Posted that LinkedIn post about my HSE burnout experiences. I think I’m mentally noting who is likely neurodivergent without asking. It’s kind of having that gay radar that’s present. Speaking with friends, it sounds like I’m able to also determine who is neurodivergent as well. It bums me out that these people who are highly intelligent are either having a hard time navigating through workplace politics, unspoken rules or social cues. I think neurodivergent leaders have a lot to bring to the table as mentors. They’re very understanding and to the point when unmasked. There’s no guessing around what is meant. What is said, is what is meant. But should you not play by the rules of neurotypical people, you don’t provide those pleasantries, you’re pushed out of your role.
On another note, departments need to just talk to one another. Stakeholders need to talk. Otherwise you’re getting garbage output work and other departments are struggling to complete work because there’s no alignment (i.e., Finance, IP, IT, Operations, etc.). I hate how I threw in bunch of corporate buzzwords in there.
Corp buzzwords without true context mean nothing. You could string a bunch of those words together and have no substance, no real life examples.
I think back to during group meetings people tend to generalize thoughts and speak in a very generalized manner. I’d always have a very specific thought in mind and would think this to be too specific to mention so I rarely brought up my thoughts. I thought it was too specific and…. unprofessional. But then I analyzed how NT vs ND people processed their thoughts. ND people tend to think from a bottom-up processing aspect (think of specific examples, data points) whereas NT people tend to think from a top-down processing aspect (generalized, big picture).
We need to make some changes – less neurotypical guessing games, more forward conversations, less games, more accommodations for ND people.
I’m trying to navigate the whole LinkedIn world. It’s like there’s a code or mask you have to have when posting on there. A lot of it is false positivity… toxic positivity? Some interactions may be very beneficial and you learn lots about different sectors and opinions. But other times it gets too positive with little diversity in thought?
One odd thing I’ve noticed is that I tend to provide specific personal experiences rather than keeping a topic or thought super generalized. Just something I’ve noticed amongst conversations. I’m not sure why it feels hard to generalize experiences into one. I find providing examples makes the conversation more …real? or true? But then I have a hard time with thinking it might be some sort of bias like recency bias? But a data point is a data point. If it happens often, it’s a stat or fact.
Thinking back to my experience at CAMH – I understand it was needed. I was in a place where my mind was not in a good place. They did the best job that they could to stabilize me. Unfortunately, they are also underfunded and understaffed and misdiagnoses do happen.
Medications are upped and people become zombies. I became a zombie and I couldn’t feel music. I couldn’t feel anything for my cat, my partner, my family. I had no feelings whatsoever, no matter what I tried. I couldn’t go into Pokemon GO and feel a satisfaction. I couldn’t get a feeling of satisfaction completing a task at work. I felt like I kept needing to know what to do next; there was real anxiety because I was on edge not knowing what to do next. I had a fear that I was not contributing enough at work. I had feelings in my stomach of uneasiness. Like it was anxiety. But I think it was truly internal restlessness also known as akathisia. I’ve read others talk about akathisia online and I agree, it is a very hard thing to manage. I personally felt suicidal. That is how much it had impacted me. I spent July and August of 2024 in dark places with extreme worry of driving because I might crash the vehicle. I thought I was literally going to die the first week of July in Alberta (on top of a cold).
I took my meds like I was prescribed because I trusted my doctors. When I couldn’t take it, I went back to CAMH and it was a battle to reduce the dose from 9mg to 6mg to 3mg. My mom and godmother saw me struggle. I felt like I had no voice, I was not a person who could contribute to society. It was scary. What kept me around was a call with my mom when things got bad; even if she couldn’t do anything, she was there. Those calls feel like a dream (not a good dream). Those days were a haze. That entire year feels like a dream, nothing is vivid; everything was grey or muted. What was the solution to manage my “anxiety” or akathisia I was dealing with? More meds – lorazepam – drugs that are highly addictive.
I had a work trip in September to Montreal and it was scary travelling during this time; however, considering that work was required to be performed, the travel needed to happen.
It took another short term disability episode in October to manage this after a stint of job hunting because I didn’t think I could do my job any more. I felt guilty getting off the paliperidone – telling my physician that I’m no longer taking it. I was worried she was going to decide to not keep me as a patient. Luckily she was understanding.
The akathisia was just one aspect of the side effects. It also impacted my hormones. I didn’t have my menstrual cycle for about 3 months. This impacted my mental health even more and ended up being prescribed an antidepressant. When I got my period – I never thought I’d be so happy to get it back, though it resulted in painful cramps.
Provincial governments need to re-evaluate how mental healthcare is funded. If we’re not supporting our hospitals and specialized facilities – we’re not supporting our population. If we’re not supporting our population – we’re not supporting our local economy, we’re adding strain to other services like housing, social services and other disability credits.
We need more access to people getting diagnoses – not just DSM 5 based assessments that are based on white boys. Autism and neurodivergence varies significantly. We also need to get away from the idea that neurodivergence is a disability. It is a different way of processing the world with different needs. There’s so much more we can talk about around this topic if only we had more forums around this. Or symposiums. Whatever you want to call them. Podcasts? What would be the best medium format for these conversations to be had? I don’t think this is specifically an HR topic or HSE or provincial or federal topic. I think this is an all around society conversation. These conversations need to be had within organizations, schools, universities, medical schools – if they truly do care and want to be innovative.
Also – new rule – no more social cues. We should be done with this.
Put together an article on LinkedIn. Maybe it’s career suicide. Maybe it’s just showing the reality of how leadership doesn’t really care about health and safety and just the bottom dollar. They don’t really care about workers. If they did, they would show it.
Slept till about 11:30am today (with some breaks in between because my stomach had issues with oat milk and possibly tomatoes).
Not feeling overly productive today but had a good group therapy session. It felt good to talk about different topics around rejection sensitivity dysphoria and how different AuDHD people have experienced this in differing perspectives. Talking about your experiences can be therapeutic to others who might feel like they’re alone in this world with these topics. Just found it hard to keep track of the convo when trying to think of my own examples. n4t’s brain processing speed with AuDHD is… a jumping spider (according to AI). Starting up some therapy session this week as well. Hoping to work through somethings.
It’s funny – or not – but shows how my structure has changed wildly from mornings consisting of:
wake up
take off jewelry
take off watch
take off clothing
shower
dry off
make breakfast
eat breakfast for 15 mins while scrolling phone
blow dry hair
style hair
get out of the door
drive for 30-45 mins
go a specific route
maybe grab coffee
sit down at my desk
to…
What time am I going to get up? idk.
Breakfast? IDK.
But the shower has to be taken before 2pm and gym needs to be between 6 and 9pm.
Had my ASD assessment today. Well… part of it, I guess. I also made a joke about hoping that the studying paid off…. and now I’m just questioning all over again if I’m ASD. I be just looping over and over again. Ha.
On a side note, had cereal and oat milk for breakfast. The oat milk had a funky taste to it again (second time now). Definitely had some sort of impact on my stomach. The funny thing is the last time I gave the company feedback, they said there wasn’t anything wrong with the milk. So at this point I think I’ll just stop buying their milk. Something is off with it.
Doesn’t feel like an overly productive day, so just will rest and take ‘er easy.
I’ve never had issues with sleeping (waking up in the middle of the night) until 2023 where I’d wake up randomly at 3 or 4 am which threw me through a loop. I think that’s where the AuDHD burn out started to kick in. During my crisis in 2024, meds definitely helped with sleeping. But it seems that the burn out is impacting my sleep again. Will have to try out some tricks. Maybe get a weighted blanket.
Funny thing is that the couch is a good place to sleep (when typically people think it’s going to be a crappy sleep, it’s not). So when I’m struggling and frustrated, I just end up going to the couch. There was about a month where I just slept on the couch because it just had the right firmness and hug. Never thought a person could be so picky about their sleeping requirements.
The snow fall was a nice treat today. It was awesome seeing all the doggos and their hoomans out. It was nice to see kids having a blast on a snow day.
Definitely tempted to go sledding. Why should it be limited to kids? Adults can tap into their inner child, no?
Speaking of tapping into your inner child, I’ve decided to create a shit posting LinkedIn account to make light of the corporate world, just to show how unserious it can be with its corporate buzzwords. Elevating strategic cadence while being high performing. Does this resonate with anyone?
Blog side note: Still trying to figure out the blog template. The picture sizes aren’t resizing properly on mobile devices.
Wild storm out there and I’m living for it. Took a while to get out there and shoot. Going for a walk was probably out of the question, but getting to that destination by car was the better choice. Glad I’ve got winter tires on. Thought I’d try out taking a road that I treat like a roller coaster. Unfortunately we had other people on the road with no winter tires and they ruined the experience, lol.
On a positive note, it was nice to see people help each other out by pushing their vehicles up the hill. I woulda helped, but I was a bit cold already. Cheered ’em on from the driver seat though.
Saw a lone goose earlier and it kinda bummed me out. I feel ya, my dude. I hope you find your people.
Been an observer for quite some time. Trying to unmask, speak up for myself and be understood gets tricky. How do you not upset people with your thoughts; I guess putting other people’s feelings first but also being authentic to yourself. It’s a weird balance.
Part of it I think is just a differing dialect amongst other people. Going back to the drawing board on how to bring up communication styles or be seen without being dismissed. It just is unfortunate that you bring up the topic and it just gets set aside but I’m expected to listen to info-dumps. There’s no room for my info-dumps or thought-dumps or thought.
Continuing to navigate through thoughts. It’s funny that you end up having conversations with people, realizing how you click with some people during convos and you’re not sure why. But then you have a hard time connecting with other people…. only to learn about ND conversation styles.
What’s interesting is seeing ND people talk in this style and it looks like they’re flirting amongst each other but it’s more so they’re on the same wavelength. Their masks come off and they’re more to the point, blunt and there isn’t much of hurt feelings about difference in opinion. With more “specialized interest” people you learn lots about different topics.
I think about two scenarios where I’ve witnessed colleagues speaking and it full on looked like they’re were flirting. At least one person in that convo was either in a long term relationship or was married. Just they had a good brain pinging session between each other.
What’s more interesting is autistic people tend to want to be more autonomous and rarely bring up their partner/spouse unless they end up being brought up. They might bring up their kids, but it seems like they’re more so kind of like a project they’re working on – sculpting them into good human beings. I think talking about your partner goes into that personal space.
I’ve been struggling with getting back into a good sleeping pattern. Not only are my emotions dysregulated but my sleeping is dysregulated. I’m trying to better understand myself as a ND person^3, trying to take in as much information on neurodivergence as possible. But sometimes I feel like it might be information overload and some information doesn’t stick. Trying to get away from NT social cues but also there’s ND social cues or outside jokes? I mean I get some of it but wha? You think you’re getting out of one way of thinking to another. I get there’s a more easier way to converse but isn’t there a way to just ease an initiation of a AuD baby? lol.
Then there’s the topic of being on the same-ish wavelength in one on one convos. But, then group convos get intimidating, especially as someone who has been an observer in convos for a while, taking in information from others and having a hard time jumping in due to brain processing.
