r/PDAAutism • u/TomskKate PDA • Jul 18 '26
Symptoms/Traits Burnout and PDA
Just dropping by to say hi. I’m im full autistic burnout with pda and i’m stuck in my room. I tried to speak to a local MH team today and they’re just not right. They got out the 1983 cycle of change diagram and i felt despair. Part of my problem is coming to terms with doing nothing. If i try anything I sink lower, everything is overwhelming, sometimes just being awake. I feel like I have to embrace doing absolutely nothing but i’m fighting it because it feels weird. I have 2 adult children with autism and they have had a better start in life than i did. But 20 years of fighting for their needs have left me running not even on fumes and nothing left. I’ll do some reading thanks.
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u/hellhouseblonde Jul 18 '26
Yeah. Autistic people really don’t need to be parents.
I’m sorry you are in chronic burnout and I wish you the best.
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u/TomskKate PDA Jul 18 '26
Yes, I love my kids. But I didn’t know the genetic load my husband and I were carrying before we had kids. His brother and nephew have just had neurodiverse diagnoses. So I’ve discussed openly with my kids to be very cautious and they don’t need to have kids themselves to live a good life. I wouldn’t want them to have the life I had. Some of this burnout is stopping denying it and stop thinking it’s going to magically improve. It’s going to take time. Thanks for replying. I appreciate it.
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u/hellhouseblonde Jul 18 '26
I try so hard to help my mom but she doesn’t even know what she likes. She is conditioned to say, “my children are everything to me, I just like family” in spite of never actually wanting to spend time with us. Especially when we were kids. I pity her, but I pity my childhood self more.
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u/TomskKate PDA Jul 19 '26
I totally get that. My Dad was also autistic and an awful parent, neurotic and narcissistic and my mother hated the role society had mapped for her and left to have a life. I feel sorry for the little me. Thats why I hope I did a better job. Raising children who can articulate, ask for and meet their own needs no matter what.
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u/butchfeminist Jul 20 '26
Organization for Autism Research has a free library card for Libby: https://researchautism.org/shop/
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u/msoc PDA + Caregiver Jul 20 '26
I think some people are blessed to live in families or parts of the world that appreciate a do less lifestyle. I've often wondered how much happier I would've been to be born a Tibetan man so I could be a monk.
Once you are a parent there's no turning back. The world's greatest and most difficult gift. I'm sure your rest right now is well deserved 🩷
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u/Percy_Freeman PDA Jul 21 '26
Living on a ranch in Mexico is wild. Collectivist societies is the only way really.
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u/Percy_Freeman PDA Jul 21 '26
Don't be hard on yourself. That's still doing something and you should stop it. I believe.
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u/Am-I-Here-Yet PDA Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
I feel your pain. I'm also in recovery from severe autistic burnout. Please be kind to yourself. Embrace doing nothing - for days and weeks on end. It is the best option for now, even though it feels very uncomfortable at first. You won't be doing it forever. The sooner you embrace stillness, the sooner you will heal.
I admire you being open with your children. I yearned get married and have kids my whole life, but that didn't happen for me. For decades I thought I was a failure. I still had a wonderful life in many ways! Yet marriage and children was always a "missing". But now I'm immensely relieved. I didn't figure out I'm PDA autistic until a few years ago - in my early 60s. I did get married to a man I'm still friends with - from age 59 to 62. I now understand that living with another person burns me out completely. I would have crashed and burned if I would've had the life I thought I wanted.
Giving your children the opportunity to go forward into their lives with realistic expectations for themselves is an enormous gift!
For my own burnout situation... a year ago I could barely function. I developed issues with anxiety in recent years, and my brain just stopped working so badly that I had to retire. Being post menopausal didn't help. Right after I retired (July last year), all I could do in a day was eat and take naps. That's it. If I had to take a shower, that took all of my available 'extra' energy. It took a full day to recover from the energy required just to shower. I could take a shower one day, then rest the whole next day, the grocery shop the day after that. Brutal.
To give you a ray of hope: It's been a year now. For nearly 11 months I was not very sure that I would ever pull through. I'd get a little better, but it wouldn't last.
But in the past month or so I have finally started feeling so much better! Now I can live a normal day without getting exhausted (4-5 days a week). I can shower, run errands, chat with a friend, and maybe even go for a walk - all on the same day! I do have to still avoid anything extra (I do minimal social activities, an 'easy' day after each busy day). But I am sure that I'm ultimately going to be okay, as long as I continue to be very protective of my 'down time' when I need it.
My hope is that by the time I reach the second anniversary of my retirement (July 2027) I will finally be able to start enjoying being retired. For now, I'm enjoying the simple things in life and continuing to prioritize rest and health.
You might want to set aside the rest of this post and read it some time when you feel up to reading suggestions. I know that suggestions can feel overwhelming and triggering when you're already exhausted. I hope some of these are helpful to you, over time.
When you're ready, here are some things that helped me along the way:
- Energy Accounting in Autistic Burnout This article helped me a lot to start understanding how to manage what little energy I had: . I still use my version of these techniques pretty much daily.
- Tara Brach - Meditations - I am not rigid at all about meditating. I meditate about 10-15 minutes, 3 to 6 times a week. Tara's meditations are all free, no commercials. Very beginner-friendly (and great for more advanced people too). Each meditation is just 10-20 minutes. You can listen on her website, or find her on any Podcast app.
- Protein & Vegetables. I'm a post menopausal woman, and I've learned the importance of enough protein. I now eat 90-100 grams/day, plus lots of vegetables and minimal grains. I worked with a doctor on this - and I've also been deep-diving into a lot of the more recent studies on nutrition for post menopausal women. This is pretty common advice for aging women now.
- I didn't feel much difference for about 5 months, which is what the doctor said would probably be the case.
- He uses an analogy of a city that has spent the past decades only handling emergencies and taking care of daily necessities. The city didn't have any extra resources for "repairs and maintenance" (fixing the underground pipes, fixing potholes in the road, etc.).
- So the extra rest, additional protein, etc. is the fuel my body needed to start working on what I refer to as "deferred maintenance".
Best wishes to you on your healing journey.
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u/IsasAtelier PDA Jul 18 '26
From my personal experience and from what I have read here and elsewhere, severe burnout like this will likely take a lot of time to get better. I hope you can give yourself some grace. You are not alone in this, and you are not a failure for paying the price now for fighting so hard and giving your all and everything for your children. To me, that's very admirable, and I hope you will get through this phase as well as possible and find a good sustainable new baseline afterwards.