By Taylor W.
I’ll be honest with you: I’m having a very hard time putting words together these days.
Actually, I’m having a hard time doing a lot of things. It sort of feels like I’m wading through this…soul-sucking fog, one that’s left me disconnected, achy, irritable, et cetera et cetera. Lots of fun things. I made rice in a rice cooker earlier today and it felt like a serious victory. And really, in these times of constant stress and uncertainty, me feeling this way probably shouldn’t come as a surprise – I think a lot of people are in the same boat. But I’m also acutely aware of how familiar this feeling is. It’s followed me in one form or another for most of my life.
For a long time, I didn’t have an accurate name for it. First I called it laziness, when my self-esteem was effectively nonexistent (so, like…up until the past couple of years). Then I called it depression, once I realized this would happen despite trying my absolute best, always. And yeah, part of it is depression. I won’t discount that. But after I got my autism diagnosis at age 22 and started educating myself about neurodivergence, I discovered an equally accurate and important descriptor: burnout. Layers and layers of burnout. Whew boy, there was a lot to unpack there. I’m very much still unpacking it. And I have a hunch that plenty of my fellow former “gifted” kids have a similar amount of unpacking to do. Come along with me, will ya?
Here’s something I came to terms with recently: being an undiagnosed, extremely anxious, extremely observant, “gifted” child meant that I quickly learned to prioritize achievement and social acceptance over just about everything else. But it may surprise you to hear that no one had to consistently scold or punish me to accomplish this. Instead, the lessons were in the details: I paid attention to every facial expression, every change in vocal tone, every positive and negative social interaction exchanged between those around me. I was determined to figure out how my world was supposed to work.
By elementary school I’d observed that uncommon movements brought unwanted attention and scrutiny, so I suppressed the urge to stim. And since I wasn’t regulating myself the healthy way, repression and dissociation quickly became my coping mechanisms of choice. By the time I got to high school, I’d learned a host of other masking skills as well: how to hide my intense interests in Neopets and K-Pop by passing them off as ironic, how to maintain basic surface-level friendships, and how to earn respect by showing off my intelligence while hiding basically everything else about me. It left me feeling exhausted, empty and without a sense of identity – but I thought that was just a part of growing up. I figured that everyone prioritized success and acceptance the way I was trying to. I believed that my increasing chronic mental and physical pain signified that I was finally working hard enough. And I hoped things would get easier, now that I was on the path to mastering adulthood.
Spoiler alert: they didn’t. Instead, things really started to catch up with me when I went off to college, as if my brain and body said, “enough is enough.” The brain fog I’d experienced off and on got so much worse. My “occasional” anxious stomachaches became a daily occurrence, taking literal hours out of my day and leaving me scrambling to keep up with responsibilities. My “episodes” (first called tantrums, then panic attacks, then finally what they really are: autism meltdowns) got more and more frequent, until finally they impeded my ability to drive, go to social events, and even access public spaces. Though I managed to keep my grades up, driven by some cocktail of extreme anxiety and stubborn force of will, my participation grades suffered and I had to seek special accommodations to avoid my absences flunking me out of class.
I felt totally defeated by the time I earned my degree. Why, despite trying so damn hard all the time, did life seem to be getting progressively harder, and scarier? Why was I so tired all the time? Why hadn’t any of the literal dozens of psychiatric meds I’d tried made a difference for my mental health? What was I missing?
Uh. Yeah. So. Turns out, I was missing a lot of things. An accurate diagnosis, first of all, which I didn’t get until after I graduated. Knowledge about said diagnosis, which has taken years to gather, thanks to all the misinformation out there about autism and neurodivergence in general. And a whole lot of self-compassion. Because oh my god, my self-esteem was at rock-bottom. I legitimately believed I was lazy and limited in my intelligence, solely because I was struggling and unable to be as traditionally “productive” as I thought I should be. And that belief had its roots way back in my early childhood, when I first learned to hide pieces of myself away.
What am I supposed to do about that now, though? Fair question. Clearly, burnout is still something I deal with, so it’s not like I’ve found the magic antidote. But I will say that it’s a whole lot less prevalent than before I knew I was autistic. And when I do enter a period of burnout, I’m now able to better identify the stressors that built up to bring me there. You know, like a global pandemic causing complete upheaval of all routines and plans? That’s an easy one.
Usually though, it’s more a mix of avoidable and unavoidable factors. Some things will probably cause me stress no matter what (dealing with a broken car window, moving house, finishing a blog post), but plenty of others are tied to negative lessons I’m still unlearning from a long, long time ago. Many of those lessons are tied to shame. And shame…can be its own exhausting demon to fight back against. Especially when it runs as deeply as it does in me. But I’m thankful to have found the #actuallyautistic community online, which has provided so many resources to do that fighting, both for my own sake and for that of others. Because I am beyond tired of dimming my own light. It’s a waste of my energy, it’s a waste of my unique perspective, and it just plain ol’ doesn’t make sense anymore. Especially when the world already feels so dark.
Here’s to letting ourselves shine, fellow burnt-out gifted kids. It’s a process, but it’s worth it. We’re worth it. Even when all we can do is cry and eat some rice. Like Chihiro from Spirited Away. You know that one scene where she cries massive animated tears and shoves an onigiri into her face? That was me today. Oh my god, I have no choice but to headcanon Chihiro as autistic now. Okay. Signing off to infodump about this to my wife. Until next time!