learn understand your own capability What is considered to be your capacity? whether you are Operating based on capacity or capability And also analyzing your triggers what are the things that actually cause you to go down this this rabbit hole What are the contributors towards you going for a burnout? Remember that creators or people around you may not understand your experience of burnout and your capabilities as an autistic person This is the whole thing about hustle culture People telling you how you should live your life on the internet Um, it could be right sometimes sometimes not so much They're not really factoring in the fact that you are autistic because it's a general spread out message A lot of the time it's not really applicable and treat yourself like a friend Or someone that you care about or a nice boss, you know, you being a nice boss to yourself Are you really going to like prescribe the routine that you're doing? Um, when you're at max capacity to anyone that you really care about at all in your life Like a child Don't know why i'm good for a child. Would you give your your schedule your routine to a child and make them go through then like 13 hours of school a day. Some people might do them, you know I mean, I was going to say no judgment, but heavy judgment there. Are you actually being kind to yourself? That's a big thing And lastly life is a marathon It's not a sprint the thing about marathons is that you still need to take a break Even if you are operating at capacity, you'll still need to take a break You're still in tough some time to yourself Um outside this regular routine that you fulfill It just might be a little bit easier to get back into it after that a break is over Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this makes you to like subscribe if you want to see some more content from me Become a member for 99p support the channel Uh, you got a little badge next to your name encourages me to make more of this type of content and I hope you guys have a good day See you later You