If you are Autistic and ADHD (AuDHD for short) and you are in a burnout you can’t get out of whatever you do, read on. I have lately realized why it’s so difficult to get out of AuDHD burnout. And in hindsight, it seems so obvious.
I’ve been in severe autistic burnout since 2017, long before I even knew I was autistic and had ADHD. It has been building for some time — actually, all the way back from the years I barely scraped through college (and got a Master’s degree and a social phobia out of it).
I haven’t been able to claw my way out of the burnout since. It was because of various outside stressors (Covid, serious illness, and injury in the family of my ex-partner), but apparently also because I have ADHD alongside autism, and those two conditions interact together like fire and water.
A revelation about AuDHD burnout
It dawned on me when I was watching this great video from an AuDHD YouTuber Yo Samdy Sam. She has been talking about appeasing both her autistic side and her ADHD side, which have vastly different and often opposing needs. (I highly recommend watching the video! It isn’t about burnout, but you can find many great insights about AuDHD in it.)
She spoke of autistic burnout — which you can get out of only by getting enough rest —, and ADHD bore-out, which makes you crave activity. Do you begin to see the problem here?
I’m in autistic burnout, but whenever I lie down to rest, I almost immediately feel like my skin crawls from the need to do SOMETHING. No matter how exhausted I am — if I can’t fall asleep from the exhaustion straight away, I can’t rest for more than a few moments before going out of my mind because of my ADHD.
The endless vicious circle of AuDHD burnout
I’m often in a state of total overwhelm when I just need to lie in bed and switch off (even in the morning, right after waking up, if the previous day has been difficult) but my ADHD just won’t let me. I still have an unbearable urge to do something. And this just buries me deeper in autistic burnout.
I’m more exhausted, so I can do fewer things. The fewer things I do, the more my ADHD desperately pushes me to do something. The more I try to go over my limits to do something, the deeper in the burnout I find myself. And the more burned out I’m, the more restless my ADHD becomes and demands even more activity… This causes an endless cycle of burnout.
(I sometimes marvel that I can write somewhat coherent texts — in a language that is not my own — even in this state, but writing is such an integral part of me that I can’t not.)
I’m growing pretty desperate
It was a revelation for me to realize this. I’m stuck in a never-ending perpetuum mobile of burnout, caught between my autistic needs and my ADHD needs.
I have even called a psychiatric helpline and sobbed in the phone that I’m so exhausted, so terribly exhausted, but I can’t rest and I don’t know what to do. (It was while I was taking kratom, which made my ADHD symptoms even worse. Ironically, I used it to help me get out of the burnout and to calm down my anxiety. I’m not taking it anymore though.)
They advised me to listen to audiobooks while lying down, to focus my racing, tangled thoughts on something else, and it helped for some time, but now even the audiobook is too little activity for me and I grow quickly bored with it.
I really need to do something, even if I really can’t right now. And I really need to rest, but I always have an unbearable urge to do something.
Go figure.
Rest is really difficult
It’s the most difficult in the mornings for me. In the mornings, I need to DO something productive desperately. In the afternoons, I can sometimes coax myself to let go of more demanding activities and read while listening to music, which still somewhat exhausts me, but I can get a bit of rest from it too. I still often jump out of bed on a sudden impulse to do a specific thing. I used to wonder why couldn’t I just rest like normal people do? ADHD seems to be the answer.
I count down the hours until the evening when I can finally go to sleep. And then my stupid brain wakes me up at 5 AM, totally unrefreshed, but with my thoughts racing so much that I can’t get back to sleep. That is a new thing that has been going on for several months now and I hate it. It brings the burnout to a new level of exhaustion. I need 9 hours of sleep — but even if I go to bed early enough to get them, I just wake up earlier. Ugh.
Can ADHD medication help?
I asked in my Facebook group, Exploring AuDHD, if ADHD medication helps to counter autistic burnout, or if it could make it worse — because I have often noticed that people with AuDHD mention that taking ADHD pills made their autistic traits stand out more. I wondered if this is true about autistic burnout as well, or if the medication can actually help to calm down the maelstrom of my thoughts. This is what I found out. It’s only anecdotal experience though, not actual medical advice:
- One person advised me that it helps their burnout and that they and all the other AuDHD people they know prefer dexamfetamine over methylphenidate because the rebound in the evening is much worse after the methylphenidate. That is good to know, even if the doctors in my country seem to be inclined to prescribe only non-stimulant ADHD medication.
- One person said that ADHD meds helped them to counter their short-term autistic burnouts.
- One person said that ADHD medication only covers up autistic burnout, and you can actually burn out more while taking it.
- One person said all ADHD meds made them irritated and restless, and another told me that while the meds calm down the maelstrom of thoughts, they can make anxiety worse, and with my generalized anxiety disorder and strong social anxiety, I really don’t want that.
The last point is probably what helped me to make the decision to not ask my doctor for ADHD medication now. I’m looking for other solutions. I have asked all over the internet and one person recommended to me Mindroid, an app that simulates a psychowalkman on your phone, to calm down and be able to relax, so I will be giving this a go. I’m also re-learning how to meditate under the guidance of my therapist, who has a lot of practice in this area.
Update:
I got some more tips that could help:
- Calming the vagus nerve
- The Feldenkrais method
- Progressive muscle relaxation
- Gentle Yoga
- Using lavender oil roll-on on my legs before sleep (I feel the urge to tap my feet restlessly because of the stress while lying in bed and I hate it)
What is your experience?
I’m very interested in reading about your experiences with AuDHD burnout and the solutions you came up with. Please, share in the comments! I wish everyone good luck and healing.
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In the ebook AuDHD Experience, which is a collection of posts from this blog, I talk about the constant inner conflict. About autistic days and ADHD days. About the AuDHD burnout and why it’s so hard to get out of it. About balancing these two very different sets of needs – and about self-acceptance, despite the odds. If you want to feel that someone gets you, this ebook is just the thing for you. Check it out now here!
