 Well, hello everybody and it's amazing to see so many people here and lots, lots of names I'm meeting or seeing for the first time. So I'll introduce myself and Mel Hauser you she they pronouns I'm executive director here at all brains belong Vermont. Welcome to brain club. Our weekly community conversation on everyday brain light. So this topic was requested by you all last month. When we talk about. Oh, oh, there it is. Okay. When we last month in August, we talked about so many different aspects of autistic culture. And unfortunately, this is the reality of so many neurodivergent people's lives is is hovering in and out of burnout. And so we're going to take a deeper dive into that tonight. But first by way of introductions our community agreements since there are so many new folks tonight. All forms of participation are okay here. You can have your video on or off and even if it's on we do not expect anything of you we don't need you to look at the camera we don't need you to sit still you can walk you can move you can sit you can sit you can sit you can sit you can sit you can sit you can ee you know, all the things do what needs doing, and everyone is welcome here. And all communication is okay. So you can unmute and use mouth words you can type in the chat box you can just add whatever whatever you're comfortable with. I'm gonna actually now put the chat in my view now. Oh, wonderful. Hello, Elliot and River. Just a word about language. You will hear myself, maybe other people, but at least myself using identity first language. I am autistic. It's part of my identity. Each person is welcome to use the language that describes their own experience. And in addition to affirming all aspects of identity, we really want to respect and protect one another's access needs, including giving space for others to participate, given that, and by the way, participate in any way that you'd like to. Observation is a completely valid form of participation. And for those who would like to be entering the conversation, sometimes when thoughts ping pong so quickly, it's hard to enter a conversation sometimes. And so we will often tonight pause for processing. And lastly, I'll say that today is for education purposes, especially talking about a really loaded term like burnout. And of course, there being an overlap between burnout and depression. They are different and they often co-occur. And it's really important that to just name the thing that this is for education purposes only. We're not gonna be giving medical advice or medical assessment tonight. And that individual traumatic experiences are best processed in therapeutic setting. Last bit of access, closed captioning is enabled. You just have to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So depending on your version of Zoom, you might see live transcript closed captioning. But if you don't, try the more dot, dot, dot and choose show subtitles. You can also do the same thing and choose hide subtitles if you wanna turn them off. Before we get started, I want to make an announcement thanks to our amazing volunteer, Greg Costin. We have the first quarter of Brain Club 2023, the recordings directory all in place. You don't have to like register for the separate months anymore. If you wanna go back and get archives. So we will put the link in the chat. I don't think Lizzie's here yet. Anyway, we'll get the link in the chat for anybody who wants because it's not yet up on the website. It will be up later tonight on the website, on the Brain Club website, but we'll put the direct link to the recording directory before you. Oh, Sarah, you're on it. Thank you. No problem. Okay. So here we are. It's May 2nd. We are kicking off our new month's theme, neurodivergent lived experiences. What we know, of course, is that everyone has a different lived experience. And so that's why we have a community conversation. There will be things we have in common. There will be things that we don't. There will be things that are, you know, people who are not here, not having their perspectives represented. So just acknowledging that. So tonight we'll be talking about neurodivergent burnout next week. Hi, Kristen, Xenia, wonderful. I'm glad you're all here. Next week we'll be looking at, prompted by the annual Autistic Not Weird Survey. For those of you who are familiar with that, we're gonna be looking at some of those results and getting into conversation about autistic life experiences. We'll also be covering, as we often do, neurodivergent challenges at work, experiences of neurodivergent parents. And then our book chat for this month is The Reason I Jump by Naoki Hikashita. And by the way, book chat, for those of you who need a break up, we don't expect anybody to read the book, if you do, awesome. But otherwise, we structure a book chat as though no one's read the book. So please join us, even if you have not. So we talk a lot at Brain Club about the concept of niche construction. So niche construction, Dr. Thomas Armstrong's concept from the book, The Power of Neurodiversity. The idea is that you learn about your brain and you design a life that's based on that. But unfortunately, often we have the opposite of that. We have the square peg being hammered and destroyed to fit into the round hole. And when we think about the social model of disability where the issue is not deficits of the individual, certainly there are things that are hard, there are legitimately things that are impaired, but the amount of disability that someone experiences is relative to the barriers to access in the world. If I'm a wheelchair user and I approach a building that has a ramp, I'm gonna have less disability than if I approach a building that does not have a ramp. And when it comes to invisible disability, disability can't tell just by looking, it's the same exact thing, but it's just that often we don't talk about it that way or that lots of other people don't talk about it that way, even if we're talking about it that way. And so when we think about how we all have access needs, access needs being anything that is required to meaningfully participate, fully participate in one's environment or community, we all have access needs, it's just that for neurodivergent people, it's a lot less likely that we have our access needs met by the defaults of society. And of course examples of access needs, physical environment, emotional communication, personal, like all kinds of access needs. And most people don't know what their access needs met. I'm gonna, one of my, one of my favorite quotes from an AVB village member, I don't know what my access needs are, I just know they're not being met. Yup. So what happens is not only, maybe we have a setting and equation, I'm gonna set up an equation. So, I'm mixing and now, reference points, but an ingredient, the ingredients of access needs not being met. Next ingredient is insufficient dopamine. So autistic and ADHD brains are dopamine bound brains, dopamine requiring brains. Dopamine is the brain chemical implicated in rewards, motivation, pleasure, engagement. But for the dopamine bound brain, we require dopamine for literally everything, for motor function and coordination, for starting and stopping an activity, for starting and stopping an idea. Dopamine feels good to all brains, but when the dopamine bound brain does not have dopamine, we literally can't do the thing. And by the thing, I mean all things. So that's ingredient number two. When we don't have enough dopamine, we have two flavors, one or both flavors of inertia. Foot on the gas, I start doing the thing and I can't stop doing the thing. Maybe it starts with something that feels pretty good, turns into hyper-focus and then stuck, can't stop doing the thing, including talking about the thing. We're thinking about the thing. Version two stuck on the break, cannot initiate the thing, can't get out of bed in the morning, can't, you know, avoiding showering, procrastinating awful tasks. This is dopamine deficiency. And you combine those things, chronic access needs unmet with dopamine deficiency. And what you have is burnout. So this is a really interesting article that I would highly encourage folks to take a look at. And is Lizzie here with links yet? Yes, Lizzie is here and I also have the links if we need them. Amazing. All right, I can't see and I dragged the chat into a place I can't see. I actually should address this. I should like stop sharing and actually access the chat. Okay, now I can see things. Oh, amazing. Okay, now I can see everything and I can see you. Sorry about that. Having all of your internal resources exhausted beyond measure and being left with no cleanup crew defining autistic burnout. And this comes from a group of autistic researchers. So what is burnout? So neurodivergent burnout is a common condition experienced by neurodivergent people of all ages. And it has three main components. Number one, mental and physical exhaustion. Two, loss of tolerance to stimuli. And three, loss of skills. What do I mean by loss of skills? I'm gonna show you what my desk looks like. That is what my desk looks. Actually, it's actually worse right now compared to one that picture was taken last week. So there are 12 dirty cups and dishes on this desk. It's not laziness, it's burnout. It's a loss of executive functioning skills. And this may also, there's all kinds of skills, right? So it might be motor skills, executive functioning skills, communication skills, perspective taking skills. This may present no kinds of ways that we'll talk about. Lots of people ask, what do I do? So I'm in burnout. Let's say, we're gonna talk and we'll talk more about the different presentations of burnout in a minute, but the last educational piece I wanted to share is like the management part, like what do I do? There's no magic. It's that when we, again, the ingredient of not have your access needs met, not have enough dopamine, another way of looking at that is that the demands of your life are exceeding your capacity chronically. There's no magic. You have to shift that ratio of capacity to demand and AKA get your access needs met. Some 50,000 foot view points about that. Dropping the demands that you have the autonomy, agency, privilege to drop. That may not be the core demands of your life. Charging your battery more than you drain your battery, shifting your self expectations. Like for me, I look at this desk, I really don't have any judgment of myself about this. It took like a long time to get to that place. Really only recognizing this state as burnout for the past couple of years, knowing about that, sleep as much as humanly possible. And again, there are demands of life that interfere with that. And the number of hours you spend sleeping, they not actually be contributing to restorative sleep. Autistic people, ADHD people too, have higher rates of sleep apnea. So looking at this, just it's gonna be outside the scope of what we talk about today, but thinking about the co-occurring medical conditions that are more common for neurodivergent people that may be really very much contributing to the drain of battery, sleep apnea, nacell activation, dysautonomia, chronic fatigue syndrome. These are all very, very common in neurodivergent people. So I'm gonna open this up to conversation. What I'm hoping we can start off with is to hear from folks about how did you recognize you were in burnout? And once you did, what was helpful? And this question was asked by one of our regulars about prompting, is there anything that people in your life can do? There may not be, but I wonder if anyone has anything they'd like to share without this. All right, so Christina says in the chat, I think sometimes my expectations of what I was supposed to do just put me further in it. I needed rest, but stressed about my rest. So I was, when I was resting, I was not resting. Yeah, and it may not even necessarily be like other people's expectations. It could be expectations on oneself. If you follow all brains belong on Instagram, we did a video over the weekend about the experience of PDA in burnout. And it's like when someone tells you to rest, my limbic system will not allow me to rest. So there's that. Jenny says, writing, my job became harder and harder and harder and harder. Thought I was hitting dementia, right, loss of skills. Kelly says, or I do all the other tasks instead of the one I'm struggling to get through. Yeah, Jenny says something others can do, help with getting food, yes. Cutting up and planning vegetables, food is, what'd you say? That was the type of what should have said, veggies, not legs. I figured that I was like, I don't know what that means. I'm not hippin' up to know the lingo. I'm just gonna skip it. That's awesome. Yes, cutting up vegetables, amazing. Yeah, food is a chore. Food is a huge executive functioning project. Preparing food is not a task, it's a project. Well, I'm gonna get out of a share screen mode so I can see you all. Here we go. Nature Lover says, what happened to me was burnout but frankly, I did not realize I was in it until I was coming out of it. Right, because self-monitoring is a high-level executive function. So most of us are not able to self-monitor when we're deep in burnout. At first I thought I was depressed, very common. I kept functioning on a daily basis but as I felt better and better, I could see that I had been functioning below normal for some years. That resonates with me. How about others? Yeah, lots of hands. Lauren says, me today, I wonder how long someone can live just on frozen pizza? Yeah, Allie says, I've really resonated with a quote I've heard recently regarding juggling the many balls of life. Some are rubber, some of glass, which ones we are willing to let drop. Bounce balls, like taking a day off from work but not cleaning the house. Glass balls, self-care, rest. I use this mental image when I feel overwhelmed but too afraid to advocate for myself. Yeah, this reminds me that my needs are important. Alison says, I lost my ability to mask effectively. Yes. So masking, even though for most people it is not like conscious volitional choice. It's a subconscious loss of words right now. Yeah, it's subconscious for most people. Still, beneath that level of awareness there is still executive functioning impulse control that is required for masking, which is why many late identified neurodivergent adults get their diagnoses in the context of burnout, myself included. And so one is it's loss of skills but the losing the mask. And again, when we think about like say for example when we think about autism, the DSM five criteria for autism are autistic distress behaviors. And people make it to adulthood because they often have that pattern of cortical or the cortex, top of the brain overriding limbic responses to things, which is a skill. It's a skill worthwhile to have. It is a skill that is dangerous to overly rely upon. So when that is lost, people may appear more stereotypical in their distress behaviors. And that is certainly what happened for me. Michelle says, I knew I wasn't functioning optimally at work but it took a letter of reprimand to point out just how bad it had gotten. There wasn't a way to slow things down though. I was under the gun to perform way better and immediately. So now it's now threat response, which inhibits most performance. Not surprisingly, I wasn't able to instantly do that and I got reprimanded again and have now been able to gear up to a better functionality but still challenged, right? And still maybe not having your access needs met. Stevie says, yes to PDA and burnout is so tricky. My brain needs a fake demand to avoid the demand, creativity to find ways to rest. Oh yeah, that resonates with me. Christina says, I don't go to the store unless I body double now because grocery shopping is super hard now. Yeah, so you're in a culture of interdependence. I still have to lay down for an hour after shopping so I can't cook or do anything if I shop, right? You're budgeting your spoons. Jenny says, when I was a medical resident and feeling well beyond maxed out, getting scolded for underperformance, I honestly had no idea how to put forth any further effort mentally and physically. Used to wish I would break my leg just to get rest. Not your veg leg. Yeah, Stevie said. Stevie says, I can't mask anymore and it feels unsafe. So it feels unsafe that you don't have your mask, that you can't use it when you need it. Is that what you mean by that? Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's hard. Stay there for a minute. I can't mask anymore and it feels unsafe. Anybody else experience that? Vicki says yes. We can talk too, right? Yeah, go for it. Yes, yes. I think for me, I've had that level of burnout and exhaustion where the way I've phrased it to myself is like, I just can't be nice. And so I'll, I mean, I can hold it together at work, but I tell my family, I just say I don't feel good and I go to bed at like 6.30 sometimes. And I guess maybe that's what I do when I feel like I can't mask anymore. Like I'm just not okay. Yeah. So you, you, you, you... I hide. Maybe, or I don't know. Yeah. Like taking care. It feels really good. I just get... Yeah. Yes. And then I watch TV or I read or I go to sleep at 6.30. Wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful. Just catching up in the chat, Vicki says whenever I lose my ability to mask, I lose my job. That's so common. That's so common. You know, we wonder why autistic people have, you know, four to eight times more likely to be unemployed. This is what goes on. Linda says, when my ability to mask drops, I feel very vulnerable. I know I'm going to end up in some social situation that will bite me in the butt. Michelle says, I feel like other people can ask for help or admit they're struggling with something, but I feel like if I do that, I get in trouble and ignored or I'm told I'm making excuses and I just need to fix things. Dave says, learning to unmask around people who I feel safe with, still feel the need to mask with most people. Yeah. Aidan says, masking for me drains everything out of me. Right, so it's both. So it's that masking contributes to burnout by draining battery. And when burnout reaches a certain point, masking may not even be possible anymore, but it was part of the drain to begin with. Thanks for making that point. And Kat says, now instead of automatically fawning or people pleasing my body goes into flood mode and that's scary. Yeah, so let's take that and connect that to Christina's point from a little higher up in the chat that I missed. Sorry, can you talk about meltdown frequency and can other shared experiences mine got worse and more frequent? Yeah, that is super common. I think that often when people internalize dysregulation, there is the cortical override that makes that possible. It's part of the mask. You're still really, really, really distressed and as the mask comes off or either because you actually feel safe in a situation or because you're in burnout and you can't mask, then often that externalized dysregulation does tick up. So Jenny's asking about flood. So flood referring to, so often a brain club, I use this particular, this visual from neuroplastic that shows like all the Fs of dysregulation. So flood is just referring to like flood of ideas overwhelm Kat says, I'm flooded with emotion. I can't think anymore or I can lose time. It feels like an electrical storm in my brain. Amy, hi, Amy, I didn't know you were here. I was like, where's Amy? I just wanted to say that part about feeling unsafe when you're no longer able to mask, the mask has been like really a lot harder to keep on. And I think that people who are used to being around me presenting in one way that all of a sudden I'm sharp or they would consider blunt or rude, it can start feeling really unsafe. And I think the thing that's been most helpful for me is basically having validation or some accurate reflection. So it's like, if you can go to somebody and say, hey, this is a scenario that happened, what do you think? And if your access needs aren't being met or your overwhelm or your meltdown and your environment isn't supporting you and being safe. But if you can find somebody, even somebody in the AB Village that can kind of accurate reflect what's happening to you, that's for me, I've been able to gain safety in that way. So I just wanted to say that, like I wanted to honor the fact that it's like, it can feel so challenging, particularly when I start acting in a way that is like authentic to me, but it's not how I'm used to even perceiving myself. And so just kind of getting just validation or, hey, could you see me in that scenario how overwhelmed I was and honoring yourself in it. Hearing that, Amy. I think that, and we've talked about this in a couple of different ways in Brain Club before around like the access need of knowing where I am in time, space and relationship, that it's an access need. It's not that you need external validation or so it's not validation. It's that I need interdependent appraisal of this situation. Michelle says, I battle with the urge that I have to catch everyone up about why I'm different now as if it's less worthy of being seen than the masked version. Vicki says, yes, when I lose my mask and I'm suddenly acting differently around people, I'm sometimes seen by others as being fake or manipulative. My mother told me, you were never like this. Jenny says, does anyone else experience a sense of not wanting to be looked at? That's common. I wear very baggy clothes, hats, etc. In high school and college felt like men's eyes on me was like burning me with acid. Even today I sort of feel that way sometimes just don't want people to look at me. Maybe it's because I'm being viewed as being forced to perform. Dave agrees, my six year old that is very clearly part, it's an access need of like I don't want people to look at me. I'm not giving you consent to take a picture of me. Anyway, it's common. Kelly. I was gonna say pretty much the same thing. My older son hates having his picture taken unless he has given like explicit consent and knows what's going to be going on with the picture. And I too, I hate like being, I don't want to be noticed when I'm out and about it. I just want to go about my business. And I said that the other day and my younger son kind of laughed at me. And I was like, why are you laughing? And he's like, mom, you have like blue and purple and green hair. And I was like, well, that's because that's what I like to see when I look in the mirror. I'm not doing it for other people. And like, if anything, like sometimes I want to like hide my hair when I go out in public so people can't see it because it's mine. It's for me. It's not for them. And like, I kind of helped him understand, but it was just like that little moment of like, well, I'm actually doing it for me, not for you. Don't look at me. And I think it was something he didn't quite understand but then he kind of did. But definitely not wanting to be looked at is a thing. Yeah, and there's quite a few people in the chat. Jade says, I've hated my picture being taken my entire life. I've always been told, quote, to stop being so shy or stop being fussy. It always felt shamy. Yeah, as though there's one default way and the default way is that like, everyone loves taking their picture. Like obviously we even in like the span of three seconds we've just like, there's a million people who don't want their picture taken. Jenny says, I feel like being looked at requires me to hold the second image of myself in my head. I used to call it self-objectification now, but maybe it's just the act of masking. Ooh, that is very interesting. And it's also like a brain thing. It's an executive functioning thing to zoom out and self-monitor. So that's also really interesting. Jenny says, this hits me with zoom cameras at some point during the pandemic. Having the camera on started to literally hurt. Right, and because in many environments it's not normal as to shut your video off. Like, why would you not want someone to be their most comfortable self when they're meeting with you? Steve says, there are whole cultures where they regard having your picture taken means the theft of one's soul. That's really interesting. Thanks for sharing that. So we've heard from lots of folks of some signs that they are in burnout. What is helpful? We've heard, so we've heard about sleep. We've heard about kind of tricking oneself into resting. What else has been helpful for folks either that you do yourself or that other people do with you or for you? Ellie says, Brain Club, that's awesome. Kim says, I feel like being seen by others is a demand for me to acknowledge them in a socially appropriate way. There's the expectation to smile, to make eye contact, to say hi or chat, and it's too much. Yes, yes, so much this. Kat says, one thing that has helped me was to write down everything that I was going, doing or trying to do minute by minute. I realized I couldn't possibly do it all. I made some tough decisions about what I was gonna stop doing and focused on being okay with what I could do. I had to let go of the goal of being so productive, especially because we can link, hearkening back to, just he's hearkening in a sentence. February Brain Club on urgency culture and how productivity, urgency culture, it's all part of oppressive power systems. So there's that. Jenny says, honestly, I have to say that what helped me out of burnout was getting out of mode. Like getting out of survival mode. Survival mode. Oh, I missed your, you added a word. Yes, sorry, survival mode and that required having more material security of partner stable housing. Otherwise I was in full survival mode and burnout, right? Because how could you not have been? And that's where like that, the idea of like dropping demands, there's so much privilege associated with being able to drop most demands. Stevie says, stimming helps, lots of deep pressure and radical acceptance. Christina says, honestly, I don't know how to social much right now. So I'm mostly very picky about anything I say yes to, right? You're meeting your access needs. Elizabeth says, I'm on a leave of absence for work and apply for short term disability while I make a plan, but I can never go back to that level of pretending I'm okay ever again. Yes, I'm being extremely honest with my closest people. Steve says, sometimes I need a day to freak out. Yup, Eden says, I'm taking notes here because I have burnout cycles a lot. I would think I'm okay and then I go back in. So that's common. So that's really common. So you recover enough to know what's happening and then without like a major paradigm shift of that capacity to demand ratio, right back in. Vicki says, when I'm in burnout, I need to keep the audio books playing all the time. I don't know if I'm co-regulating with a calm voice or if the progression of the story helps me to keep moving. Oh, I love that. Shell says, I tell those around me when I feel myself going into quote, alien mode, aka no expectation to human, which you're defining as eye contact, talking, facial expressions, responding to communication at last different lengths of time, but sometimes even 10 to 15 minutes, totally demand-free helps you catch your breath. Christina uses hammock swing for squeezing. Go ahead, Sarah. I was just gonna say we have a hand raised. Oh, I can't see that. Oh, look at that. It's blending right in the corner. Hi, Elliot River. Hi, this is Elliot. I was thinking about how I often, so like I've been not wanting to show up to work lately and like not all the time, but sometimes. And so I'm realizing that like, I just need to forgive myself for not being able to just show up and kind of like just call out autistic, I guess. I wouldn't necessarily, I'm not out at work in that way, but I think that I just need to forgive myself and get that rest. Because I think in my brain, it's like I'm not supposed to need rest in that particular way, or like there's nothing like wrong, like there's no, like I don't have a cold or anything like that. But actually like, I think I do sometimes just need rest and recharge time. Yes, yes. And I think, you know, when we really think about, you can't like, if your cell phone runs out of battery, you can't like use it. It's just off, right? Like, but why is it this idea that you can somehow push through, like if your battery's drained, your battery's drained, you have to charge your battery. And you know that, and that's what the burnout conversation is about. It's the decades of cortically overriding, like the law of physics that says that when you drain your battery, it's done. Nature lovers saying, if anyone has a source to share for convoys, I like Andy P on Headspace, but 10 minutes is about the max he speaks. I'd love a 60 minute recording. Yeah, crowd sourcing for convoys. Michelle says, oh, I read Michelle's and then Jenny added, I love the idea of simply telling people, though I might pick a different phrase because we're human in our own way. Steve says that there's too many professions which are structured in such a way that neurodivergent people are excluded by virtue of the needlessly relentless demands. Right, they are needless. It's the culture. They perpetuate because the cultures for no other reason. Yeah, education, healthcare, so many different fields. I think that in the chat, other folks are collecting ideas for soothing voices. That's lovely. I find that ABB really has helped me prevent burnout, not only Brain Club, but I think just like the small medical groups in any supportive way, I think there's a part of me that's like, if I don't have to go and explain myself or even if I can go and just stay what's not working or what is working in the shared experience, I think has prevented a ton of burnout for me. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. And I think that that's just part of authentic connection is that feeling understood by people. I can say even, I had a conversation with several of our staff here about like, I thought I was gonna be having this big conversation, like we're gonna have to sit down and talk. I'm in burnout. And they're like, I know you've been this way. You've been in burnout for a long time. Oh, I didn't know that. So I think there is just this, it's important to feel understood by people. Elizabeth says, once I realized that there are different kinds of breasts to help me to dial in with what I needed, rest from decisions. Oh, I love that. Permission to not be helpful. Oh, that's amazing. And C.V. says something that's been helping me is programming my AAC as a support mirror or warm body voice for things. That's cool. That's awesome. Jenny says, not having to constantly be proactive to think of what others need and meet it ahead of time. I'm so programmed to do that and it's exhausting. Christina says, having a therapist that's neurodivergent helps takes me, it has taken me a super long time to find one, but I finally have one and actually getting tools now. That's great. One of the other things that related to the concept of rest and all the different types of rest, but like there's also this fairly universal thing that like when people don't sleep enough or have like restorative sleep enough, it takes a toll on one's brain. And yet it is really hard to sleep enough. I think that often when there's a variety of reasons why people stay up late, that's when maybe that's when there's time to like engage in their monotropic focus or like, you know, have uninterrupted time that is just for them. But the sleep thing is part of this equation, but I think that often people don't talk about Isabel says, could you speak to chronic illness versus burnout in their interaction? Oh, absolutely. So, you know, in similar ways to the fact that sleep deprivation, you know, contributes to burnout, you know, chronic inflammation. And that's why like I even had a slide about that, that if you have any chronic thing you're dealing with, it drains your battery extra. And, you know, it doesn't even need to be something, you know, that would have drained your battery five years ago, it's draining your battery extra now. So whether that's chronic pain, you know, really anything, it's just draining your battery and you're much more likely to get to a place where your battery's drained. Lizzie says, I was reading an article about burnout this week and it was saying that social connection can help. And I'm so thankful we have the A to B Village. That's awesome, Lizzie. Jenny says, I think about my autistic mother versus me a lot. She has thrived as an older adult and I think it's because her life is totally tailored to her niche, niche construction. My dad is completely devoted to making sure her needs are met at all times. And as a result, she's a superstar in her pursuits whereas I typically don't have help with anything. Yeah. Michelle says, I don't process my life in real time and process it so much in my sleep that it feels too intense sometimes to even lay down because of the flood. That's a really important insight. And I think that, you know, maybe part of the, part of shifting that capacity to demand ratio might be finding ways to get that access need met. Because if it's, yeah, I think that's a really, like that self-awareness piece is really, I think really important. I just wanna create some space, especially for anyone who would like to share who hasn't had a chance yet. What else belongs part of this conversation? As if it says, I'm thinking about how sometimes seeking to meet my needs can also drain my battery. Like I'll go for a coffee with a friend and it will feel great, but I will still need a nap. What is that? I mean, it's both. So I enjoy interacting with most of the people I interact with any given day. So that's not always been true, but it's true now. And at the end of the day, I'm exhausted every day. So they're both true. So it's, and we talk about conflicting access needs between people. You know, if my six-year-old has an access need to like discharge her voice in really loud ways at the same time that I need quiet, we're gonna have conflicting access needs. But we also have, we can have internal conflicting access needs. I need sameness and novelty at the exact same time. That's really hard. And that's how it is. So I need alone time and social time at the exact same time. That's really hard. That's where like, you know, parallel play for adults is so successful. Tina says, how does one rest while they're taking care of others? It's like lots of grace for each other. Yeah. And, you know, it may not be that, you know, one might not have the privilege of like dropping all demands, but maybe you're dropping some. So like, I have to take care of my child and I don't clean the bathroom. I drop all their demands. I'm still a kid. That's another Instagram post we had last week showing all the executive functioning demands dropped examples. Jade says, my wife and I will have two TVs going on with two different games you're playing and we'll catch up with each other every couple of hours, even though we're in the same room. It's awesome. Steve says, we were supposed to stop parallel play when we were four, right? So like that's that neuro normative narrative of like, just because you turn a certain age, like it's that now there's only one right way to interact and like how unhelpful that narrative is. And that's the narrative that's like out there. And I knew even in chat box format, I knew you were saying that with a flare of irony does I do so much better on the weeks when my kids are with me, I share them 50, 50 with other parent because I have a clear full schedule on expectations. When I'm not masking, I don't really know how to prioritize and schedule my own needs. It's easier to focus on kids. Yeah. So I mean, that's another example of like, you've identified an access need when there's a difference between one environment or set of circumstances than another and one feels better and one feels worse. It may very well be that something actually is reflective of your access needs being met versus not. Lizzie says, I dropped demands for myself. I shower less, right? Because shower is not a task. It's a project, a huge executive functioning load. Clean my house less, use paper plates. I stopped feeling bad about trying to be green. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Because in a world where something has to give and you only have so much capacity, you have to triage where you spend your spoons. And you'll contribute to the environment in other ways. Yeah. Steve says, I want parallel play. Just others want to blabber and interact. Yes, yes. So again, being really clear around access needs. Like, so for example, actually I'll tell a story. When we were preparing to launch all brains belong, Luna, who was four at the time, said, mama, I think there should be a room in all brains belong where people just go and they play side by side and they don't talk to each other. And you should have another room where people can go and they can play together. Like, just four, like what a genius move. Like, yes, just being really transparent around access needs. Steve says, I'm not glad that there are so many of us that relate to burnout, but it feels good to be here in community and share about it. Yeah, yeah. And to think, though, think about how many of us have been in this state or similar states and not known that it was burnout and felt really badly about ourselves about it and how many people are out there in the world who still feel really badly about themselves. And by the way, this is not linear. You could be at peace and know this is burnout and be not judgy of yourself, but then next time the internalized ableism will settle right back in. It's a constant process of unlearning and rewiring those neural pathways. Michelle says, my extroverted PDA son is hyperverbal and I'm introverted PDA and I go, so you lose the ability to speak more, the more he demands and constantly verbally respond. So we've got no place now where I can tell him my body's running out of talking energy and he's starting to understand that's awesome. That is awesome. I have similarly found that explicitly and openly talking about my access needs, even with my six year old, I mean, she gets it. She's like, oh, yeah. And yes, it's because I think she gets it because we have many similar access needs, but it's also, I think young children are they start off being more open and it's like the lifetime of messages of growing up in the world that interfere with that. And that's what we're all having to unlearn so much. Nature Lover says, I definitely decided my daughter did not love me when I was in burnout, yet it's so obvious to me that she does love me very much. Yes, yes. Jenny says, before I knew I was neurodiverging to tell people I was getting overstimulated, which it pretty much is, although a lot of people I think can't identify with that. Yeah. Nature Lover says the session so packed with the nominal sharing and ideas and information. Thank you all. That's wonderful. That's great. And Christina says, I realize now that break I took in college was burnout. These days in middle school, I'd come home and when raked to bed was burnout. Yes, the time I had my son, I didn't wanna see anyone for six months burnout. Yeah. Yeah, and I think there's, this is even in young children, young children who have like regressions, burnout. That's what this is. It's capacity exceeding demands. So I think that one of the things, because we come from, many people are at a place where that capacity to demand ratio is very difficult to shift because the core demands of life, one does not have agency or autonomy or privilege to drop. If somebody has a job, they can't just quit it, they have to have a job. Or if there's really just any number of really difficult things. And it's, I think the narrative of what's happening as it happens, I think for many people is another independent source of battery drain. So like just becoming more familiar with your own experience and having a different narrative as it's all unfolding, I think actually can have a subtle yet profound impact on that equation. So if you're in a terrible job and you're clear about what your access needs are and you are endeavoring to have them met and it's not happening and you can still zoom out and recognize that it's the environment that's interfering with your access needs, not because you're broken or defective and there's nothing wrong with you, that shift can be really, really impactful. You know, if you can shift to a place where you, you know, you blame the environment instead of blaming yourself, that's huge. So with that, I am really, really grateful to all of you for being here. And dissipating in your own way. And we'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you, Mary, to help, helpful to know what it is, even if there's no way to stop it, it's just a huge shift. Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. So next week again, we'll be taking a look at the autistic not weird survey results on autistic life experiences. And I think we'll lead to some good conversation. And I'll look forward to seeing you then. Oh, Lizzie, thank you. Oh, yes, okay, two things, sorry. All right, so Lizzie is reminding me to tell you that right now at seven o'clock, Vermont Public is going to replay. There was a Vermont edition this afternoon on autism. And I was one of the interviewees and it's gonna be replayed right now. So the link is in the chat, but it'll be on the website. Even if you're not watching it now, it'll still be up there. Anyway, thanks everybody, have a good one.