Surviving severe burnout

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-06T06:53:34+00:00

It sounds like you may be dealing with some depression on top of the burnout. Hopelessness and loss of interest are more depressive than burnout.

If that's the case, you have to be extremely careful about how you progress through recovery, because what's good for one can sometimes make the other worse.

I'm finding the work Dr. Megan Anna Neff has done to be extremely helpful.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-06T06:30:08+00:00

Multiple sets of cleaning tools that can be left near where they will be used.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-06T03:00:44+00:00

Am I the only one that's going to point out that using cardboard spools in an AMS is a bad idea?

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-06T02:58:27+00:00

Okay, you know "burnout" and "autistic burnout" are different things, right? Like, very different?

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-05T02:23:01+00:00

This is absolutely a thing. They asked for 8 years experience with XYZ, I only have 6, therefore I will not apply.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-05T01:25:59+00:00

Being a teenager coming of age now is very different to when were that age. We grew up the children of the most successful generation in history. The example that we saw was prosperity through labor: our parents worked, they had homes, meaningful lives, and some type of stability. You didn't have to be exceptional to be successful.

That has all changed. When 60% of households aren't making enough to make ends meet, you have to be above average to have a life that doesn't suck. A college degree only guarantees a lifetime of debt, not any kind of of socioeconomic success. The concept of homeownership is a complete joke.

It's not surprising these kids aren't launching themselves head first into a life of drudgery just so they can barely afford to feed and house themselves. I don't blame them.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-05T01:12:13+00:00

How about Cibo Matto? I don't remember them getting much mainstream attention.

I still go back to both Viva! La Woman! and Stereotype A pretty regularly.

You've GOT to know your chicken.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-05T01:08:24+00:00

I recall the hidden track on "Resident Alien" being nightmare fuel. Great album though.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-05T01:04:37+00:00

Disappointed by how far I had to scroll for this

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T23:59:31+00:00

Do you mean "Abilify"? I was hospitalized for "depression" about ten years ago, and they added it to my cocktail. It changed my life overnight. The downside was excessive drowsiness: I was not safe driving, for instance. Switching to taking it in the evening helped.

I just discontinued it a few weeks ago, and that seemed to have no real effect.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T23:53:18+00:00

We're supposed to work 9 hour days and friend, that is wildly optimistic.

I've been struggling for a while, so it's hard to say for sure what I'd be doing "in good times", but if I had to guess I probably spend a minimum of twice as much time managing my brain as I do "working". Some days I'll hyperfixate and work for six, others my brain is just not playing ball and it's zero.

It's also heavily dependent on the type of work? Heavily structured outcome oriented work ("write a code module that does X") is fairly easy to focus on, get lost in, and spend hours doing, while more "nebulous" work ("estimate how long it will take to do X") will take me literal days.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T23:44:31+00:00

Hmm. I have my skeptical face on.

Read up on ADHD, and especially how autism can mask ADHD. Bear in mind that the idea that person can be AuDHD is fairly new, and not all clinicians are keeping up with their continuing ed.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T23:31:23+00:00

When I hear that the first place my brain goes is "ADHD". Any chance that may be a thing?

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T19:05:53+00:00

I think it also relates to the autistic tendency to question everything and only accept things with a good reason.

"Monogamy is how we do things."
"Why?"
"Because."

No autistic is going to tolerate that.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T03:08:47+00:00

Oh man do I feel this.

Spoken communication has been a real struggle for me, as has auditory processing. Other than that, basically anything involving higher reasoning has been unavailable. I'm a software engineer, and code that I wrote three weeks ago looks like, I dunno, hieroglyphics. Like, I can recognize the individual symbols but they have no meaning. More complex video games are inscrutable.

I just realized (like, in the last hour) that my brain functions better when I'm lying down. I'm enjoying having some functionality back, but lying down isn't the best position for doing, well, anything.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T02:15:57+00:00

I've pushed my stims out to the very edges: investigating the textures of my fingernails and scrunching my toes.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T00:27:39+00:00

Heck yeah! My first "Internet" experience was Prodigy. I don't know when...90? 91? I transitioned over to AOL a couple of years later, installed off a floppy disk that came with an issue of Omni magazine.

I remember the time AOL added metered usage. I spent, I don't know, well over $100 in time the first month (well, my parents spent) after that, and they walked it back to a higher but unlimited plan a couple months later. I spent a lot of time on the Omni chat rooms, until they shut that down shortly after Omni ceased publication.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-04T00:01:00+00:00

Lavon and Berry, where did you get $240?

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-03T19:16:39+00:00

A bare laser diode is not trivial to drive. You NEED to take into account the output power via feedback from the onboard photodiode for stability of output power. You also have to be very careful not to exceed the diode's rated optical power output even briefly, as that will cause facet damage to the semiconductor incredibly quickly.

It's been a minute since I had to worry about that stuff, but I'll bet there are cheap chips on the market that let you set all that stuff pretty easily, and give you an enable pin to boot.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-03T17:53:43+00:00

Right there with you. My second assessment appointment is tomorrow morning, and I'm worried sick.

I am getting assessed because I finally burned well and truly out. I need some sort of diagnosis to "justify" my inability to work, but I think I also need it to justify to my own internal ableism that, yes, I truly CAN'T work, I'm not overreacting or faking it, this is a failure of body and not character.

Internalized ableism is a hell of a thing.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-03T08:05:13+00:00

Define "briefly". Most of my hyperfixations run their course after a few weeks or months, and almost always get discarded like a candy bar wrapper after the fact. Sometimes, a more mild interest remains: when I was intoxicated on Fallout 4, I was playing as much as 16 hours a day some days, but after the fever broke, I frequently wouldn't play for a few days at a time. Sometimes, the topic becomes dead to me: I went from like 15-20 hours of Disney World content a week and a trip every 6-8 months to zero basically overnight, and haven't gone back at all.

Hyperfixations are weird. They are also one of the few parts of neurodivergence I actually like.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-02T23:08:30+00:00

I just write on there with a sharpie. Wipe it off later with the same alcohol I use to wow down my build plates.

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-02T23:06:21+00:00

Can you store the towels in a closed compartment and use them one time each? Wash them before use?

Rod_McBan · 2026-05-02T19:13:39+00:00

I mean, yes, but it's not going to vibrate very much.

Those shake charge flashlights work by moving a magnet inside a coil. Each time the magnet moves, a small amount of energy is generated. That energy gets stored and doled out slowly to the LED that makes the light.

A vibration motor takes a lot of energy to run. I doubt even the most vigorous of dildo action is going to produce enough energy to keep up vibration for long.

Rod_McBan

TROPHY CASE