A place to document what I'm noticing, making, and wondering about. Musings, experiments, and reflections that thread together all my passion projects.
On Monday, I went to two dance classes back to back, a feat I haven’t attempted in years. Then yesterday on Tuesday, I went to a 3-hour textile printing class. That means back to back days of self-directed, somewhat strenuous evening commitments. Normally in these past few years, I would’ve felt exhausted and overextended. But I don’t, and THAT is the real accomplishment.
For the past 4 years, my life has looked very…spacious. Not only was I unemployed and therefore not following a set work schedule, but I wasn’t going to the gym, wasn’t going to dance class, wasn’t cooking/cleaning regularly, wasn’t even making art most days. Where did my time go? Probably some combination of napping, planning art projects (but not actually creating them), social media, TV, researching some obscure interest (but again, not doing anything with that research), or reflecting on some advice about mindset/healing/business.
I want to be careful here and say, I think spaciousness in life is necessary. Oh my god, is it ever necessary. Most of us (my former employed self included) run around in life with our heads cut off. Doing, doing, doing, and going, going, going without ever taking a pause. And then wonder why we burn out. Western culture is in dire need of spaciousness and recognizing the importance of doing nothing. The importance of having empty space in your calendar to daydream, to ponder, to reflect, to just be. In all its yang energy, we need to start seeing the value of yin.
But, there is also such a thing as too much yin. In these 4 years, my typical morning looked like waking up between 9 and 11am, researching a random idea for an hour or two before brushing my teeth, then microwaving something or ordering takeout for lunch. After lunch I would intend to work on a project, but respond to emails/social media for 2 hours, then feel tired and take an hour long nap. By the time I woke up, the work day was almost over, so I would re-shuffle my projects and do more research or busywork that didn’t actually result in anything. Maybe I’ll have a dance or yoga class scheduled, but I’ll inevitably allow myself the excuse that I’m too tired and cancel it. My partner would come home from work, we’d order takeout for dinner because neither of us have the energy to cook, and finally we’d watch TV until bedtime. No rules, no regimen, very open, very fluid. I just vibed the day away.
[Aside: Of course, this “typical day” excludes the occasional bouts of hardcore structured action, spawned by either an impulsive spark of inspiration or an external obligation, like my neon course or type design program. I never want to diminish all that I’ve accomplished and created in these years, because the belief that “I haven’t done enough” just feeds into the capitalistic need for productivity and commodity of our time. So I have done enough, but this also doesn’t feel like my fullest potential. A paradox.]
So where did my days even go??? In these past few years I’ve had a constant feeling of lethargy that was ever so slight, like I’m capable of more but too tired to go after it. So I purposely kept my days structure-free, believing that I must be needing more rest or fewer commitments. I not only thought this, but I also felt this: any attempt at imposing more structure in my life was met with a revolt in my body. Like I want to take action, and complete projects, and exercise properly, but even the lightest suggestion of regimen made my body say “no”.
What was this “no” feeling? Dread is the best way I know to describe it. It’s the “UGHHHHHH” feeling. The “I don’t feel like it” feeling but 100 times stronger, so strong that it overrides external accountability. I have bailed on dance and yoga classes that I’ve already paid for. I’ve pretended to be sick for classes or other events that were expecting my attendance. I’ve eaten the cost of a therapy session, because I couldn’t muster the will to be “on”. The bodily “no” feels like I’m sick of everything, and I just want to stay in my comfortable little bubble, decomposing at home. It feels like if I go outside, I will be trapped there. I’ll be trapped in a place that forces me to be “on”, a place where I have to appear a certain way and abide by rules of society, trapped in the hustle bustle of people and crowds and strangers and life moving around me.
As I’m writing this, I realize what I’m describing is the need to mask. And this is at the core of literally everything.
In contrast to the past 4 years, I’m amazed at how much I did in this past month of January. (I cooked, I hosted two dinner parties, I redesigned my website, I applied to jobs, I launched the Snail Mail Art Club, I made a ton of darkroom prints, I went to several dance classes, I learned embroidery, I learned to build WordPress sites, I continued to send newsletters, I made art in my sketchbook.) I’m even more amazed at the fact that I don’t feel burnt out, dread, or that bodily “no” feeling in doing all of this. I told my therapist that I feel an internal shift happening, from being sick of everything to being willing and happy to engage with the world. I told her how surprised and relieved I felt. And she told me to look up “neurodivergent burnout”.
Well, DAMN. What I found described my experience to a tee. This article is so good that I’m going to break it down below (words bolded by me).
For many years, research has focused purely on the neurotypical experience of burnout, which is often caused by over-working coupled with not having enough time off. This experience is typically remedied by taking a few weeks off, with the opportunity to catch-up and rest.
So the neurotypical version of burnout is resolved by resting for a couple of weeks. I’ve felt this bodily “no” feeling while unemployed and taking daily hour-long naps for FOUR YEARS. Rest was not the issue here.
The experience of neurodivergent burnout is often the result of chronic stress combined with expectations, such as work commitments, and a lack of adequate support…such experience is also equated as the consequence of camouflaging or masking, a coping strategy utilised by neurodivergent people.
Chronic stress + expectation + masking – adjustments or support = neurodivergent burnout
Yes, yes, and YES. My partner has long pointed out my aversion to expectations, and he suspects this aversion is not a personality trait but a trauma response. I have always begrudgingly agreed. Also, this is why I said that masking is at the core of everything. Even when I burnt out working in corporate tech, I knew my burnout was not from over-working but from over-masking.
The next part of the article talks about burnout experiences unique to neurodivergent people. I’ll elaborate on each one I resonated with:
- A reduced tolerance to sensory stimuli.
A few months ago, I moved from a dense, yuppie-centric neighbourhood in Brooklyn to a sparser, family-oriented neighbourhood in Queens, and it has done wonders for my mental health. I no longer feel frozen at home, fantasizing about escaping to the countryside or disappearing to another country. I’m much less reluctant to move about and commute into the city now. Without the crowds and hustle culture, I feel like my mind now has space to breathe.
- Executive function overload, for example, increased challenges with memory.
- Difficulties with daily living activities, such as basic hygiene.
One of the “hacks” I tried was to write my current task on a sticky note so I could remember what I was doing. Many times, I would read the note and forget it the second I looked away. I also struggled with cooking and defaulted to ordering takeout almost every day for years, something that I’m not proud of. There are many other examples like these.
- Social withdrawal.
My aversion to leaving the house has made me a little anti-social. I excused it by saying I’m in my “grandma era” of arts & crafts, or by saying I value a small friend group. Although both excuses are true, there’s a part of me that misses the version of myself that who loved going dancing and meeting new friends at parties.
- Inability to mask / camouflage.
That social butterfly version of myself was a heavy masker. I miss her somewhat, but I also know I could never be her anymore because I don’t have the energy nor the will to mask as deeply. I now feel like the awkward, quiet girl in the corner at parties. I will never feel as socially adored as before, but the inability to mask has also set me free from forcing myself to perform. It’s bittersweet.
Unlike neurotypical burnout (where [cortisol and adrenaline] can typically be reset within a few days or weeks), it can take months or even years for neurodivergent people to recover from [the chronic existence of these hormones].
During my engineering career, I read a tweet from a woman in my field. After she experienced burnout, it took her three years to even bare to look at code again. Three years?!!, I remember thinking. I can understand being sick of code for a while but three years is extreme, thank god that will never be me. Welp, just look at me now.
As I mentioned earlier, the Western world is obsessed with yang energy (structure, action, doing) and it is not wrong to seek out more yin (spaciousness, reflecting, being). Most of the remedies for neurodivergent burnout echo this:
- Utilising energy accounting systems or Spoon Theory, to manage energy levels whilst experiencing burnout.
- Set boundaries to ensure there is enough time to process.
Although my “no” feelings of lethargy frustrated me, I do think it was right for me to listen to them (not that I had any choice) and give my life the spaciousness it needed. Some things really do take four years.
It also notes that rest may look more like rabbit holes and fixating on interests for us neurodivergents, rather than naps and lounging by the beach:
- If possible, take time off and ensure that this is spent engaging in relaxation activities. This type of ‘rest’ may look different to traditional forms of relaxation and may involve engaging with specialist interests.
To me, neurotypical “regular” burnout and neurodivergent burnout feel like completely different beasts. I’ve always felt gaslit and guilty about being burnt out because most people describe it as a symptom of over-working, which I knew wasn’t true for me. I later came to understand that my burnout was caused by over-masking, and the term “neurodivergent burnout” validates it as a legitimate type of burnout.
At the end of the day, burnout is a nervous system reaction to repeated stress or trauma. So what was the trauma, and what was the reaction?
In my case, I think my nervous system had tied the notion of structure and regimen to my experience at my corporate tech job, where I felt trapped in a constant state of masking, being “on”, and feeling dread. Even when I escaped that environment, my nervous system still saw any semblance of structure as a threat. It sounded alarm bells in the form of a bodily “no” feeling any time it sensed structure and expectation being imposed, which my brain interpreted as a fear of overextension.
In reality, this fear is just a trauma response. Our nervous systems are incredible alarms, but sometimes the thing they’re alerting is not a real threat. It took 4 years for my nervous system to be okay with structure again (while also balanced with yin & spaciousness). It was not a waste of time, it was what my nervous system needed to feel safe again.