The existential crisis

 

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 supported.

The downside however is that I am like a sponge for emotions. I take on the emotions of all those around me and they get jumbled up with my own and I have to take them home and try and sift through this swirling mess to see what actually belongs to me. As well as that I am always considering the needs of others. I do this to the detriment of my own needs. This is exhausting.

I have excellent attention to detail. This makes me both thoughtful and thorough. I remember small things about people easily and will store this information and use my superpower for good. 

I do however spend a lot of my time both in and out of work worrying about the tiny little details, the things I've missed and haven't gotten around to doing, the things I've yet to do and the things I have had to delegate to other people who may not have my attention to detail or feel the need to do them at all. Unfortunately work has a policy for only paying for the hours I am actually in work and not the ones where I am at home ruminating about all things work related.

As well as this I am working in a house, a lovely but chaotic house and it is agony from a sensory point of view. I have yet to complete a shift without complete sensory overload. For starters there are a lot of people coming and going, there are so many noises many unpredictable, the house is much warmer than the space where I live and I find heat to be overwhelming and the lights, so many lights. I leave work and my brain is practically fizzing, even an hour or two in the sensory space I have remade my bedroom into isn't enough to quiet the overloaded brain.

I don't know how to stress this enough but there is so much unpredictability in this line of work, appointments you weren't expecting, an endless list of errands to be completed, the needs of the people supported are ever changing and all the while you are getting calls or emails of tasks to be completed and It's hard to do anything in this setting because I am panicking about the carefully currated plan I had made for the day falling apart and I am too overwhelmed by the amount of things I need to do to even start doing any of them. Often I will panic for a while because the obstacle of the day changing course feels insurmountable but it usually works out fine. Unfortunately by then I have already overloaded my nervous system by panicking and will need to recover from that later.

All of these things have left in a cycle of burning out within social care jobs and often I feel the problem must be within the organisation and yes they are often flawed but the truth is it goes deeper than that. Burnout in social care is common but the way my brain is wired means that I know a secret shortcut to getting there. It turns out the regular amount of crying you should be doing at work is none.

But herein lies the issue, I feel a change is needed and this cannot be solved by finding myself a home in another organisation. I haven't however worked out what I might do next, how might I best use my skills without taking myself to the edge of burnout and back. All I have managed to do thus far is work out what I wouldn't like to do. I think I have a lot of figuring out to do but I am hoping in 2024 I might at least have direction to move in and can't start taking steps in building myself a more sustainable life.

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