day by day

Day by day I’m doing better. I have more energy, my digestion has improved, my attention, though not always easy to direct, is more focused than it has been in years. My capacity for social interaction has improved. Anxiety no longer pops up seemingly for no reason at all. Since I self identified my own personal flavor of neurodivergence, things have only gotten better.

Sometimes, when I’ve been in burnout for a while, I start to forget about what it feels like to be my adjusted, well regulated self. I start to wonder if I will always be this lethargic, this clumsy, this dull.

Then I drink some water or I move around for a little while or I eat something, and I catch a glimpse of what it used to be like to be invigorated by life, to be responsive and agile minded again.

I’ve been in and out of neurodivergent burnout for most of my life. Along the way I found different justifications for why it seemed to me that I experienced life differently from most of the other people I encountered. Some of the narratives were pretty funny in retrospect, for a few years as a small child I believed I was insane (that’s another story). All my life I’ve felt different.

At one point I thought the burnout was depression. I noticed a cyclic need for withdrawal from the world of other people into my own personal realm. Over time this need grew longer and more frequent, to the point where I was staying in every weekend, and eventually I was completely shutting myself away from the world. With enough time and care I would always come back to normal, and eventually rejoin the living for a while, until I would inevitably find myself back in that dull state that I had come to know so well.

A little over a year ago, I got sick of this cycle. My low periods were lasting longer than ever before. Over time the way I was living actually did start triggering periods of depression, but it I knew it wasn’t that simple. There was something deeper that was causing me to retreat.

I’ve had suspicions that I was autistic since about sixteen, and realized I might have ADHD in college, but since I had no intention of taking the medicine (I’ve since warmed up to it) I never sought a diagnosis. For years after that I lived outside my home country and often didn’t have access to the healthcare or resources to get diagnosed. Or I was just too burnt out to figure out how to go about it.

Self diagnosis is a controversial topic, but in the case of any burdened mind, the first step toward finding accommodation and recovery is self understanding. If self diagnosis leads to understanding, as long as you aren’t misrepresenting yourself to the public, self diagnosis might be the most important step. For me it’s set off a cascade of minor tweaks to my lifestyle which have had an exponentially positive effect on my mental health.

Self diagnosis was very important to me because it allowed me to dive deeper and look into resources that were already available to me, instead of waiting for a doctor to assess me. I’m in the process of seeking diagnosis (it’s going too slow). If I had waited to dive deep on Autism and ADHD so that I could actually understand myself, I would still be waiting. I would have missed a year of hyperfocusing on a subject that would end up leading me to finally addressing a problem that has been haunting me since I went to kindergarten. Most likely I’d still be overstimulated and under-performing too. Most likely I’d still be hanging on by a thread.

Ending the cycle of burnout doesn’t come instantly, nor does it come through any singular technique or medication. Rather, it comes through practical understanding, lifestyle changes, self acceptance, and a ton of patience.

I’m not there yet, but every day is a little better. When burnout inevitably revisits me, it is more predictable, easier to manage, and shorter in duration. Some days are harder than others and I know I have a long way to go. At least now I know where to look when I need wisdom about my struggles.

I’m not fixed, but I was never broken. I just couldn’t find the operating manual for my nervous system. Now that I have at least read some of it, I finally feel like I have a chance of actually living again.