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Burnout: the sequel

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  I am burnt out. Hardly the most shocking declaration given I have been saying it out loud for a while now but here we are. This isn't my first run in with burn out nor will it likely be my last. Not only am I working in a stressful job, a social care worker in residential care, which is no stranger to burn out but also I am autistic so its like I know a secret short cut to getting there. I think as bragging goes this is up there with declaring how many times I have managed to catch covid. Which is 4 at my current count and they say there are no benefits to working in Health care. If you are lucky enough to not have experienced burnout then I can tell you its not an experience I would recommend to a friend. If you have friends working in social care then you probably wont need to.  Some of the things I have been experiencing are random bouts of crying. Given high sensitivity is part of my autism profile, I am no stranger to crying and the first time I experienced burnout it took m
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The existential crisis

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  I am readying myself for a return to work after just over a week off and I am feeling a quiet sense of dread. Unfortunately one of the realisations I have had along my autism journey is that the vocation I have chosen probably isn't for me. The thing I hear the most is that I am in fact really good at my job (social care worker working with adults with intellectual disabilities in a residential setting) and I don't dispute this fact. I am good at it and I am passionate about it and in many ways my autistic traits are a big part of what makes me good at what I do but at the same time these traits are also my downfall in this line work.  I am incredibly empathetic. This has been excellent in terms of relating to those I support and anticipating their needs. It allows me to put myself in another persons shoes with ease and allows me to build connections where others might struggle. In every job I have had in this field I have built really strong relationships with those I have s
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The darker side of romance

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  For some reason I felt compelled to write about a corner of my past that hasn't been part of my blog before. a heads up to anyone who might be upset by this topic I will be delving into emotional abuse so feel free to stop reading now if you don't feel able to carry on. When I was in my late 20's I met a guy on a night out. He was a few years younger than me and honestly looking back threw up a couple of red flags early but I didn't trust my own intuition plus I was only a few months away from finishing college and planned to move to Edinburgh in a few months so it wasn't like it was going to be anything more than a brief fling. However as time went on I became more infatuated with him, there was an intensity there and he seemed sweet but damaged. Like a perfect modern fairytale I thought I would be the one to fix him. somehow plans changed and he was going to follow me over to Edinburgh, get a job there and we were going to live happily ever after. at this point
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Accomodate me

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  Ever since I have had the realisation that I am autistic I have been crying out for just the tiniest bit of accomodation. I am finding despite the fact I talk about my experiences quite openly, the allistic people in my life can't quite grasp how being autistic might make my experience of the world any different. Despite the fact that the road to self discovery took me 41 years, I have always been autistic. I have always processed the world differently and struggled with certain aspects of day to day life. I just hid it a little better. That process in itself is exhausting. So the aha moment was a little like someone put on a light when I had been busy squinting into the darkness and I do really wish I had made this discovery a bit earlier in my life but it is what it is. Everything makes more sense now but things are also a lot harder. The initial discovery period is an absolute trip. I am so much more aware of the way being out in the world affects me and I am also not making a
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Crybaby

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  As long as I can remember I have been someone very quick to cry. It is said that as a small child I cried so frequently that it was of note if a whole day went by without me crying over something and often I was teased about this fact and it was enough to prompt tears. Being someone who cries very easily is largely quite inconvenient. It would probably be easier at this point to list things that don't make me cry because it would definitely be shorter than the list of things that do. This list is not exhaustive but things I have noticed make me cry include ; any sort of emotional video or advert or tv show or book, anyone crying near me, any form of confrontation, if I am very stressed, If I am feeling angry, if I am feeling sad, criticism particularly when it is not offset by anything positive, someone saying oh you're not going to cry are you. This has led to moments of great embarrassment such as the many times I have cried in work or in public or just at moments where I w
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Oh !, this is autism

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 The beauty of not realising you are autistic until later in life is that you go through most of your life with the vague sense that something is off but not knowing quite what. I felt weird growing up and lots of things in different areas of my life were a struggle but I wasn't open with people about how I was experiencing the world so I genuinely didn't know if other people were having the same experience and just hiding it better. Also there have been many moments where I share something I was certain was a universal experience but it elicits a reaction that quickly lets me know this assumption was wrong and it's best not to share these thoughts just in case. Initially upon discovering I was autistic I made all of the obvious connections. The sensory issues, the being overly empathetic, the issues around eye contact, the social misunderstanding, the awkwardness of small talk and so on. These things had always existed for me and Autism was merely the coherent explanation
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The great big reset

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  To say I have been overdue a holiday is understating things. I have been edging towards burnout and a break has been badly needed. I had some time off over the summer but it ended up not being much of a rest for a number of reasons part of which was the fact that I was on the cusp of realising I was autistic but not quite there yet. So I was experiencing a lot of issues other autistic people face but I didn't have the vocabulary or context for what I was going through and this had a knock on effect in other areas of my life. Looking at those months with hindsight it is blatantly obvious what was going on. And so I planned a break so I could unwind, relax and maybe just restart my brain as though it was a tired old computer. I gave myself a long weekend to do regular things and then five days in Wexford because apparently I am like an ailing victorian woman who has been prescribed sea air and rest. I set off Monday in torrential rain, a rain so heavy the road disappeared. Not my i
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