For me, burnout is like having been kicked to the ground while being bullied and beaten-up, experiencing feelings of hurt, shock, overwhelm, and exhaustion. Burnout recovery is like the struggle to get back up when there's a pause. Depression is like when the bullying is relentless or keeps resuming before there's been enough respite to get back up, so, I start feeling numb and losing the will to get back up.
This was so validating and the most accurate descriptioon of depression I've come across. The challenge is when depression _and_ burnout strikes at the sam time. Hard to destinguish between the two and know when to rest and when to push forward.
Polyvagal theory and the over riding strength of the lambic system means even though logically you know why something’s making you upset like trauma, you can’t outthink it. The emotional response will win every time.
Since I’m a late diagnosed autistic who was treated for depression most of my life, I’m trying to reframe my past experiences and figure out what was really depression & what was burnout. Like you, I find that staying somewhat active helps. Doing nothing is really difficult for me, even though what I’m doing may look like nothing to people who are hyper focused on productivity.
It's so hard isn't it? Me too. Both ADHD (inattentive type) and Autism gets diagnosed as depression, and goes undiagnosed for years for a lot of women. 💕🫶🏻
I am a very social-withdrawn person and really struggle with company, social interactions. I have autism and bipolar disorder, depressive type, diagnosed 14 years ago. Very often living a day seems like a win. Some of your approaches to viewing things are really helpful. Thank you.
I went through the same thing when asking for help and I must say, being offered "meditation and exercise" when even just asking for help itself took *so much* out of me was extremely demoralizing... It was like telling the fire department my entire house was on fire, with me in it, and the response being "Hmm, I understand but... Nice weather we're having tho, isn't it? :) " and being expected to entertain these childish ideals, while my entire life is disintegrating before my eyes and everything hurts so much as the fire eats away at me, felt like it was meant to make me give up and stop bothering them... which you should never want when dealing with a depression patient. I understand the principle of ruling out the most likely causes before moving on to more aggressive treatment for physical illness. It makes sense and it helps save lives. But feeling like I want to stop existing *is not caused* by a "lack" of meditation and exercise. Meditation and exercise can help people get back in motion once they are properly supported and medicated, but they are like suggesting "planting a nice flowers garden" in the house fire analogy. Gardening is great, but it doesn't help unless we first deal with the house fire.
It's the human equivalent of ''have you tried turning it off and on again? Have you done your updates?'' After a while, it gets insulting and discouraging.
I've had almost the opposite problem - I have had what was diagnosed as depression since I was a child but now I think it was burnout which is why none of the treatments worked. I'm trying to treat it as burnout now which is hard for a few other reasons.
I was just explaining to my therapist that I was also diagnosed with depression since childhood and no treatments worked. I said I believe it has likely been autistic burnout. But, I also acknowledge that there have been times when depression has creeped in as well. I think seeing the difference will help me going forward. I wish you all the best.
It's really important to consider the connection with chronic health issues, too - chronic health issues can cause depression both physically (by impacting neurotransmitters, for example) and emotionally (by making it more difficult to do things you enjoy, like going for walks, for example). Either way, treating the underlying health issue will help - it took me 15+ years to get diagnosed with Hashimoto's, and within a few weeks of starting treatment, my lifelong depression just vanished. It has also helped me to get outside every day, even for just 10-15 minutes. We are not designed to spend our lives holed up indoors. You don't have to walk or do physical activity - you just need to breathe fresh air and take in the natural light (I take off my shoes and earth, if the weather is good). It makes a difference. I know a Native American medicine woman, and she says to go outside and ask yourself if your feet are open. Meaning, can you connect to the earth through your feet? It might sound silly, but we need light to balance our circadian rhythms and we need the earth to ground ourselves physically - nature directly impacts our biochemistry through physics. For what it's worth. 💖
My problem is always having to choose one thing out of all the things I have to do as a human to focus on in order to do it in a good way. For example: - Studying Computer Science - Learn Japanese - Take care of my body (gym, etc...) If I choose one, I will not be able to do the other two because my brain will be in pilot mode. If I want do do something good, I need to chose only one.
I'm struggling with this specific pain point as well, the decision paralysis is very apparent and stressful because I can't seem to appropriately rank what I should do when because other options can't be pursued when you pick one, and they all seem somewhat equally important. Go for a walk? Make art? Do chores? Do more work? Call a friend? Study history? Relax and play video games??? I don't know!! I need a robot, a second digital brain, to help manage what I do when and in what order relative to the other tasks. On a positive note, I'm trying to incorporate random chance into deciding what I should do next when I have an open time slot and it's actually been really helpful oddly enough. I'll assign a number to each of those different categories of things-to-do, and then I'll use Google's random number generator to select what I should pursue next. From there, I'm trying to figure out approx. how many times per week I should do each type of thing so I can get somewhat closer to doing the things I want to at least some of the time instead of always defaulting to either work, chores, or digital entertainment. I'm hoping that some combination of this random chance approach along with trying to iteratively create a "schedule" of suggested things-to-do (like "oh yes, it's the second Tuesday of the month, that's always a 'learning day' so I should pick an activity that facilitates learning in some way") will improve the situation. If you have any ideas you'd like to add about what you do to try to deal with this, let me know as I'm on a long journey to figure out how the hell to live and not just waste the whole time I have on earth doing the things I have to do like pay bills and then never actually learn a second language or reconnect with that old friend I've been thinking about for years... Life is hard, but we've all got each other and our own brains to try to make it better. :)
Hey Paul, I feel you. Lack of momentum is basically the theme song of my depression, can't say it better myself. My therapist kept saying I should be kind to myself, which he interpreted as not forcing myself to do anything. But that backfired - if I didn't force myself to keep training and seeing friends, I basically lost the will to live. These days, I think "being good to myself" sometimes means forcing myself to play tennis or do some yoga. It helps me build momentum, so I can keep going and actually start feeling something again. It's easier because I can make these things routine. No decision needed, I just go! :D Also, when my mood is really low, stress weirdly helps. Like, if I have a deadline at work and have to force myself to work, I feel energized within a day or two. Sadly, I burn out super fast that way, so it's not sustainable. Plus, I think it might be masking the real issue. Either way, it's a good feeling in the moment, even though I know it'll cost me later.
I've been struggling with depression on and off since childhood. I have completed my diagnosis process and currently waiting for the results. Finally at the age of 44 I am going to get answers and hopefully even receive the support I need. So from personal experience, late diagnosis is another cause of depression 🤔💭
@@colleend80 47 now. Diagnosed at 44. It seems as though the habit of a lifetime, which was to fail, but always try again has come to an end. Now that there is a reason as to why I've been failing has taken the effort away. Trying to get it back. Don't let yourself fall into the same pit.
I think the worst part of late diagnosis is that you never understood what was going on in your life, everything was confusing and felt out of control, people judged you based on what they think a neurotypical person is like and how you aren't living up to their "healthy" standards (eg socializing more frequently), partners think you don't love them because of your flat affect and you kept forcing yourself into situations that were well past your limitations but you felt a desire to fit in. And all that weight just becomes so much that you do get depressed quite often. I'm 41 and just got diagnosis with ASD Level 2 back on Halloween. It was a relief to finally understand myself and my limitations, but at the same time I am not at the point where all my supports are in place. So I'm suffering from crazy high amounts of anxiety. I had my Job Capacity Assessment for my Disability Support Pension application yesterday and I had a full blown anxiety attack, I was stuttering and knew I was close to becoming non-verbal, the assessor was at least patient and polite which allowed me to finish the interview. I went for a walk on my favourite bush trail afterwards to calm down. And later that afternoon when I was driving to get some groceries I started crying and it wouldn't stop, and then my foot started to stress stim on the accelator by tapping up and down. I had to pull over and turn off the car and cried for about 5 minutes straight until it was out of my system. So I would suggest if you need DSP, give yourself the day and have someone there with you for the call for support. Friend. family member or a support worker. Even the assessor said she wished I had someone with me, and that she thinks it will be best for the next assessor (a contract doctor to do final confirmations) that I have a support person with me. Because it is a rough and raw experience.
@@TheMSS1977 Apparently that crash is really common after formal diagnosis or self diagnosis. I'm a few years older than you, and started wondering after a couple of friends who were recently diagnosed started posting links to articles about what it's like to be neurodivergent as a middle aged woman. I thought I was reading to understand them better. As I read article after article, they all kept describing me. When you've spent a lifetime being gaslit that you're lazy, not trying, being difficult, obstructionist, etc and you've been guilted into just trying harder and harder, and then you realise that no matter what you did you could not be the way you were told you should be, you stop. You stop believing the lies. You stop bashing your head against the wall. You stop trying to fly and come to realise and accept that you're a penguin. Sure, you're a bird, but those wings are built for swimming. It takes time to adjust your expectations and to learn how to work to YOUR strengths rather than other's expectations. You'll get there, but it takes time. You've completely up-ended everything you thought you knew, everything you've been told should make you happy. Then you have to work through society telling you you're disabled. Nope. In many ways it's neuro-typicals who are under developed. Here comes a whole lot more for you to process and adjust to. As just one example - we've always been told we can't maintain friendships, we ghost people, we stop calling. Neuro-typicals were taught object permanence as preschoolers, but have never learnt friendship permanence. They need us to keep proving to them that the friendship still exists. It's like playing peek-a-boo with adults.
Yes, I can 100 per cent relate. I find it hard to recognise when I've recovered enough from burnout and need to push myself again and if I don't recognise that moment it gets harder to motivate myself. Other times I need to completely let go and relax and let the desires surface on their own. Hi, I haven't commented before, but I love the work that you're doing here and have been watching the podcasts for a while.
This type of depression you describe is called dysthymia. It's basically chronical, sometimes better sometimes worse. I have it and I'm also auDHD (and more but let's leave it at that). I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and I'm now convinced that it's either its own type of neurodivergence, or it's part of other types.
Yes, can definitely relate to the inertia of being at home de-motivating and dragging me down, where as going to a class at the gym outsources the motivation and can bring me up. Its like the more time I stay inside, the more depressed and weird I get. Also, I think the same way masking starts to burn us out, it eventually leads to depression because we keep pushing ourselves down, almost as if erasing ourselves to not inconvenience people... that DEFINITELY leads to depression, anxiety, anger, mood disorders in general! Great video, keep up the good work!
Getting out of bed to watch the sun come up is good and watching the birds get their breakfast at the feeders. if I am home alone it’s wonderful, no one is making demands. Both my husband and son are autistic, I have to pull my mask on and become the motivator, which I hate. They’re both slow to do anything or won’t change how a task needs to be done. Even if it’s staring them in the face. I find myself depressed a lot, and always looking for ways to have alone time.
Bargain. If you do things like drive your son somewhere, tell him he needs to do X. If he doesn’t, then you will spend the time you would have spent driving doing the task at the time he needs you to drive him. And tell him that now you have other things to do. Same for hubby. If you do his laundry, stop. If you fix him food, stop. Say if you can’t do x,y,z when they need to be done, then you won’t do things for him. Tell him you get angry doing all these things for him but he won’t do things for you. And since you can’t make him do things, the only way to stop these angry feelings is to stop doing things for him. And if he tries to make this an attack on him, say this is about regulating your feelings, this is about self care. And say household chores are the responsibility of everyone living in the home, and everyone needs to every day look for something that needs to be done and do it without being told. People won’t change the status quo if they are happy with it. The one unhappy with the status quo needs to change their role in it and disrupt it. They are capable of doing more than they are, but they won’t unless they are expected to. Another thing to do if they act clueless, write what chores need to be done and assign them to each on a dry erase board posted on the fridge every morning. Worked great with my sons, one with ADHD. This allows them to pick when they do it, giving them some control over it. Read “the Dance of Anger”, it was recommended to me by a psychologist and helps you recognize how we behave in relationships and how to set boundaries and manage difficult relationships and calmly make changes congruent with our emotional and psychological needs.
I think you're explaining this very well and it helped clarify something for me personally; the depression (in cases like this) is probably related to low dopamine levels. Where I am, if you're depressed, you always get prescribed SSRIs and then if that doesn't work they put you in SNRIs instead, and there's a general reluctance to prescribe anything else. If the first one they give you doesn't work, they just prescribe you another and then another and another... And then if none of them work, they start to give you combinations. When that doesn't work either, they just put the blame on you and accuse you of 'not wanting to get better' and then of course they claim they can't help you and you're on your own. I've had to go through more or less every SSRI and SNRI on the market and they all made me worse. No one listened to me when I tried to explain that they made me worse. When you put it in terms of motivation and building momentum, it becomes clear that it's probably more about dopamine than serotonin and then of course SSRIs aren't likely to work. Once I finally, after many years and endless discussions and having to do lots of research myself, got to try something that increased my dopamine instead, the depression disappeared very quickly. The good news is that once you realize that your depression might be about low dopamine, you can adjust your behavior accordingly and find ways to build a balanced level of dopamine even without meds.
The most useful thing I got out of Robert Sapolsky’s book on stress was an explanation of learned helplessness as a source of depression. (To anyone thinking of reading it, be warned it describes a nasty psychological animal experiment). The basic gist of it was that if an individual finds themselves in a situation where they cannot determine what to do to protect themselves, this can create learned helplessness. That this could occur with autistic people seems pretty obvious to me. And this is why cognitive distortions, while a real phenomenon, are at best a partial answer. Did I or someone else put an incorrect idea into my head? Or is there a real problem that I’ve tried to deal with, over and over - but I can’t figure out what I should do to solve it. Most often this has to do with my interacting with people in a certain way, and not getting the response I expected. This could qualify as a cognitive distortion of sorts - I often can’t see why people react poorly to what I said, or sometimes I might misread their reaction - but it’s not me thinking erroneously that I have trouble interacting with people. There is a problem and I can’t figure out what it is. Viola, learned helplessness.
@nnylasoR I feel like the double empathy problem is the biggest factor in my own difficulties. I just don’t get why certain things that make such sense to me seem to come across so differently to others. Even when I understand it intellectually, it doesn’t feel right. A lack of filters and difficulty sorting relevant information from irrelevant is my other biggest problem area. That part is more oriented toward my ADHD I think.
Maybe I don't understand what you're saying, but that doesn't sound like learned helplessness. My understanding is the person would be somehow convinced that they couldn't do what they wanted in life when they really could. But since they have always failed, they don't try.
I really appreciate you sharing last week (I think) when you didn't feel 100% due to migraine and this week about depression. While I'm very sorry you have to go through these things, I feel seen and understood and feel motivated to just do my best with what energy/motivation I have. I appreciate you being authentic and making it ok that sometimes depression is just hard but knowing the difference between burnout and depression is very helpful. Many thanks.
Very helpful insight: often it isn't lack of energy that weighs us down. It's lack of motivation. I'm going to focus on finding the spark of motivation.
I relate to the horrendous care for depression so much. When I got diagnosed with depression, there was just nothing they could offer me apart from some basics and DBT. One of the reasons I was considered depressed was my sleeping schedule, I really struggled to stay up during the day and slept for ridiculous amounts of time. When I complained about that in the hospital, I told them about chest pains and waking up gasping for air. They just gave me extra sleeping medication. They kept telling me it's "just" stress, I "just" need to go to bed at the same time every day to develop a habit (does not work like that for me). TURNS OUT I was actually having allergic reactions to the dusty bed sheets there! I was SO lucky I never got a severe reaction, the idea of suffocating and not being able to wake up because of heavy meds is horrifying! It took me months to figure this out, and only after I learned about autism and my issues with pain/emotion awareness. I can finally sleep well now that I dropped the stupid depression meds and switched to anti-allergen bed sheets. Edit: And to add to that, another reason for my diagnosis was my negative thoughts and SH tendencies. I found out recently that I just have those when I'm dysregulated, and guess what, fatigue worsens that. So when I fixed my sleep, the negative thought patterns and SH went away. I am honestly pretty upset that none of the therapists I ever went to even considered that, and I had to learn it on the internet from people like you instead 🤷♂
55 years old, diagnosed ASD at 53, after a lifetime of various misdiagnosis and the related treatments and medications based on those misdiagnosis (either useless or actively harmful due to paradoxical responses and atypical side effects), so it took me *far* too long to learn that the intrusive negative thoughts were actually the direct result of dysregulation. What a relief to now see those same thoughts as useful warning signals that I am overstimulated/overwhelmed, and to use them as an indication that it is time to remove myself from the situation at that moment rather than forcing myself to continue (for instance, I have learned to prioritize errands to get the most vital done first, so I can abandon others if need be; when in the past I would’ve just pushed through while spiraling deeper into self-loathing…enough cumulative effect of that could lead to what seemed like profound depression and SH)😅
I recently got upset with my GP, I said to her 'I've never had any support from you people, I've worked out what was wrong with me from you tube therapists and other folks that have gone through it.' It is so sad when you recognise they are not going to be any help and we have to help ourselves. My learning from this: don't trust the 'professionals' do your own research! I'm glad you solved your issue x
@@faye6459 Exactly! All too often, the professionals have fixed ideas and no interest in learning why you don’t fit their “card of a few possible boxes to be ticked”…at my age, I am too exhausted from attempting to explain myself to people who seem to have no inclination to even try understanding🙄
@@faye6459 I trust the professionals who specialize in autism! I suppose you could call reading books and watching vids doing my own research, if so then I definitely agree. Unless they have updated, specialized training, or they are autistic themselves, I can almost guarantee whatever they recommend is only gonna get me off the right track.
I recommend full spectrum light therapy when beginning to recognise that the best explanation for not being able to get going is low level depression creeping back. There is, for me, a rise and fall of energy on a fairly short time cycle, like every 4th day I have to just chill. But I think that some people who may be on the spectrum get diagnosed as bipolar because their swings of competence and energy last longer, maybe 2 weeks, or 6 weeks, and their lows are deeper, longer lasting, and more crippling. I spent quite a few years wading through treacle, tearfully, not realising I was 'depressed' and refusing medication when it was suggested, because I wanted to feel the pain and get a meaningful solution for it. It's taken a long time and I don't regret holding out for the ultimate holistic solution.
I have told my therapist and psych that I am stuck in a “…Chicken or the egg?” scenario. I am convinced that my AuDHD traits and general failing at basic life stuff have caused severe anxiety and depression …. but they want me to “manage” the anxiety and depression before they will assess me. 😒🙄😫😭🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I'm sorry you had that experience. Knowing that a large proportion of neurodivergents have dealt with anxiety and depression for most of their lives, their proposal reeks of ignorance somehow. They assume it's just a tempotary thing.. This is why if getting diagnosed is your main concern, I would seriously consider seeking out autism or adhd specialists who won't work with the usual assumptions and won't put their hands in the air when they can't seem to unserstand you.
Everything resonates with me Paul but fortunately I doubled my antidepressant in August & after 2 weeks was motivated to start exercising, eating better & socializing. I never looked back. Med is now reduced back to regular dose & feel very good. The exercise & socializing was critical, in addition to cutting almost all refined sugar. No cakes, no biscuits, only dark choc & the occasional oar bar (if out in the field!) Also, the word you're looking for is anhedonia and it is f***ing soul destroying. 😢😢😢
Our coping strategy is running or walking.. every day.. no matter what.. on treadmill if weather is bad.. Some days are hard.. no matter what we do or how we feel.. other days less so.. and still others are pretty much OK.. What works for us is doing the same every day without fail.. On the really hard days seems to take forever.. we do it anyway.. On the less hard days we feel a bit better having done it.. And on the OK days we might even feel grand.. We know how it is.. like the sun comes up each day.. even on cloudy or stormy ones.. it still does its job.. so.. we do too.. May not work for everyone.. works for us.. About getting out of bed.. that is the toughest battle we face.. we deal with that by getting up and immediately making the bed.. this one is hard for sure.. and the urge to crawl back in strong.. we have learned to keep moving away from the bed.. no matter how slow we do so.. it works.. Thank you for this video and for your channel.. what helps us most is knowing others are facing these challenges and doing their best to.. that alone is motivating for us..💜💙😊🙃 You are much appreciated .. we thank you🙏 William and Jen
Thanks for the video :) I can definitely relate to being very logical and structured for the most part and then trying to apply that solution system to deal with emotional things happening in my brain. I have found that stopping the logical problem solving part for a minute acknowledging how I'm feeling and validating it by saying to myself something like - it makes total sense in this situation that i would feel, depressed, scared, triggered etc - then I'll ask myself what do i need? and just kind of wait for an answer to pop in my brain. Its weird the answers I get definitely come from a different part of my brain. This helps for me. really appreciate this channel and everyone in the comments xx
I read Tolstoy a few years ago. I am not a Christian in a strict sense. I always look for what is best in an idea. It helps to have a human model to take and Tolstoy is a good place to return to. After his novels, a change in his environment happened. And he noticed it, and wrote it down. He wrote of an awakening within him. He gave a lot of his land away, knowing it what not his. Jane Addams stayed there with Tolstoy. Now to the subject of depression: Knowing what is and what can be became his focus. I did not state that right and didn't have backup
I've been depressed most of my life, and I realized recently I probably have Autism as well. Even more recently, I've concluded that I definitely had cPTSD as an emotionally neglected child, exiled with threats every time I needed to cry for not having needs met by my parents. I think my depression was a result of learning to depress my feelings and turn my anger in on myself for not being able to completely deny my feelings. But Autism and depression? Possibly related. If I was punished for crying because I did not know how to communicate my needs effectively as an Autistic child, I can see a relationship there. As an Autistic adult, i still experience depression as a result of not knowing how to communicate my need for social relationships, which renders me chronically lonely and feeling useless most of the time.
I think the link is, the understanding of how our potential is unlimited, and yet limited by our anxieties which we are fully aware of. Stopping ourselves from reaching that potential due to the effects of social anxieties which in turn manifest into lowering self esteem and resulting in depression. Depression seems "hard-wired". No escape.
@@justinszabo5205 true, but along with that comes realisations of possibilities narrowing down from the many. But as you say, and I have always believed, Balance is the key and we can only blnce those things within our control. That itself can bring success. 'Success' being up for Interpretation individually. For me, its never been about money, it's the personal connections - or lack of ability to form them.
I think the best videos are the ones that say the way a person is feeling. And then validating it. And then speaking ways to give someone (whoever is listening) some kind of bubble to feel safe in and then.. a single step to show themselves a single win/step towards change and healthfulness. It’s very much close to home the things you say.
That must be so hard. Maybe theres an activity that is less physical but more suitable for you? Meditation, Reading, Quietly listening to music. Ultimately its what works for you.
@@justinszabo5205 I don't think it's a function of what's being done, rather what you go into it with. Like the video says, even getting out of bed could be too much energy use for a day. So doing something else isn't the answer unfortunately
'Pacing' may help. So you understand your limits so for this example it's a walk in the morning. It's important to keep active. You could make it more intense so that yes it exhausts you, but tomorrow you'll be a little more stronger which may elongate your stamina. Back to pacing however. You know your current limitations, again walking as the example. You go on a shorter walk and reserve energy to get you through the rest of the day. Takes time to get right but trial and error will eventually lead to a success.
Today I had the first diagnostic session (to know if i have ASD or not) with a psychotherapist. He said there is a possibility of comorbid depression. I will have the second session, and hopefully, get some answers. Thank you for the video!
How fortunate he said “comorbid depression” as opposed to being diagnosed solely with depression / anxiety+depression - as far too often is the case. 😣
Burnout and depression have been rampant in my life. I’ve had to put myself through basically my own version of PT. I’ve had to stretch and suffer through workouts just to get my body to an even somewhat functional capacity. It’s degrading to do that for so long without results, but I think Im starting to get somewhere. If anything Im starting to be okay with not having that much energy, Im okay with a boring life of sitting and deep breathing. What works for me is relaxing and letting the pain flow through me.
Very insightful video. Swimming through molasses made me laugh - I’ve often felt this. Building momentum & motivation are excellent approaches for switching the feelings/mindset. Thanks again.🌻
Yes! Your thoughts on momentum ring true for me too. And I cannot just sit still to rest either, if I do that it makes my mental health worse. I’ve begun crafting which helps, and long walks in the woods is so nourishing for me. Thank you for your thoughts 🙏
Extremely timely video for me! Been jobless for a year. The burnout has been dealt with, I'm pretty rested, but what's this thing that was lurking underneath? Oh, depression, great! Depression is so gotdang self-perpetuating. You don't want to do things, you don't do things, that makes you forget that you're able to do things, you think you can't do things, you don't want to do things. So your self-esteem suffers cos it's an amnesiac apparently. I guess THIS is the rare occasion that autistics also should follow the typically terrible advice of "getting out of your comfort zone". Carefully, in increments and without excess, of course.
I've suffered from depression since I was a boy and was also diagnosed with PTSD two years ago. My therapist strongly thinks I am high-functioning on the autistic scale as well, based on symptoms she sees. I've also done the online tests for it that some clinics have and they all say I am probably on the spectrum. I can't afford to actually get the diagnosis, though, since it costs thousands of dollars. Anyway, I feel burned out a lot. I'm just tired of people not even wanting to understand me. My place of employment penalizes me for being me (I do the job itself great but have a hard time getting along with people because I'm blunt and people seem to think I'm angry all the time which, ironically, makes me angry for real). I have no family either.
I can identify with a lot of what you are saying. I was diagnosed with PTSD 4 years ago. I also believe I have Autism and the online tests confirm that. I've been off work since August because I couldn't handle the stressful interpersonal relations. They sent me home. Not having family would be really hard. I have my mom, though long distance. She also has PTSD and fits the Autism criteria. I hope you can find some support and anything else you need.
@@JWGB1956 Thanks for your comment. The only support I need, I think, is for people to let me be myself. I get weary of society's little games where everyone pretends to be nice but turns around and stabs one another in the back. Anyway, I hope things work out for you too.
I tried all antidepressants available and all of them made me worse. But saying that, during the lockdowns I through "I need to try them again" and I did, gave them all a good chance, one even gave me groin pains, the guide said any pains then stop them, but I carried on for a week but had to stop. I'm glad I tried. Now it's about relying on myself.
I don't know what to say. This was a perfect video for me! I'm glad u mentioned positive stressors & sleep habits. I've noticed similar things in reference to both.
thank you so much because this video resumes what I'm basically going through and it feels good to see that I may not be the only one going through shit. It is reassuring and it feels like I'm not as crazy as I thought.
Hi Paul, thank you for all your videos, so helpful and informative. Hope you are feeling better soon. I was definitely in burnout last Xmas. I’m having a quiet one this year and my husband did most of the Xmas shopping.
This was a really helpful video for me. Especially actionable with the reflection on mornings and making the first thing you do something that you look forward too- I’ve spent so long struggling with mornings and knowing that all the tasks that hit me as soon as i wake up are overwhelming and not fun. I am going to think of what i can do first to make me *want* to get up. It is hard with POTS that the body doesn’t function well in the morning and i certainly cant start with exercise, but maybe meditation, stretching, or some other nice ritual. And Now It makes so much sense that i always look for easy “energizing” dopamine from my phone in the morning and get stuck in that spiral! It’s like looking for a quick fix out of the depression instead of finding the sustainable answer that actually feels good to my being.
Thank you for another incredibly relatable video. I could be wrong about this, but I wonder if loneliness is a factor for you right now? Something I have noticed for myself is that no amount of self-care and 'doing all the right things' will really help me if I am too isolated from other people. Let me be clear, I do not like this fact and don't entirely know what to do about it, but this seems to be the case for me. This situation can arise pretty easily for me because I find people are hard enough when I do have energy, never mind when I don't! So if I'm feeling low in energy and mood, I tend to avoid the other people (because people are difficult and sources of stress) and instead push myself to 'do all the right things' in the hope that these will make me feel better - exercise, eating well, enough sleep, meditation, etc. Sometimes I even include light-weight social activities as a sort of exercise I do to make sure I've ticked that self-help box labelled 'social interaction.' But in these attempts I am not making any genuine human connection - that is, I don't feel appreciated, understood, or valued just for being myself. I certainly don't have that very humanly necessary sense of belonging. I am actually lonely (and it can take me a long time to realise that's what wrong and admit it to myself, too, because relationships with other people are so hard to establish and maintain and I don't consider myself very good at them). This seems to be most likely to happen to me after big life changes or losses - a new job, a break up, even moving house - not always things that most people associate with grief, just big changes. But I've also had this happen at other times, when everything seems stable and even relatively smooth on the surface. I am still working with my GP and a very competent mental health professional to figure out what triggers these periods and what to do about them, but what I have learned so far is that pushing myself to interact with other people helps. That is, maintaining my existing relationships and build new ones even at these times when I *really* don't want to do that, including lowering the mask a little and being more authentic (and therefore vulnerable) with trustworthy people who care about me, makes things better. Slowly, slowly it's getting better and these periods are getting shorter and less frequent. I hope this helps a bit. Thank you again for all the amazingly helpful content you produce here.
When I found your channel last year in the middle of the worst breakdown of my life, I was shocked that every single experience, symptom, issue that you discussed, I had seen too. It was like listening to my own battles without any idea what was going on. Well this video is another 100% hit too. I am on three different types of antidepressants. I have been on antidepressants for 40 years with no improvement. Bit since I explained what I learned from you on burnout, they put me on ADHD meds which are an antidepressant at its root, and then because I have not slept well for 40 years, they added an antidepressant for sleep. And by some miracle, I am starting to feel alive, or that for the first time since the onset of puberty, I do not feel completely wiped out and that I could only experience levels of tired. Long story short -- you have given me hope.😅
As usual, great insights. Thanks for sharing! I struggle with all of this...and love your thoughts on motivation, burnout, and depression. I am working on a book about emotional regulation and I agree, logic is useless without 'emotional alignment'.
Sitting and doing nothing = building anxiety because I am only concentrating on the things that I should have done, feeling increasingly guilty about doing nothing. It is not difficult to push myself to do nothing. The hard part is to feel OK with doing nothing. Accepting that resting days are an ok part of life. Days during which I deliberately take time for my special interests but do not work.
Hello , i found your channel Im 30 years old late diagnosed (Back then Aspergers) Autist Im happy you explain the things , and i had to chuckle sometimes because i have a similar pattern :D You my good sir , earned a new subscriber
Great video. It makes sense to me. Emotions being important to motivation makes a lot of sense and I can see this and how it applies to my own life. Thank you for sharing ❤
Sugar and food sensitivities (very common in people with autism) can give you depression too through neuro infalamation ... . Its not that obvious these are ALSO external factors you can influence. I have noticed a huge difference on keto diet excluding a lot of stuff due to lot of sensitivities i have. Even when working on really crazy assignment at work (with avoiding overtimes where possible) and doing what i want to do in the free time, the anxiety is way lower then before and depression mood comes very rarely if something drastic happens and then disappears quickly. Most of the time I would just love to have more time to do what i want to do :) . And weirdly all kind of apocalyptic predictions for the future and other external risks now just motivate me to enjoy life and get prepared for whats about to come instead of being anxious about it .
Trying to balance the need for rest and quiet, and the need for stimulation to induce the desired activity level, sounds like the struggle for people who are both autistic and ADHD to try to balance their differing needs. Of course depression is also relevant.
I wonder what will happen if I just stop trying so hard and let it go. What if I slide to the bottom, what then? Maybe there is something more fulfilling and interesting there at the bottom of that ravine, because sure enough pushing myself up that hill isn’t making me happy.
I feel like Im The opposite. Having burn out and been told I was depressed. Talking multiple medication thinking it would fix the fact that I had limited capacity. I also feel CBT for me was dangerous. Telling me the issues was not the world around me but in fact it was me and my thought’s and feeling which meant that I dismissed my abusive relationship as a me problem. (Late diagnosis)
I've been so deep in burnout for the last several years that I can't even remember what it feels like to have energy. All I ever want to do is rest. Fortunately my SSRI has put my depression in remission for the most part, because trying to get out of depression when you're too burnt out to do any of the things that help with depression is a losing battle.
I think this varies based on the type of depression. Definitely finding the right level of activation is the way to go, but for some types of depression (especially those with coexisting anxiety) the symptoms end up being chronic restlessness, insomnia, fidgeting, and lack of appetite. I usually need to find the right level of activation and sometimes it is more and sometimes it is less. I agree that identifying activation needs is key though!
I remember telling a psychiatrist that a mark that I'd observed on the wall made my brain sore. He told me I was quite sick. 3 days of assessment on a psychiatric ward found nothing. Especially not autism. But I know better now, 25 years later.
I thought I was crazy in feeling tired when I got 100% good sleep all the time and still woke up tired. Definitely can relate to waking up feeling hard and slowing down making things worse and not better. Very thought provoking video. 🤔
Burnout is brought up by trying to do too much stuff. Depression is being burnt out on life. The only solution is to change what you do in life, depression is the body's alarm system screaming to you : stop living like that!
There also seems to be a difference between *situaltional* depression (which it sounds like you refer to here) and chemical depression which likely requires medication combined with appropriate therapy.
It would be nice if mental health was a simpler and better understood subject. So much human potential is being crushed here, all for the benefit of a few.
Struggling with momentum, rather than energy. Maybe that’s how I’ve been feeling the past year. I recognise that I can still do some things here or there with external motivation. But a large chunk of my life, I have to start filling in myself. And that’s where the momentum fails me. That’s when I start rolling back on the hill with my bike, like you said. I think I needed to rest at first. I went to uni for a few months and pushed hard without any intrinsic motivation. I started to hate it there. But now, it’s activation I need. I notice the days in which I actively do things, I feel better. Not too much, or anything. But something active. Something planned. I sometimes have some motivation and I sometimes have the energy to be quite productive for a while. And like you said, I don’t feel more rested by sleeping longer anymore. I often struggle to do… anything, when I don’t have momentum.
I'm currently off work with stress and brun out. However, I don't think it's burnout. I'm just like you. I have been fighting all year to stay active to just get things going and complete. My doctor finally just signed me off. It's worse now as I have nothing to motivate me. Sleep and rest are making me more tired, and I'm flater than a hedgehog that's been hit by an 18-wheeler. The doctor is adamant that it's not depression and just burnout with added stress!
7:45 that's external motorvation vs internal motorvation. I even get bored of group classes when i know I'm doing too much without a build up. Jordan shanks, an obvious undiagnosed autist, has spent 20 years learning self help and admits if he doesn't practice his reading, his motivation falls off. It's interesting.
I suffer from burnout. I have a little bit of depression. I become dismayed. The condition does not last very long. Living in Australia, and the media (print and electronic) has a great deal to deal with the mental health crisis.
I suffer from the low energy and burnout and inability to change state. Describing it as molasses is good. I just can't do things because I have this overwhelming urge to continue with whatever I'm doing and it's really difficult to switch. It feels like I have no energy and everything is such an effort. This is true even when I'm not depressed. I spent a large portion of my life depressed, but even when I'm not depressed, I still cannot get out of bed in the morning, I still cannot go to bed and fall asleep at night, I still struggle with basic life maintenance because I get absorbed in doing something and that's all I want to do.
Thanks for this. It's timely and helpful. Am I burned out? Am I depressed? Am I have a normal and temporary reaction to adverse stimulus. It can be hard to know. Best wishes for your journey.
How do you know whether it is autistic burnout as opposed to depression? And then how do you get the momentum going if you’re depressed and the momentum doesn’t give you the feeling of wanting to keep going? This is all quite confusing. Could you do a flow chart? That would be so helpful.
7:08 momentum. The executive function load is taking my life away. And thus my loved ones, my kids. I’m incapable, anymore, of having a single thing on my list. I can’t function with the overload. I’ve done so many hard things. So many, actually movie level, hard things. And I am empty now. And this emptiness causes depression, but the emptiness is the stuggle with having spent an entire life with out being able to be me, to function in a way that is honoring me, to feel safe in the world where I can .. be ok.
I finished my thesis 1 year, 1 month, and 3 days ago… However, I am still getting over that. I want to continue my study on the ecosystem I was writing about. I cannot bring myself to work on it, and I believe I am more into autistic inertia. I think I have to continue the work, from years of having to do during my uni days, that I cannot do anything but it. However, I am not sad, I am able to get out and do things and get exhausted from socializing with friends. So, I am going to back to hobbies and stop trying to get back to working on my thesis.
Some / most evenings it’s so hard to go to bed, even I love to be in bed. It’s like sitting on a bus and having to wait for the right place to get of. But it’s not the same hour every night. So weird!
Thank you for this video. I am trying to figure out my state. I kinda think it's still burnout but maybe some seasonal depression has been creeping in. I've started trying some walks to get some daylight. It's tricky given I am a nightowl and I've always hated getting up before 10 am and in Poland with current winter time, sun goes away at 15:40. At the same time it can be tricky to do all the things that are needed to go outside during winter time and I feel preasure to somehow move my butt out before the sun goes down. But following my therapist's advise I am not giving up on the walks yet. I just cannot figure out why my body is hurting a lot - not all the time but far too often. I think I'm tense due to stress of figuring out my finances after I've lost my job. So because I feel physically tired even more than mentally, I think burnout is still on the top of what is wrong with me. I also don't feel especially unhappy or numb... If anything I feel anxious but there are moments of peace. Oh... and also I feel frustrated that I cannot figure out a solid way to make myself feel better and functional.
I was forced on to antidepressants at 17 and now can’t get off them when I never wanted to be on them in the first place wasn’t diagnosed until years later
Very interesting the way you described getting momentum...you basicaly described how Projector type in human design function...recommend to listen to Ra Uru Hu how he talks about it😉
For me it's the opposite. Professionals sharing advice on gaining momentum - both for depression and burnout. And I've always been wondering, because I need to take it easy and recover for a long time. Until finally found out my asd, and then sutisro the burnout - which needs to be addressed differently from "normal" burnout (autistic people can actually have either, depending on the situation). Depression can also be caused by burnout (the last, worst symptom), and then to treat it you need to address the burnout.
Negative thoughts are a curse in my life . I can be feeling ok ,getting on with my day ..then suddenly from nowhere ,with no rhyme or reason a thought infiltrates my mind about something from my past and it totally wrecks my mood and sends my mind spinning into confusion and I have to shut myself away and detach ...not answerng the phone or a knock at the door . Negative thoughts trigger off hibernation mode in me . Do any readers get the same thing ? I'm not sure if i've explained it well enough .
For me, burnout is like having been kicked to the ground while being bullied and beaten-up, experiencing feelings of hurt, shock, overwhelm, and exhaustion. Burnout recovery is like the struggle to get back up when there's a pause. Depression is like when the bullying is relentless or keeps resuming before there's been enough respite to get back up, so, I start feeling numb and losing the will to get back up.
That’s the best description I’ve ever heard.
🌻
This description makes perfect sense!
This was so validating and the most accurate descriptioon of depression I've come across. The challenge is when depression _and_ burnout strikes at the sam time. Hard to destinguish between the two and know when to rest and when to push forward.
🎯📣... 🌻
Polyvagal theory and the over riding strength of the lambic system means even though logically you know why something’s making you upset like trauma, you can’t outthink it. The emotional response will win every time.
Since I’m a late diagnosed autistic who was treated for depression most of my life, I’m trying to reframe my past experiences and figure out what was really depression & what was burnout. Like you, I find that staying somewhat active helps. Doing nothing is really difficult for me, even though what I’m doing may look like nothing to people who are hyper focused on productivity.
It's so hard isn't it? Me too. Both ADHD (inattentive type) and Autism gets diagnosed as depression, and goes undiagnosed for years for a lot of women. 💕🫶🏻
For me reading about autistic burnout was really eye-opening. Because it has different causes and ways of recovery.
I am a very social-withdrawn person and really struggle with company, social interactions. I have autism and bipolar disorder, depressive type, diagnosed 14 years ago. Very often living a day seems like a win. Some of your approaches to viewing things are really helpful. Thank you.
I went through the same thing when asking for help and I must say, being offered "meditation and exercise" when even just asking for help itself took *so much* out of me was extremely demoralizing... It was like telling the fire department my entire house was on fire, with me in it, and the response being "Hmm, I understand but... Nice weather we're having tho, isn't it? :) " and being expected to entertain these childish ideals, while my entire life is disintegrating before my eyes and everything hurts so much as the fire eats away at me, felt like it was meant to make me give up and stop bothering them... which you should never want when dealing with a depression patient.
I understand the principle of ruling out the most likely causes before moving on to more aggressive treatment for physical illness. It makes sense and it helps save lives. But feeling like I want to stop existing *is not caused* by a "lack" of meditation and exercise. Meditation and exercise can help people get back in motion once they are properly supported and medicated, but they are like suggesting "planting a nice flowers garden" in the house fire analogy. Gardening is great, but it doesn't help unless we first deal with the house fire.
It's the human equivalent of ''have you tried turning it off and on again? Have you done your updates?'' After a while, it gets insulting and discouraging.
I've had almost the opposite problem - I have had what was diagnosed as depression since I was a child but now I think it was burnout which is why none of the treatments worked. I'm trying to treat it as burnout now which is hard for a few other reasons.
I was just explaining to my therapist that I was also diagnosed with depression since childhood and no treatments worked. I said I believe it has likely been autistic burnout. But, I also acknowledge that there have been times when depression has creeped in as well. I think seeing the difference will help me going forward. I wish you all the best.
@@JWGB1956I wish you success in your endeavors, too.
It's really important to consider the connection with chronic health issues, too - chronic health issues can cause depression both physically (by impacting neurotransmitters, for example) and emotionally (by making it more difficult to do things you enjoy, like going for walks, for example). Either way, treating the underlying health issue will help - it took me 15+ years to get diagnosed with Hashimoto's, and within a few weeks of starting treatment, my lifelong depression just vanished.
It has also helped me to get outside every day, even for just 10-15 minutes. We are not designed to spend our lives holed up indoors. You don't have to walk or do physical activity - you just need to breathe fresh air and take in the natural light (I take off my shoes and earth, if the weather is good). It makes a difference. I know a Native American medicine woman, and she says to go outside and ask yourself if your feet are open. Meaning, can you connect to the earth through your feet? It might sound silly, but we need light to balance our circadian rhythms and we need the earth to ground ourselves physically - nature directly impacts our biochemistry through physics. For what it's worth. 💖
“Ask if your feet are open”. What a beautiful approach.🩵
My problem is always having to choose one thing out of all the things I have to do as a human to focus on in order to do it in a good way. For example:
- Studying Computer Science
- Learn Japanese
- Take care of my body (gym, etc...)
If I choose one, I will not be able to do the other two because my brain will be in pilot mode. If I want do do something good, I need to chose only one.
I'm struggling with this specific pain point as well, the decision paralysis is very apparent and stressful because I can't seem to appropriately rank what I should do when because other options can't be pursued when you pick one, and they all seem somewhat equally important. Go for a walk? Make art? Do chores? Do more work? Call a friend? Study history? Relax and play video games??? I don't know!! I need a robot, a second digital brain, to help manage what I do when and in what order relative to the other tasks. On a positive note, I'm trying to incorporate random chance into deciding what I should do next when I have an open time slot and it's actually been really helpful oddly enough. I'll assign a number to each of those different categories of things-to-do, and then I'll use Google's random number generator to select what I should pursue next. From there, I'm trying to figure out approx. how many times per week I should do each type of thing so I can get somewhat closer to doing the things I want to at least some of the time instead of always defaulting to either work, chores, or digital entertainment. I'm hoping that some combination of this random chance approach along with trying to iteratively create a "schedule" of suggested things-to-do (like "oh yes, it's the second Tuesday of the month, that's always a 'learning day' so I should pick an activity that facilitates learning in some way") will improve the situation. If you have any ideas you'd like to add about what you do to try to deal with this, let me know as I'm on a long journey to figure out how the hell to live and not just waste the whole time I have on earth doing the things I have to do like pay bills and then never actually learn a second language or reconnect with that old friend I've been thinking about for years... Life is hard, but we've all got each other and our own brains to try to make it better. :)
I feel that...
I am definitely not a multi-tasker, lol...
Hey Paul,
I feel you. Lack of momentum is basically the theme song of my depression, can't say it better myself. My therapist kept saying I should be kind to myself, which he interpreted as not forcing myself to do anything. But that backfired - if I didn't force myself to keep training and seeing friends, I basically lost the will to live.
These days, I think "being good to myself" sometimes means forcing myself to play tennis or do some yoga. It helps me build momentum, so I can keep going and actually start feeling something again. It's easier because I can make these things routine. No decision needed, I just go! :D
Also, when my mood is really low, stress weirdly helps. Like, if I have a deadline at work and have to force myself to work, I feel energized within a day or two. Sadly, I burn out super fast that way, so it's not sustainable. Plus, I think it might be masking the real issue. Either way, it's a good feeling in the moment, even though I know it'll cost me later.
This sounds like ADHD
I've been struggling with depression on and off since childhood. I have completed my diagnosis process and currently waiting for the results. Finally at the age of 44 I am going to get answers and hopefully even receive the support I need. So from personal experience, late diagnosis is another cause of depression 🤔💭
@@colleend80 47 now. Diagnosed at 44.
It seems as though the habit of a lifetime, which was to fail, but always try again has come to an end.
Now that there is a reason as to why I've been failing has taken the effort away.
Trying to get it back.
Don't let yourself fall into the same pit.
I think the worst part of late diagnosis is that you never understood what was going on in your life, everything was confusing and felt out of control, people judged you based on what they think a neurotypical person is like and how you aren't living up to their "healthy" standards (eg socializing more frequently), partners think you don't love them because of your flat affect and you kept forcing yourself into situations that were well past your limitations but you felt a desire to fit in. And all that weight just becomes so much that you do get depressed quite often.
I'm 41 and just got diagnosis with ASD Level 2 back on Halloween. It was a relief to finally understand myself and my limitations, but at the same time I am not at the point where all my supports are in place. So I'm suffering from crazy high amounts of anxiety. I had my Job Capacity Assessment for my Disability Support Pension application yesterday and I had a full blown anxiety attack, I was stuttering and knew I was close to becoming non-verbal, the assessor was at least patient and polite which allowed me to finish the interview. I went for a walk on my favourite bush trail afterwards to calm down. And later that afternoon when I was driving to get some groceries I started crying and it wouldn't stop, and then my foot started to stress stim on the accelator by tapping up and down. I had to pull over and turn off the car and cried for about 5 minutes straight until it was out of my system.
So I would suggest if you need DSP, give yourself the day and have someone there with you for the call for support. Friend. family member or a support worker. Even the assessor said she wished I had someone with me, and that she thinks it will be best for the next assessor (a contract doctor to do final confirmations) that I have a support person with me. Because it is a rough and raw experience.
@@TheMSS1977 Apparently that crash is really common after formal diagnosis or self diagnosis.
I'm a few years older than you, and started wondering after a couple of friends who were recently diagnosed started posting links to articles about what it's like to be neurodivergent as a middle aged woman. I thought I was reading to understand them better. As I read article after article, they all kept describing me.
When you've spent a lifetime being gaslit that you're lazy, not trying, being difficult, obstructionist, etc and you've been guilted into just trying harder and harder, and then you realise that no matter what you did you could not be the way you were told you should be, you stop. You stop believing the lies. You stop bashing your head against the wall. You stop trying to fly and come to realise and accept that you're a penguin. Sure, you're a bird, but those wings are built for swimming. It takes time to adjust your expectations and to learn how to work to YOUR strengths rather than other's expectations. You'll get there, but it takes time. You've completely up-ended everything you thought you knew, everything you've been told should make you happy.
Then you have to work through society telling you you're disabled. Nope. In many ways it's neuro-typicals who are under developed. Here comes a whole lot more for you to process and adjust to. As just one example - we've always been told we can't maintain friendships, we ghost people, we stop calling. Neuro-typicals were taught object permanence as preschoolers, but have never learnt friendship permanence. They need us to keep proving to them that the friendship still exists. It's like playing peek-a-boo with adults.
Yes, I can 100 per cent relate. I find it hard to recognise when I've recovered enough from burnout and need to push myself again and if I don't recognise that moment it gets harder to motivate myself. Other times I need to completely let go and relax and let the desires surface on their own.
Hi, I haven't commented before, but I love the work that you're doing here and have been watching the podcasts for a while.
This type of depression you describe is called dysthymia. It's basically chronical, sometimes better sometimes worse. I have it and I'm also auDHD (and more but let's leave it at that). I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and I'm now convinced that it's either its own type of neurodivergence, or it's part of other types.
Yes, can definitely relate to the inertia of being at home de-motivating and dragging me down, where as going to a class at the gym outsources the motivation and can bring me up. Its like the more time I stay inside, the more depressed and weird I get. Also, I think the same way masking starts to burn us out, it eventually leads to depression because we keep pushing ourselves down, almost as if erasing ourselves to not inconvenience people... that DEFINITELY leads to depression, anxiety, anger, mood disorders in general!
Great video, keep up the good work!
Getting out of bed to watch the sun come up is good and watching the birds get their breakfast at the feeders. if I am home alone it’s wonderful, no one is making demands. Both my husband and son are autistic, I have to pull my mask on and become the motivator, which I hate. They’re both slow to do anything or won’t change how a task needs to be done. Even if it’s staring them in the face. I find myself depressed a lot, and always looking for ways to have alone time.
Bargain. If you do things like drive your son somewhere, tell him he needs to do X. If he doesn’t, then you will spend the time you would have spent driving doing the task at the time he needs you to drive him. And tell him that now you have other things to do. Same for hubby. If you do his laundry, stop. If you fix him food, stop. Say if you can’t do x,y,z when they need to be done, then you won’t do things for him. Tell him you get angry doing all these things for him but he won’t do things for you. And since you can’t make him do things, the only way to stop these angry feelings is to stop doing things for him. And if he tries to make this an attack on him, say this is about regulating your feelings, this is about self care. And say household chores are the responsibility of everyone living in the home, and everyone needs to every day look for something that needs to be done and do it without being told. People won’t change the status quo if they are happy with it. The one unhappy with the status quo needs to change their role in it and disrupt it. They are capable of doing more than they are, but they won’t unless they are expected to. Another thing to do if they act clueless, write what chores need to be done and assign them to each on a dry erase board posted on the fridge every morning. Worked great with my sons, one with ADHD. This allows them to pick when they do it, giving them some control over it. Read “the Dance of Anger”, it was recommended to me by a psychologist and helps you recognize how we behave in relationships and how to set boundaries and manage difficult relationships and calmly make changes congruent with our emotional and psychological needs.
Just don't be the motivator? Noone forces you.
@@lisaphares2286 You don't 'regulate' emotion. You regulate temperature. Emotions you _have._
I think you're explaining this very well and it helped clarify something for me personally; the depression (in cases like this) is probably related to low dopamine levels.
Where I am, if you're depressed, you always get prescribed SSRIs and then if that doesn't work they put you in SNRIs instead, and there's a general reluctance to prescribe anything else. If the first one they give you doesn't work, they just prescribe you another and then another and another... And then if none of them work, they start to give you combinations. When that doesn't work either, they just put the blame on you and accuse you of 'not wanting to get better' and then of course they claim they can't help you and you're on your own. I've had to go through more or less every SSRI and SNRI on the market and they all made me worse. No one listened to me when I tried to explain that they made me worse.
When you put it in terms of motivation and building momentum, it becomes clear that it's probably more about dopamine than serotonin and then of course SSRIs aren't likely to work. Once I finally, after many years and endless discussions and having to do lots of research myself, got to try something that increased my dopamine instead, the depression disappeared very quickly.
The good news is that once you realize that your depression might be about low dopamine, you can adjust your behavior accordingly and find ways to build a balanced level of dopamine even without meds.
Dopamine levels are a key part of ADHD which has a very high correlation with autism. It really does line up and make sense.
Are you in the south of Europe? I feel related to some of what you say. Here they don't listen to you, just SSRIs, I'm desperate.
The most useful thing I got out of Robert Sapolsky’s book on stress was an explanation of learned helplessness as a source of depression. (To anyone thinking of reading it, be warned it describes a nasty psychological animal experiment). The basic gist of it was that if an individual finds themselves in a situation where they cannot determine what to do to protect themselves, this can create learned helplessness. That this could occur with autistic people seems pretty obvious to me. And this is why cognitive distortions, while a real phenomenon, are at best a partial answer. Did I or someone else put an incorrect idea into my head? Or is there a real problem that I’ve tried to deal with, over and over - but I can’t figure out what I should do to solve it. Most often this has to do with my interacting with people in a certain way, and not getting the response I expected. This could qualify as a cognitive distortion of sorts - I often can’t see why people react poorly to what I said, or sometimes I might misread their reaction - but it’s not me thinking erroneously that I have trouble interacting with people. There is a problem and I can’t figure out what it is. Viola, learned helplessness.
Robert Sapolsky is awesome.
What say you about the Double Empathy Problem?
@@JWGB1956 indeed 👍
@nnylasoR I feel like the double empathy problem is the biggest factor in my own difficulties. I just don’t get why certain things that make such sense to me seem to come across so differently to others. Even when I understand it intellectually, it doesn’t feel right.
A lack of filters and difficulty sorting relevant information from irrelevant is my other biggest problem area. That part is more oriented toward my ADHD I think.
Maybe I don't understand what you're saying, but that doesn't sound like learned helplessness. My understanding is the person would be somehow convinced that they couldn't do what they wanted in life when they really could. But since they have always failed, they don't try.
The logic over emotions really hit. Never heard it put into words like that but yeah, guilty as charged! Thank you, i appreciate your channel 🌻
I really appreciate you sharing last week (I think) when you didn't feel 100% due to migraine and this week about depression. While I'm very sorry you have to go through these things, I feel seen and understood and feel motivated to just do my best with what energy/motivation I have. I appreciate you being authentic and making it ok that sometimes depression is just hard but knowing the difference between burnout and depression is very helpful. Many thanks.
Very helpful insight: often it isn't lack of energy that weighs us down. It's lack of motivation. I'm going to focus on finding the spark of motivation.
I relate to the horrendous care for depression so much. When I got diagnosed with depression, there was just nothing they could offer me apart from some basics and DBT. One of the reasons I was considered depressed was my sleeping schedule, I really struggled to stay up during the day and slept for ridiculous amounts of time. When I complained about that in the hospital, I told them about chest pains and waking up gasping for air. They just gave me extra sleeping medication. They kept telling me it's "just" stress, I "just" need to go to bed at the same time every day to develop a habit (does not work like that for me).
TURNS OUT I was actually having allergic reactions to the dusty bed sheets there! I was SO lucky I never got a severe reaction, the idea of suffocating and not being able to wake up because of heavy meds is horrifying! It took me months to figure this out, and only after I learned about autism and my issues with pain/emotion awareness. I can finally sleep well now that I dropped the stupid depression meds and switched to anti-allergen bed sheets.
Edit: And to add to that, another reason for my diagnosis was my negative thoughts and SH tendencies. I found out recently that I just have those when I'm dysregulated, and guess what, fatigue worsens that. So when I fixed my sleep, the negative thought patterns and SH went away. I am honestly pretty upset that none of the therapists I ever went to even considered that, and I had to learn it on the internet from people like you instead 🤷♂
SH was absolutely about dysregulation for me. Anxiety meds is what got me to be able to stop.
55 years old, diagnosed ASD at 53, after a lifetime of various misdiagnosis and the related treatments and medications based on those misdiagnosis (either useless or actively harmful due to paradoxical responses and atypical side effects), so it took me *far* too long to learn that the intrusive negative thoughts were actually the direct result of dysregulation.
What a relief to now see those same thoughts as useful warning signals that I am overstimulated/overwhelmed, and to use them as an indication that it is time to remove myself from the situation at that moment rather than forcing myself to continue (for instance, I have learned to prioritize errands to get the most vital done first, so I can abandon others if need be; when in the past I would’ve just pushed through while spiraling deeper into self-loathing…enough cumulative effect of that could lead to what seemed like profound depression and SH)😅
I recently got upset with my GP, I said to her 'I've never had any support from you people, I've worked out what was wrong with me from you tube therapists and other folks that have gone through it.' It is so sad when you recognise they are not going to be any help and we have to help ourselves. My learning from this: don't trust the 'professionals' do your own research!
I'm glad you solved your issue x
@@faye6459 Exactly! All too often, the professionals have fixed ideas and no interest in learning why you don’t fit their “card of a few possible boxes to be ticked”…at my age, I am too exhausted from attempting to explain myself to people who seem to have no inclination to even try understanding🙄
@@faye6459 I trust the professionals who specialize in autism! I suppose you could call reading books and watching vids doing my own research, if so then I definitely agree. Unless they have updated, specialized training, or they are autistic themselves, I can almost guarantee whatever they recommend is only gonna get me off the right track.
I recommend full spectrum light therapy when beginning to recognise that the best explanation for not being able to get going is low level depression creeping back. There is, for me, a rise and fall of energy on a fairly short time cycle, like every 4th day I have to just chill. But I think that some people who may be on the spectrum get diagnosed as bipolar because their swings of competence and energy last longer, maybe 2 weeks, or 6 weeks, and their lows are deeper, longer lasting, and more crippling. I spent quite a few years wading through treacle, tearfully, not realising I was 'depressed' and refusing medication when it was suggested, because I wanted to feel the pain and get a meaningful solution for it. It's taken a long time and I don't regret holding out for the ultimate holistic solution.
Am I depressed because everything is hard or is everything hard because I'm depressed?
I have told my therapist and psych that I am stuck in a “…Chicken or the egg?” scenario. I am convinced that my AuDHD traits and general failing at basic life stuff have caused severe anxiety and depression …. but they want me to “manage” the anxiety and depression before they will assess me.
😒🙄😫😭🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
yes
I'm sorry you had that experience. Knowing that a large proportion of neurodivergents have dealt with anxiety and depression for most of their lives, their proposal reeks of ignorance somehow. They assume it's just a tempotary thing.. This is why if getting diagnosed is your main concern, I would seriously consider seeking out autism or adhd specialists who won't work with the usual assumptions and won't put their hands in the air when they can't seem to unserstand you.
Do you have somethin else that makes everything else hard? If yes, then you're depressed because everything feels hard (due to those other things).
@@nnylasoRI can‘t manage my life, I can only survive.
Everything resonates with me Paul but fortunately I doubled my antidepressant in August & after 2 weeks was motivated to start exercising, eating better & socializing. I never looked back. Med is now reduced back to regular dose & feel very good. The exercise & socializing was critical, in addition to cutting almost all refined sugar. No cakes, no biscuits, only dark choc & the occasional oar bar (if out in the field!)
Also, the word you're looking for is anhedonia and it is f***ing soul destroying. 😢😢😢
Our coping strategy is running or walking.. every day.. no matter what.. on treadmill if weather is bad..
Some days are hard.. no matter what we do or how we feel.. other days less so.. and still others are pretty much OK..
What works for us is doing the same every day without fail..
On the really hard days seems to take forever.. we do it anyway..
On the less hard days we feel a bit better having done it..
And on the OK days we might even feel grand..
We know how it is.. like the sun comes up each day.. even on cloudy or stormy ones.. it still does its job.. so.. we do too..
May not work for everyone.. works for us..
About getting out of bed.. that is the toughest battle we face.. we deal with that by getting up and immediately making the bed.. this one is hard for sure.. and the urge to crawl back in strong.. we have learned to keep moving away from the bed.. no matter how slow we do so.. it works..
Thank you for this video and for your channel.. what helps us most is knowing others are facing these challenges and doing their best to.. that alone is motivating for us..💜💙😊🙃
You are much appreciated .. we thank you🙏
William and Jen
Thanks for the video :) I can definitely relate to being very logical and structured for the most part and then trying to apply that solution system to deal with emotional things happening in my brain. I have found that stopping the logical problem solving part for a minute acknowledging how I'm feeling and validating it by saying to myself something like - it makes total sense in this situation that i would feel, depressed, scared, triggered etc - then I'll ask myself what do i need? and just kind of wait for an answer to pop in my brain. Its weird the answers I get definitely come from a different part of my brain. This helps for me. really appreciate this channel and everyone in the comments xx
I read Tolstoy a few years ago. I am not a Christian in a strict sense. I always look for what is best in an idea. It helps to have a human model to take and Tolstoy is a good place to return to. After his novels, a change in his environment happened. And he noticed it, and wrote it down. He wrote of an awakening within him. He gave a lot of his land away, knowing it what not his. Jane Addams stayed there with Tolstoy.
Now to the subject of depression: Knowing what is and what can be became his focus.
I did not state that right and didn't have backup
I've been depressed most of my life, and I realized recently I probably have Autism as well. Even more recently, I've concluded that I definitely had cPTSD as an emotionally neglected child, exiled with threats every time I needed to cry for not having needs met by my parents. I think my depression was a result of learning to depress my feelings and turn my anger in on myself for not being able to completely deny my feelings. But Autism and depression? Possibly related. If I was punished for crying because I did not know how to communicate my needs effectively as an Autistic child, I can see a relationship there. As an Autistic adult, i still experience depression as a result of not knowing how to communicate my need for social relationships, which renders me chronically lonely and feeling useless most of the time.
I think the link is, the understanding of how our potential is unlimited, and yet limited by our anxieties which we are fully aware of. Stopping ourselves from reaching that potential due to the effects of social anxieties which in turn manifest into lowering self esteem and resulting in depression.
Depression seems "hard-wired". No escape.
Not only limited by anxieties, but I find I'm limited by people.
Great point. Its why becoming OK with you and your limitations is so crucial.
@@justinszabo5205 true, but along with that comes realisations of possibilities narrowing down from the many.
But as you say, and I have always believed, Balance is the key and we can only blnce those things within our control. That itself can bring success. 'Success' being up for Interpretation individually. For me, its never been about money, it's the personal connections - or lack of ability to form them.
I think the best videos are the ones that say the way a person is feeling. And then validating it. And then speaking ways to give someone (whoever is listening) some kind of bubble to feel safe in and then.. a single step to show themselves a single win/step towards change and healthfulness.
It’s very much close to home the things you say.
if I go for a walk in the morning then I'm too exhausted to function for the rest of the day
That might be anaemia?
I get this too, basically like one and done energy for the day
That must be so hard. Maybe theres an activity that is less physical but more suitable for you? Meditation, Reading, Quietly listening to music. Ultimately its what works for you.
@@justinszabo5205 I don't think it's a function of what's being done, rather what you go into it with. Like the video says, even getting out of bed could be too much energy use for a day. So doing something else isn't the answer unfortunately
'Pacing' may help. So you understand your limits so for this example it's a walk in the morning.
It's important to keep active. You could make it more intense so that yes it exhausts you, but tomorrow you'll be a little more stronger which may elongate your stamina.
Back to pacing however. You know your current limitations, again walking as the example. You go on a shorter walk and reserve energy to get you through the rest of the day.
Takes time to get right but trial and error will eventually lead to a success.
Today I had the first diagnostic session (to know if i have ASD or not) with a psychotherapist. He said there is a possibility of comorbid depression. I will have the second session, and hopefully, get some answers. Thank you for the video!
I had my first diagnostic session this week as well. I hope it goes well for you.
How fortunate he said “comorbid depression” as opposed to being diagnosed solely with depression / anxiety+depression - as far too often is the case. 😣
Burnout and depression have been rampant in my life. I’ve had to put myself through basically my own version of PT. I’ve had to stretch and suffer through workouts just to get my body to an even somewhat functional capacity. It’s degrading to do that for so long without results, but I think Im starting to get somewhere. If anything Im starting to be okay with not having that much energy, Im okay with a boring life of sitting and deep breathing. What works for me is relaxing and letting the pain flow through me.
Very insightful video. Swimming through molasses made me laugh - I’ve often felt this. Building momentum & motivation are excellent approaches for switching the feelings/mindset. Thanks again.🌻
Yes! Your thoughts on momentum ring true for me too. And I cannot just sit still to rest either, if I do that it makes my mental health worse. I’ve begun crafting which helps, and long walks in the woods is so nourishing for me. Thank you for your thoughts 🙏
Extremely timely video for me! Been jobless for a year. The burnout has been dealt with, I'm pretty rested, but what's this thing that was lurking underneath? Oh, depression, great! Depression is so gotdang self-perpetuating. You don't want to do things, you don't do things, that makes you forget that you're able to do things, you think you can't do things, you don't want to do things. So your self-esteem suffers cos it's an amnesiac apparently. I guess THIS is the rare occasion that autistics also should follow the typically terrible advice of "getting out of your comfort zone". Carefully, in increments and without excess, of course.
I've suffered from depression since I was a boy and was also diagnosed with PTSD two years ago. My therapist strongly thinks I am high-functioning on the autistic scale as well, based on symptoms she sees. I've also done the online tests for it that some clinics have and they all say I am probably on the spectrum. I can't afford to actually get the diagnosis, though, since it costs thousands of dollars.
Anyway, I feel burned out a lot. I'm just tired of people not even wanting to understand me. My place of employment penalizes me for being me (I do the job itself great but have a hard time getting along with people because I'm blunt and people seem to think I'm angry all the time which, ironically, makes me angry for real). I have no family either.
I can identify with a lot of what you are saying. I was diagnosed with PTSD 4 years ago. I also believe I have Autism and the online tests confirm that. I've been off work since August because I couldn't handle the stressful interpersonal relations. They sent me home. Not having family would be really hard. I have my mom, though long distance. She also has PTSD and fits the Autism criteria. I hope you can find some support and anything else you need.
@@JWGB1956 Thanks for your comment. The only support I need, I think, is for people to let me be myself. I get weary of society's little games where everyone pretends to be nice but turns around and stabs one another in the back.
Anyway, I hope things work out for you too.
Thank you
I think the reminder that things get easier after the initial hump is kind of what I needed right now
I tried all antidepressants available and all of them made me worse.
But saying that, during the lockdowns I through "I need to try them again" and I did, gave them all a good chance, one even gave me groin pains, the guide said any pains then stop them, but I carried on for a week but had to stop.
I'm glad I tried. Now it's about relying on myself.
Well done!
I don't know what to say. This was a perfect video for me! I'm glad u mentioned positive stressors & sleep habits. I've noticed similar things in reference to both.
you uploaded this at such an important time for me!! thank you!!
thank you so much because this video resumes what I'm basically going through and it feels good to see that I may not be the only one going through shit. It is reassuring and it feels like I'm not as crazy as I thought.
Thank you for this topic! Not only am I navigating late diagnosis I'm continuing to support my son. The analogies you gave will be helpful for him.
Hi Paul, thank you for all your videos, so helpful and informative. Hope you are feeling better soon. I was definitely in burnout last Xmas. I’m having a quiet one this year and my husband did most of the Xmas shopping.
Very well done!
I can relate with you on every point you make here.
Good motivation for finding more information and seeking additional help.
Cheers!
This video came at the perfect time. This is exactly what I'm dealing with. Thank you!
Then there’s the question of what to do when it’s BOTH. Moving and not moving both make things worse.
This was a really helpful video for me. Especially actionable with the reflection on mornings and making the first thing you do something that you look forward too- I’ve spent so long struggling with mornings and knowing that all the tasks that hit me as soon as i wake up are overwhelming and not fun. I am going to think of what i can do first to make me *want* to get up. It is hard with POTS that the body doesn’t function well in the morning and i certainly cant start with exercise, but maybe meditation, stretching, or some other nice ritual. And Now It makes so much sense that i always look for easy “energizing” dopamine from my phone in the morning and get stuck in that spiral! It’s like looking for a quick fix out of the depression instead of finding the sustainable answer that actually feels good to my being.
Thank you for another incredibly relatable video. I could be wrong about this, but I wonder if loneliness is a factor for you right now? Something I have noticed for myself is that no amount of self-care and 'doing all the right things' will really help me if I am too isolated from other people. Let me be clear, I do not like this fact and don't entirely know what to do about it, but this seems to be the case for me.
This situation can arise pretty easily for me because I find people are hard enough when I do have energy, never mind when I don't! So if I'm feeling low in energy and mood, I tend to avoid the other people (because people are difficult and sources of stress) and instead push myself to 'do all the right things' in the hope that these will make me feel better - exercise, eating well, enough sleep, meditation, etc. Sometimes I even include light-weight social activities as a sort of exercise I do to make sure I've ticked that self-help box labelled 'social interaction.' But in these attempts I am not making any genuine human connection - that is, I don't feel appreciated, understood, or valued just for being myself. I certainly don't have that very humanly necessary sense of belonging. I am actually lonely (and it can take me a long time to realise that's what wrong and admit it to myself, too, because relationships with other people are so hard to establish and maintain and I don't consider myself very good at them).
This seems to be most likely to happen to me after big life changes or losses - a new job, a break up, even moving house - not always things that most people associate with grief, just big changes. But I've also had this happen at other times, when everything seems stable and even relatively smooth on the surface. I am still working with my GP and a very competent mental health professional to figure out what triggers these periods and what to do about them, but what I have learned so far is that pushing myself to interact with other people helps. That is, maintaining my existing relationships and build new ones even at these times when I *really* don't want to do that, including lowering the mask a little and being more authentic (and therefore vulnerable) with trustworthy people who care about me, makes things better. Slowly, slowly it's getting better and these periods are getting shorter and less frequent.
I hope this helps a bit. Thank you again for all the amazingly helpful content you produce here.
When I found your channel last year in the middle of the worst breakdown of my life, I was shocked that every single experience, symptom, issue that you discussed, I had seen too. It was like listening to my own battles without any idea what was going on. Well this video is another 100% hit too. I am on three different types of antidepressants. I have been on antidepressants for 40 years with no improvement. Bit since I explained what I learned from you on burnout, they put me on ADHD meds which are an antidepressant at its root, and then because I have not slept well for 40 years, they added an antidepressant for sleep. And by some miracle, I am starting to feel alive, or that for the first time since the onset of puberty, I do not feel completely wiped out and that I could only experience levels of tired. Long story short -- you have given me hope.😅
As usual, great insights. Thanks for sharing! I struggle with all of this...and love your thoughts on motivation, burnout, and depression. I am working on a book about emotional regulation and I agree, logic is useless without 'emotional alignment'.
Sitting and doing nothing = building anxiety because I am only concentrating on the things that I should have done, feeling increasingly guilty about doing nothing. It is not difficult to push myself to do nothing. The hard part is to feel OK with doing nothing. Accepting that resting days are an ok part of life. Days during which I deliberately take time for my special interests but do not work.
Very helpful video; learned a lot. And thank you for sharing; sending you well wishes and prayers 🙏
I hope you feel a bit better by now, and that you continue to feel better and better in small increments.
Hello , i found your channel
Im 30 years old late diagnosed (Back then Aspergers) Autist
Im happy you explain the things , and i had to chuckle sometimes because i have a similar pattern :D
You my good sir , earned a new subscriber
Great video. It makes sense to me. Emotions being important to motivation makes a lot of sense and I can see this and how it applies to my own life. Thank you for sharing ❤
Sugar and food sensitivities (very common in people with autism) can give you depression too through neuro infalamation ... . Its not that obvious these are ALSO external factors you can influence. I have noticed a huge difference on keto diet excluding a lot of stuff due to lot of sensitivities i have. Even when working on really crazy assignment at work (with avoiding overtimes where possible) and doing what i want to do in the free time, the anxiety is way lower then before and depression mood comes very rarely if something drastic happens and then disappears quickly. Most of the time I would just love to have more time to do what i want to do :) . And weirdly all kind of apocalyptic predictions for the future and other external risks now just motivate me to enjoy life and get prepared for whats about to come instead of being anxious about it .
It’s a side effect of being ND period in a world that doesn’t treat us with the respect we deserve and we still have a long way to go to fix it
Trying to balance the need for rest and quiet, and the need for stimulation to induce the desired activity level, sounds like the struggle for people who are both autistic and ADHD to try to balance their differing needs. Of course depression is also relevant.
I wonder what will happen if I just stop trying so hard and let it go. What if I slide to the bottom, what then? Maybe there is something more fulfilling and interesting there at the bottom of that ravine, because sure enough pushing myself up that hill isn’t making me happy.
Thank you for this clarification. I was not paying enough attention to my emotional health. I have chronical depression, autism and add. Also HSP.
I feel like Im The opposite. Having burn out and been told I was depressed. Talking multiple medication thinking it would fix the fact that I had limited capacity. I also feel CBT for me was dangerous. Telling me the issues was not the world around me but in fact it was me and my thought’s and feeling which meant that I dismissed my abusive relationship as a me problem. (Late diagnosis)
always appreciate you
I've been so deep in burnout for the last several years that I can't even remember what it feels like to have energy. All I ever want to do is rest. Fortunately my SSRI has put my depression in remission for the most part, because trying to get out of depression when you're too burnt out to do any of the things that help with depression is a losing battle.
This is pretty helpful. Thanks for putting it together.
🙌 totally relate i suffer with this also… thank you for sharing & your content is very helpful & supportive 😊
I think this varies based on the type of depression. Definitely finding the right level of activation is the way to go, but for some types of depression (especially those with coexisting anxiety) the symptoms end up being chronic restlessness, insomnia, fidgeting, and lack of appetite. I usually need to find the right level of activation and sometimes it is more and sometimes it is less. I agree that identifying activation needs is key though!
I remember telling a psychiatrist that a mark that I'd observed on the wall made my brain sore. He told me I was quite sick. 3 days of assessment on a psychiatric ward found nothing. Especially not autism. But I know better now, 25 years later.
I thought I was crazy in feeling tired when I got 100% good sleep all the time and still woke up tired. Definitely can relate to waking up feeling hard and slowing down making things worse and not better. Very thought provoking video. 🤔
Burnout is brought up by trying to do too much stuff. Depression is being burnt out on life. The only solution is to change what you do in life, depression is the body's alarm system screaming to you : stop living like that!
There also seems to be a difference between *situaltional* depression (which it sounds like you refer to here) and chemical depression which likely requires medication combined with appropriate therapy.
It would be nice if mental health was a simpler and better understood subject. So much human potential is being crushed here, all for the benefit of a few.
Struggling with momentum, rather than energy. Maybe that’s how I’ve been feeling the past year. I recognise that I can still do some things here or there with external motivation. But a large chunk of my life, I have to start filling in myself. And that’s where the momentum fails me. That’s when I start rolling back on the hill with my bike, like you said.
I think I needed to rest at first. I went to uni for a few months and pushed hard without any intrinsic motivation. I started to hate it there. But now, it’s activation I need. I notice the days in which I actively do things, I feel better. Not too much, or anything. But something active. Something planned. I sometimes have some motivation and I sometimes have the energy to be quite productive for a while. And like you said, I don’t feel more rested by sleeping longer anymore. I often struggle to do… anything, when I don’t have momentum.
It’s really hard to figure out a strategy for dealing with both at the same time. Do more? Do less?
I'm currently off work with stress and brun out. However, I don't think it's burnout. I'm just like you. I have been fighting all year to stay active to just get things going and complete. My doctor finally just signed me off. It's worse now as I have nothing to motivate me. Sleep and rest are making me more tired, and I'm flater than a hedgehog that's been hit by an 18-wheeler. The doctor is adamant that it's not depression and just burnout with added stress!
7:45 that's external motorvation vs internal motorvation. I even get bored of group classes when i know I'm doing too much without a build up.
Jordan shanks, an obvious undiagnosed autist, has spent 20 years learning self help and admits if he doesn't practice his reading, his motivation falls off. It's interesting.
Thank you so much, this really helped put words on things.
Brilliant! This was so enlightening, thank you ❤
Thanks for this information. It is very helpful and TRUE.
I suffer from burnout. I have a little bit of depression. I become dismayed. The condition does not last very long. Living in Australia, and the media (print and electronic) has a great deal to deal with the mental health crisis.
The time for a mass worldwide recovery is soon. The evil worldwide empire is showing many cracks.
It's hard to put into words, but the book "Breakout Dark depression helped me when I was on my lowest point
I suffer from the low energy and burnout and inability to change state. Describing it as molasses is good. I just can't do things because I have this overwhelming urge to continue with whatever I'm doing and it's really difficult to switch. It feels like I have no energy and everything is such an effort.
This is true even when I'm not depressed. I spent a large portion of my life depressed, but even when I'm not depressed, I still cannot get out of bed in the morning, I still cannot go to bed and fall asleep at night, I still struggle with basic life maintenance because I get absorbed in doing something and that's all I want to do.
Wow! You make it make more sense. Thank you.
Thanks for this. It's timely and helpful. Am I burned out? Am I depressed? Am I have a normal and temporary reaction to adverse stimulus. It can be hard to know.
Best wishes for your journey.
How do you know whether it is autistic burnout as opposed to depression? And then how do you get the momentum going if you’re depressed and the momentum doesn’t give you the feeling of wanting to keep going? This is all quite confusing. Could you do a flow chart? That would be so helpful.
7:08 momentum. The executive function load is taking my life away. And thus my loved ones, my kids.
I’m incapable, anymore, of having a single thing on my list. I can’t function with the overload. I’ve done so many hard things. So many, actually movie level, hard things. And I am empty now. And this emptiness causes depression, but the emptiness is the stuggle with having spent an entire life with out being able to be me, to function in a way that is honoring me, to feel safe in the world where I can .. be ok.
Thank you very very much
Totally relate to the logic (cognition) > emotions belief.
I finished my thesis 1 year, 1 month, and 3 days ago… However, I am still getting over that. I want to continue my study on the ecosystem I was writing about. I cannot bring myself to work on it, and I believe I am more into autistic inertia. I think I have to continue the work, from years of having to do during my uni days, that I cannot do anything but it. However, I am not sad, I am able to get out and do things and get exhausted from socializing with friends. So, I am going to back to hobbies and stop trying to get back to working on my thesis.
Some / most evenings it’s so hard to go to bed, even I love to be in bed. It’s like sitting on a bus and having to wait for the right place to get of. But it’s not the same hour every night. So weird!
I deal with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, S.A.D.S. and was homeless for 20 years because I can't keep a job for more than 6 mos.
I got a ME diagnosis 20 years ago. I also have histamine intolerance.
Thank you for this video. I am trying to figure out my state. I kinda think it's still burnout but maybe some seasonal depression has been creeping in. I've started trying some walks to get some daylight. It's tricky given I am a nightowl and I've always hated getting up before 10 am and in Poland with current winter time, sun goes away at 15:40. At the same time it can be tricky to do all the things that are needed to go outside during winter time and I feel preasure to somehow move my butt out before the sun goes down. But following my therapist's advise I am not giving up on the walks yet. I just cannot figure out why my body is hurting a lot - not all the time but far too often. I think I'm tense due to stress of figuring out my finances after I've lost my job. So because I feel physically tired even more than mentally, I think burnout is still on the top of what is wrong with me. I also don't feel especially unhappy or numb... If anything I feel anxious but there are moments of peace. Oh... and also I feel frustrated that I cannot figure out a solid way to make myself feel better and functional.
I was forced on to antidepressants at 17 and now can’t get off them when I never wanted to be on them in the first place wasn’t diagnosed until years later
at the part about burnout or depression:
I think I have both since many years.
Can you do a video on childhood trauma ?
Very interesting the way you described getting momentum...you basicaly described how Projector type in human design function...recommend to listen to Ra Uru Hu how he talks about it😉
For me it's the opposite. Professionals sharing advice on gaining momentum - both for depression and burnout.
And I've always been wondering, because I need to take it easy and recover for a long time. Until finally found out my asd, and then sutisro the burnout - which needs to be addressed differently from "normal" burnout (autistic people can actually have either, depending on the situation).
Depression can also be caused by burnout (the last, worst symptom), and then to treat it you need to address the burnout.
Almost impossible with ADHD to meditate, depression often a comorbidity of ADHD
This resonates with me.
9h sleep is just perfect
Negative thoughts are a curse in my life . I can be feeling ok ,getting on with my day ..then suddenly from nowhere ,with no rhyme or reason a thought infiltrates my mind about something from my past and it totally wrecks my mood and sends my mind spinning into confusion and I have to shut myself away and detach ...not answerng the phone or a knock at the door . Negative thoughts trigger off hibernation mode in me . Do any readers get the same thing ? I'm not sure if i've explained it well enough .