On Being Overwhelmed

It's been...a minute since my last post.

Things have happened. The autistic burnout has been an underlying constancy, but other shifts have happened.

In March, I was accepted to grad school. To accommodate circumstances in my life, I pushed the start date back first to the spring semester, then to next fall. However, I let go of my lease and moved back in with my parents in order to save up for school up until my start date. Then, a little over a month after the move, I was let go from my job. It was both perfect timing and the worst timing possible, but I had known it was coming.

A part of me has experienced a deep relief; while I was genuinely grateful for my job and its unique privilege to work remotely so that I could support myself without having to push too far beyond my boundaries in a physical setting, the autistic burnout had become so real that I had now passed through the stage of "I'm aware that I'm in burnout" to "I'm so used to being in burnout that I've forgotten I'm in burnout." I was deeply disconnected from my body and mind, had lost interest in the things that used to light me up, and felt myself rapidly descending into a place of nihilism that I thought I'd matured past.

In the ensuing month and a half, I've waffled between "let it go and rest for a minute" and "I must now use this time as productively and actively as possible." I'm doing my best to strike a balance, and one of my main considerations has been the prioritization of Chaos Lingo and everything neurospicy + language, as it sits right in the middle of the Venn diagram separating enjoyment from obligation.

But what I'm dealing with is a huge aspect of daily life for the majority of people on the neurodivergent spectrum, especially those who also handle chronic illnesses, which is a nearly closed-circle Venn diagram: How do we continue to pursue a passion like learning a language while also maintaining the two things necessary for survival: daily responsibilities like work/upkeeping the house/caretaking/satisfying expectations, and daily challenges like sensory overwhelm/chronic fatigue and pain/need for rest?

No, I'm asking you. How?

Just kidding, that's what I'm here for. But please be gracious with me while I look for that answer, or even better, come along with me on that journey.

Look forward to my next, more focused piece on keeping up a language-learning routine with chronic fatigue and/or burnout.