Overambitious plans and overreaching when well-rested

Post Reply New Topic

The problem with physical and mental fatigue, social exhaustion and autistic burnout has been on my mind a lot.

A part of this problem is the phenomenon I describe in the title. When I am feeling good, I have had plenty of time to rest, sleep and eat well, focus on my special interests. That is when I feel like I am full of energy. Usually at this time I start to get really ambitious. I feel like I can achieve anything. In a sense this is true because for very short durations I can be almost anyone or anything I like. But then I burn out.

The problem is I always seem to forget this phenomenon. I always try to do too much when well rested and balanced, and then my life becomes a lot more complicated and time constraints appear out of nowhere. So my time to properly rest and to also have time for my special interests diminishes, while stress of doing too much increases the need for replenishing/relaxing activities.

As a result, many projects are abandoned, social relationships fall apart etc. This is extremely destructive in social relationships since I might be a great guy to be around for awhile, but then I get overloaded and start to become irritable. Neurotypical people obviously don't understand this, instead labeling me as a mood-disordered as*hole.

So it becomes very clear, that designing one's life so that there always is enough time for oneself is paramount. However, I also have social needs and if one works 40 hours a week, then suddenly there is very little chance to achieve all of the things I need for my complete emotional and physical well-being. There just are not enough hours in a day for work, sleep, relaxation, special interests and a social/dating life. I also think that the more I spend in the outside world the more I'm exposed to sensory overload which increases sleep demands.

No wonder that I used to use my place of employment as place to find girls as well (and I succeeded in this) since then I could spend my free time entirely on myself. Sadly I don't work in that kind of place anymore. So although I earn much more than I did before, my social options have diminished greatly.

While trying to develop a social life outside work, I run into this problem of running out of energy/feeling exhausted. Either I need to simplify my life or to alter my mental approach to all facets of life through meditative practices so that they don't stress me out so much, and thus need for sleep and relaxation does not increase.

Some options I'm currently exploring:
-meditation and mindfullness to reduce emotional stress and sensory overload
-meditation and mindfullness also help with social performance making it a lot more positive experience, but need to be careful to not overindulge in socializing since I have neurological limits for it after all
-trying to relocate closer to my place of employment (less time spent traveling)
-finding a cheaper apartment, thus need to work is lessened, thus more free time available, thus I am happier and balanced

I have had times in my life where I lived a very isolated and controlled existence. For awhile it felt really good but then depression started to kick in. Now I realize that I would have needed some social interaction and female companionship as well. So that kind of life is not living, it is coping. While coping is certainly preferable to being completely exhausted and anxious all the time, it is not living. And I want to live. Solutions have to be found.

Your post reminded me very much of a poem I read in the New Yorker magazine about 15 years ago. I remember at the time it gave me a lot of comfort because I realized what I was feeling was pretty normal and it sort of gave me "permission" to sacrifice certain areas of my life in order to excel in others... and to accept the fact that I couldn't expect to "have it all", especially to the level that I was hoping for myself, and keep my sanity. Especially as I find social interactions to be especially exhausting. In the past 10 years or so I have basically jettisoned a normal "social life" in favor of the other 2 things mentioned in the poem, and even though I do get lonely, I find that it works better for me overall. The tricky part is that 2 of the things (love and friends) are kind of mixed at first, and the "love" part is very social in the beginning. But eventually it's not as much.



You Want a Social Life, with Friends (Kenneth Koch)

You want a social life, with friends.
A passionate love life and as well
To work hard every day. What's true
Is of these three you may have two
And two can pay you dividends
But never may have three.

There isn't time enough, my friends--
Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends--
To find the time to have love, work, and friends.
Michelangelo had feeling
For Vittoria and the Ceiling
But did he go to parties at day's end?

Homer nightly went to banquets
Wrote all day but had no lockets
Bright with pictures of his Girl.
I know one who loves and parties
And has done so since his thirties
But writes hardly anything at all.

I go through pretty much the exact same thing. The only difference is, I have been with the same partner since I was 20, almost 20 years now. But even though I am at home, when she and I are doing our own things, even in the same room, we may not speak for hours, so you can't really call that socializing or relating. One of the only things I find to be consistent in life is that it's always a trade off. You have to be careful how you spend your time, because it's limited. My dad died recently and since then my sense of mortality has really been on my mind, so not only am I thinking that there are only 24 hours in a day, but there's only an undisclosed amount of time in my life. I don't want to get to the end of it and realize I spent my time wrong. I also don't want to look back and realize I spent too much time worrying about how to spend my time. Unfortunately, at 40 years old, I've probably already spent too much time worrying about that.

Yup same thing here. Married for almost 20 yrs. Actually I *do* consider it socializing, because it's VERY different from not having someone there at all. With someone there, you always have the OPTION to start a conversation. To me, that's about as social as I can comfortably get without being totally exhausted or anxious.