Over the last few days and up until this morning, I had been really exhausted. I have a hard time distinguishing between emotional exhaustion and physical exhaustion — for all I know, it could have been both but I finally feel like my energy levels are back to normal. I intended to take a nap yesterday evening and I just end up sleeping past midnight. And when I went back to bed around 3AM, I sleep like a baby through the night. (Isn’t “sleep like a baby” a little bit of an oxymoron?)
I recently read about something called “autistic burnout“, which is essentially intense emotional/mental/physical exhaustion that an autist experiences after navigating a world designed for neurotypical people. I think that was exactly what I was feeling after the assessment — I was extremely drained for the rest of the day and I had to stay put on the couch. M was quite patient with me and was extremely accommodating. That experience really reminded me of something I forgot to tell the psych: I feel extremely exhausted after socializing, being in public, etc. It feels like I have to use a lot of energy to “act normal”. I would definitely describe the experience as debilitating. Sometimes the exhaustion is so bad, I have to take a nap afterwards and/or take the rest of the day off.
It seems that all the challenges I experiences are independently relatable but I wish people would really understand it’s not just one challenge — it’s many of challenges (and many of those things are not challenges at all and very simple for others to do). It doesn’t help that many of my challenges are not so obvious. I’m extremely grateful that none of this really matters for my close friendships; in most of those relationships, people truly understand me and everything runs smoothly. But it’s often difficult for those same friends to realize I often fail at social interactions because it often looks and feels like “game-playing” to me and the manual I have is in a foreign language.
Despite this, I don’t see autism as a curse. Along with its unique challenges, it comes with many strengths and abilities: I am phenomenal at out-of-the-box thinking. I am exceptionally honest and reliable. I also have superb relational memory. And that’s just a few to boot. With this in mind, an official diagnosis is not meant to validate my issues. Rather, it’s meant for me and others to better recognize and understand that I live in a different reality. It’s also meant for people to “cut me some slack” when it comes to certain social situations.
I really want to share more about this new journey of mine. There’s still some time until the diagnosis but until then, I’m going to keep searching for answers.