Ancestors

Written by Kevin Davy on 2025-01-15 at 01:41

@actuallyautistic

I'm just tired.

Such simply words, such small words, to describe the depth of exhaustion and soul numbing weariness, I was so often experiencing when I spoke them. So many times in my life I have, just been tired. That was how I thought of it, how I explained how I felt to myself. I can see, looking back, that many of those times were when I was burntout, at University and afterwards. Or obvious times of great stress, or when I had over worked. But, so often it was just how I felt, just the truth of my existence. I was just so, so, tired.

But, my problem was that I had learnt to judge my life against what I knew. How I'd learnt to see it, in how others seemed to experience theirs, how it was explained in book and film. How it just seemed to be. In my mind, it had all built up into a picture of how hard life should and shouldn't be. And so it never felt that I had the right to be so exhausted, to be such a mess. Because what I had really done, nothing. I knew that depression could have explained it, but that hadn't always felt entirely right to me, except sometimes on the fringes. So all it could ever be was that I was just tired and just tired doesn't mean that you can't push on, it doesn't mean that you can give up and it definitely doesn't mean that you're allowed to ever stop, if only for a little while.

And that was my life, before I realised I was autistic. I suspect many of our lives. A relentless effort, like swimming forever against the tide. But a tide I could never recognise, or see, or rest from, or forgive myself for not being able to beat all the time. The life that can happen when you don't recognise your own needs and when you have no explanation for how tiring...well, everything is and are trying to a live that isn't yours. When you are masking all the time and trying everything you can, to live the life most normal, the life you thought you should have.

So, is it any wonder that major burnout seems almost inevitable for those of us realising this later in life. That we have burnt through so many of the resources and reserves that we could have had. How different it could have been, if only we'd known the differences we could have made and that we were never, ever, just tired.

So, if you ever wonder why I spend so much time on here. This is why.

[#]Autism

[#]ActuallyAutistic

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Written by Ari does not comply on 2025-01-19 at 19:12

@pathfinder Toward the end of 2023 I thought I was making it out of a very long period of burnout and grief. I had started feeling optimism again, was feeling like I had some purpose and direction, and I sometimes felt hope!

Fast forward to the first new month of 2025 and I have said and felt, "I am so tired" so, so, SO many times.

Looking at the macro vs the micro, I'm probably not fully recovered from my previous burnout, and may possibly be slipping into a new phase of burnout.

(The "micro" would be thinking I didn't eat properly, or hydrate properly, or get enough sleep. All of which are factors that play into it, but they are also symptoms, if that makes any sense.)

I appreciate you writing about this, because it has been a gentle reminder to me that burnout is a thing, that I cannot fight my neurology, that I cannot ever mask again to push through things (nor do I want to!), and I need to start to be much kinder to myself overall.

Thank you for the reminder.

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Written by Kevin Davy on 2025-01-19 at 19:23

@arisummerland

To be honest I think the older we get, the harder it is to emerge out from the shadows of burnout and the longer it takes. It's also entirely possible that we reach a point where we never fully recover and return to what was.

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Written by Ari does not comply on 2025-01-20 at 00:35

@pathfinder yeah I'm pretty sure I can't return to what was but I certainly would like what is to come to feel better than now. If at all possible...

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Toot

Written by Kevin Davy on 2025-01-20 at 00:39

@arisummerland

It gets better slowly. You've just got to allow yourself the right recovery plan and stick with it.

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Descendants

Written by Ari does not comply on 2025-01-20 at 15:06

@pathfinder And I've got to want to be kind enough to myself to stick to recovery as well. I trick myself into not caring for the one human I live with 24/7 by getting distracted by everyone and everything else. It's a type of madness.

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Written by Kevin Davy on 2025-01-20 at 15:39

@arisummerland

Helping others, often by putting their needs above our own, is no bad trait. Unfortunately all too often we've hid ourselves behind it. Used it to perpetuate what we'd been taught, by society and those around us and by how they'd viewed and treated us. That our self wasn't truth and therefore self-care and emphasising our own needs had no validity.

It's a hard habit to break, even harder to realise that it was never right and that taking care of ourselves is not only right, but good for others too.

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Written by Ari does not comply on 2025-01-20 at 15:50

@pathfinder Thank you.

I've long known that you cannot draw water from an empty well, but I still have the tendency to empty the well completely, because somehow I was taught that me having any water at all is "selfish".

Gotta unlearn that! 🤣

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Written by Kevin Davy on 2025-01-20 at 15:57

@arisummerland

Indeed, as have I 😊

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