Que Sara Sara

Things were going relatively okay at the start of 2020, or so I thought. In reality, I was in autistic burnout. Socialization at work was hell, I wasn’t diagnosed autistic yet, but I had thoughts that I was. I got my diagnosis in July of 2020. But not really understanding autistic burnout and being in it is bad.

March 13, 2020, was the last day we had kids in school. I went into school the next week to help put work packets together for teachers I worked with. We didn’t know how long we’d be out of school. A week? Two? A month? We didn’t expect the rest of the school year, but we were. I spent much of the week watching movies.

The teachers had classes they were trying to teach online, and I tried to help, but it didn’t work out. They only got on for 5 minutes, so it was pointless for me to show up or whatever. The next week, the US shut down. We were all home, and that was it. The store shelves were bare. There was no toilet paper. No flour, sugar, pasta, soup, beans. The staples were gone. I had a panic attack every day because of the grocery shortage. Every. Day.

Working from home was okay at first. I got into a groove. I only had to work 3-4 hours rather than 6.5. I had to help my boss with some casework phone calls, and I hate talking on the phone. That was the hardest part. I waited until 8am, made 6 calls, then stopped. Made 6 more calls the next day, etc.

Then my mom came home to work, and it stressed me out because my groove was thrown totally out of whack. Totally frigged my schedule, and I could barely handle holding back the breakdowns.

Then my schedule changed. We had to work or full schedule, document all our hours. This sent me over another edge. I could barely get buy with a half schedule. I was doing job personal development, now I had to do that for 6 hours. My ADHD was in overdrive. My meds were not really working. It was not stimulating for my brain at all. I was falling asleep or crying half the time. Being me, maybe the autism, I had to be truthful in my daily work logs. I didn’t clock in and watch movies like most of my coworkers. That was dishonest. The only thing I didn’t calculate was bathroom breaks and getting up to get mail, a snack, etc.

School ended early, thank god. I did nothing over the summer. Then, back to hybrid schooling in September.

I had a huge meltdown over the summer. I couldn’t handle all the stress. I didn’t even let it all out. How do you tell the parent you live with that they are the problem without getting kicked out and having nowhere to go? I would have been homeless. That was another stress.

One burnout didn’t end fully before I rolled into the back to school stress, masks, terrified of getting covid, kids not wearing masks properly, not tuning into zoom classes. It was a horrible year. Then I had a horrific time teaching summer school. I nearly had a mental breakdown. Then back to school.

It all culminated in epic burnout by January of 2022. I was full on suicidal by February. I had a plan and everything. Not a date, but a plan. I had no time left to take off sick and get paid from work. That added to it. I needed some mental health days before I killed myself, but I couldn’t.

I knew this wasn’t me. I’m normally a friendly person and make connections with kids. I wasn’t doing that. I contacted my mental health nurse and said I needed an appt right away and some antidepressants that weren’t SSRIs.

I got an appt within a week and on an antidepressant the day of my appt. I picked it up and took it that night.

It helped so much. In less than a week, I felt more my old, precovid, self. I’ve had to tweak when I take my meds because it was affecting my sleep. I’ve had to increase it once since.

Please advocate for yourselves. It’s hard, and it took decades for me to do it. I was almost too late. Don’t let yourselves get so low that if you don’t advocate for yourself, it’s too late. 988 if you need to. 💙💚