Tag: burnout
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I Avoided Burnout—And Maybe You Can Too
Burnout was looming—and for once, I saw it coming. Over the past three weeks, I faced a perfect storm of stress, overwhelm, and sensory chaos… but I didn’t crash. In this post, I’m sharing the real-life strategies that helped me dodge autistic burnout, protect my mental health, and stay (mostly) functional through it all. If…
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How to Survive Summer Holidays as a Neurodivergent Parent (Without Crying Under a Blanket)
It’s coming.Six weeks of beautiful chaos. Six weeks of uncertainty, overstimulation, and melted ice lollies on the floor. And just when everyone finally settles into a manageable routine… it’s time for the new school year to begin! The importance of routine can’t be ignored and I write here about why is it so critical. This…
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Burnout on Repeat: How Autism and ADHD Fuel the Cycle
Before I knew I was autistic and had ADHD, I lived in a constant state of frustration. I couldn’t understand why I seemed to swing between being completely in control—on top of everything, organised, productive—and then suddenly hitting a wall, unable to string together a coherent thought or get out of bed for days at…
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The Painful Tide of Autistic Burnout: When Part of You Is Washed Away
Throughout my working life, people have described me as “a bit bipolar” (yep, that old gem). One week I’m fired up, enthusiastic, and firing on all cylinders—the most productive human alive. The next? I’m sluggish, sullen, and struggling to type a few coherent sentences. At first, I thought this was just the way I worked.…
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Burnout Before the Holidays: Helping My Autistic Child Recover In Time To Enjoy Easter
When Burnout Looks Like Illness It happened again. Just days before the end of term, my six-year-old broke. His little body and mind, utterly exhausted from weeks of masking and trying to keep up with school demands, gave out. The result? A high temperature and vomiting. Now, logic might say this sounds like a bug.…
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How to Recover from Autistic Burnout Faster
I’m still getting to grips with the fact that I experience autistic burnout, what it looks like, and how it works for me. For over a decade, I was trapped in a cycle of debilitating exhaustion, pain, and brain fog—a mysterious and unidentifiable illness that no one could fully diagnose. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Hypothyroidism,…
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Waking Up From Burnout and Battling Executive Dysfunction
For most of my adult life, I believed I was physically unwell. Diagnosis after diagnosis—chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, mystery neurological issues, and hypothyroidism—painted a bleak picture. Doctors would tell me to “just lose weight” or “eat better,” as if my crippling brain fog, exhaustion, and muscle pain would magically disappear. What they missed was the…
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Handling School When Your Child Is Facing Autistic Burnout
Between Christmas and Easter during Large Child’s first year at school, things started to settle. Or so I thought. But one persistent issue kept cropping up: exhaustion. Large Child cried every day before school, saying it was “too much.” But sometimes, the cries were different—deep, guttural sobs. His face was pale, his eyes glazed. As…
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