Autistic Burnout I bid you good day!

I’m sitting in a little cafe, these words are hard to write. They don’t flow in the same way as they normally seem to. My stomach is leaping and bounding and whirling with that phenomenon known as ‘having butterflies’.

It’s an apt metaphor, it really does feel like things are flying around in there.

Today I have an interview, it’s the first interview I have had in quite some time. I am as they say somewhat shitting myself.

It’s not just the first interview in a long time it’s the first interview since coming out and starting my transition. The decision process of what to wear was all new, in the past not so much.

This is one of those times, where, being visible, being out, being public; well it’s one of those times when it’s all really real. It’s kind of like putting yourself out there on a slab to be judged.

I mean, well that’s the interview process anyway I guess. But it’s kind of feeling like, it’s a double whammy of that. On the slab to be judged worthy or not as a worker and also at the same time as to how I pass, or don’t etc.

Yet, at the same time, I am aware that this company I am interviewing for are awesome in terms of diversity. Especially it seems in terms of their support for LGBTIQA+ people. So, in that respect, I feel pretty OK.

In another aspect is the being autistic part. And, I am told, they specifically want to employ an autistic person. It seems I meet up on all the diversity factors of being a suitable candidate for this position.

The question is, then, will I measure up as a suitable candidate as a worker for this position. Thankfully the person interviewing me, has two autistic children, and from that perspective, will have some insight.

It might be easy, reading this, to think I am being a little negative about all this. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am actually really positive that this will be a good experience, and hopefully a positive outcome.

The thing is, though, of course, that doesn’t change that it’s a really nerve inducing situation. As a person who deals with Dysthymia and Generalised Anxiety as well as everything that goes with living as an autistic in a neurotypical world, I don’t think it is going too far to say it is an anxiety inducing event.

It’s been some time since I had a normal kind of job. I’ve done some bits and pieces here and there. I have had caring responsibilities at times which have precluded going out to work, but this being out of the employment system for a few years makes it all a bit scary in finding my way back in.

I mean there are things that are hard to explain. Like the massive gaps in work history. Like explaining that you have spent a few years in recovery from autistic burnout, and your most recent position, which is in itself a few years ago, you left in a cloud of meltdown.

Having said all that, it actually feels like this is the best chance I have had in a long time of getting some employment again. I am actually a good worker. I believe autistic people generally are good workers. Personally what I find to be the case is once I am in a job, understand what is required of me, I get in and do it, and for the most part, do a pretty darn good job at it.

Doing the work, has never been the issue for me at all. It’s all the other stuff, the hidden workplace curriculum. It’s a curriculum that the neurotypical mind just seems to get, to understand innately somehow. But for the autistic person, this one anyway, it’s like the old saying ‘it’s all Greek to me’.

Autistic burnout has been an interesting journey. It’s one that has actually taken me quite some time to recognise in myself. And, I think it is a fertile ground for research to gain some insight and understanding.

It actually took me a long time to realise that I was in fact experiencing this burnout. It’s a kind of intangible sense, feeling, way of being. On one level functioning is fine. I could care for kids, exist in the home, write blogs and articles and even do a little bit of work from home here and there. For example working on some websites for people, working on transcription bases typing jobs.

So this burnout, wasn’t a total not able to function at all burnout. It has been something different. Something that debilitated in bits and pieces. It fluctuates and changes how you manage depending on the thing you are trying to actually do.

As listed there have been a bunch of things I could do, and do reasonably well. However, when it came time to open a JobSearch website and look for a job, to sit in front of a word document to rewrite my CV, a debilitating force seemed to overcome me.

It’s amazing how long one can stare at a blank word document. It was as though a force like extreme writer’s block was coursing through me.

Perhaps the most difficult part of all that was that it actually took until really the beginning of this year, just about five or six months ago, that I was experiencing this situation.

I would be encouraged by friends and family to try harder, and they had the best intentions I know, but the debilitation was seemingly impossible to explain. Even more so, it seemed, because functioning in so many other areas of life was actually going ok.

I would be given the expectation by the Government Unemployment service to be looking for work. I had activity requirements to meet in order to qualify for the payments I was receiving. I get that that’s the right thing too.

Meeting those requirements was debilitating, it found me in front of the doctor, then the Psychiatrist trying to explain how debilitated I was. I was not disabled enough to claim disability, but kind of not able enough to manage to look for and find work.

It’s been a somewhat long and arduous journey to get to the point I am at today. A demarcation point where, the journey changes. Regardless of the outcome, something internal has changed.

No longer is the whole idea debilitating me, leaving me staring at a blank document with a seeming inability to add details to it. The very idea, the very reality of having an actual interview has changed everything.

Suddenly, sitting here as an autistic, transgender woman, an hour out from their first interview for a long time, I feel a sense of hope, positivity and eagerness for the future.

Regardless of the outcome today, it kind of feels like today is the day I have emerged finally from the tendrils of autistic burnout that have held me so tightly for so long.

Of course, my stomach is still dancing a storm. I am still nervous as hell. I am still worried about the things like maintaining the right amount of eye contact, not talking too long, not being negative about past experiences, being positive about my strengths of character, and my skill set.

It’s been a wild ride, a long journey. There has been a lot of pain, frustration confusion and struggle. But it’s over.

Autistic Burnout, I bid you good day.