What is it?
When does it happen?
How to make a plan to get over Burnout forever!
If you have ADHD you are much more likely to suffer burnout because:
- You have an inability to say ‘no’
- You have time-blindness, so you think you can fit in more than you actually can
- You are a people-pleaser, because deep down you suffer from rejection sensitivity disorder
- You find simple executive functions, like organisation, difficult and use more brain energy to achieve the same as neurotypical people
- Your attention deficit shows up when you are bored and simple life tasks are boring, which means that what might be a simple job to a neurotypical person will consume more energy for you.
- Many ADHDers are on the go all day and don’t sleep well, this makes functioning more difficult
- In short don’t beat yourself up, acknowledge you have burnout and take reasonable steps to address this. Good Luck – I am on the way to a full recovery!
I have had burnout three times.
I will never have burnout again!
After 9 years as a primary school music teacher in an excellent school, something has gone wrong.
I can’t put my finger on what or why, but I am tired in every area of my mind body and soul. I am bored, bad tempered and have a keen dislike of going to work. As my amazed friend said ‘but you love your job, it is the best job you have ever had, what has happened?’
No the job hasn’t changed and I haven’t changed, it turns out that I am suffering from burnout.
When you have ADHD burnout it can hit unexpectedly, more severely and more often because you are coping above and beyond your natural mechanisms. Your brain is neurodivergent and you have to work harder to fit into ‘normal’ life. This is because your executive functions don’t work the way it is assumed that they should.
My first burnout was at school. I was judged to be exceptional at primary school and I completed it in 5 years. It sounds ridiculous, but academically that is where my understanding fitted best. I was just 10 years old when I arrived at my secondary school in the current UK Year 7.
Having ADHD (although quite unaware of this until recently) meant that I was way behind in my emotional years. By the time I was 13, I was preparing for my ‘O’ levels, indeed I passed my first one in Religious Studies in the November, having turned 14 in September. I was due to take the rest in the Summer, but I couldn’t keep up with the work or, perhaps worse, the ability to try and look and behave like a year 15 year old. Keeping up with my peers was exhausting and I had to lead a double life as my parents were strict and teenage clothes, make up, high heels or boys were quite out of the question. I was at boarding school, so borrowing other people’s gear and pretending to show an interest in boys took up a lot of my time and ingenuity. I also had, at this stage, fallen behind in all my sciences and I was struggling with maths and grammar in different languages. This wasn’t seen as a disability (I had a friend who was dyslexic and I was pretty sure I was like her), instead I was considered lazy, disorganised, careless, thoughtless and a host of other things from the teachers, whilst the children called me babyish and immature and, apparently, I had a habit of whining all the time. Harsh, but possibly fair, I don’t know. They gave me a tin of baby food for Christmas. Girls can be horrid!
Whilst trying to keep up with the Jones’s, I also learnt the violin, which wasn’t going well and the piano and I was quite a drama queen as well as being in the school choir. I loved sport and was very energetic. Looking back ADHD was written all over me, but at that time, it just wasn’t a thing.
Eventually everything unravelled and I was told that I was to ‘stay down a year’ – this to me was the biggest failing of my life to date. I cried like a baby for hours, only making more fuel for my nicknames and lack of peer support for my situation. The howling could be heard throughout the dormitory for over 3 hours. My parents were called in and drove 3 ½ hours to try and calm me down.
Burnout wasn’t a thing and nothing was addressed, I stayed down a year, was forced to make new friends and took to selling cigarettes, which turned out to be a winner of a business. I went to all night parties, began an interest in boys and alcohol and needless to say my academics got worse, not better and according to the teachers ‘I only had myself to blame.’
Eventually I left a year later than originally intended with 7 ‘O’ levels, and an English ‘A’ level. I failed music ‘A’ level and grade 8 violin, but I did pass my grade 8 piano. I had also failed to get a place at any university or music college. I feel sorry for my parents, who sent their daughter, a rather quirky, creative, lively child to become a complete and utter failure.
When I looked back at the raw potential of the little girl, the appalling reports, the constant jibes and the lack of support from either peers or teachers, not to mention the reports that I have kept, it really sums this up, I cried for that little girl. I do still have friends from that period of my life and if they are reading this now, thank you for sticking by me, I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. I realise that I was difficult, but there were reasons and it was not all my fault.
My life continued with difficulties. I did eventually get a second ‘A’ level, a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and I thought my life was turning around. Sadly I failed my second year at music college and although I scraped through to continue after a retake, my father tragically died in my final year and I somewhat luckily came out with a third class degree.
I managed to train as a teacher, but had trouble getting a job. My ADHD made me far too truthful in all the wrong ways and I literally talked myself out of every job interview I was invited to. My sense of failure was already deeply rooted and my self-esteem was very low.
My second burnout was during my lengthy time as a carer for my mother. She moved in with me so that I could take care of her. She struggled with life (as I did), probably because we both had ADHD. To be honest she never really coped after my father had died. Eventually her struggles turned into frontal lobe dementia and not only did I burn out, I literally lost the plot and ran away hoping to get run over on a motorway. Of course I didn’t really mean it and on my return I realised that nothing had changed, I didn’t know this was burnout and literally a cry for help and it was put down, as I now know, as a misdiagnosis of unipolar depression. I was given higher and higher doses of anti-depressants, but frankly it didn’t touch the sides. This misdiagnosis, I understand from extensive research, is very common.
Eventually my mother passed on and as much as I loved her, the burden was lifted and I managed to hold together the job I loved for 9 years. For someone with ADHD this is a really really long time to stick at something.
If you have ADHD you tend to find it difficult to stick at things because:
- We get bored easily
- We are not good at following other people’s rules and instructions and when they change, as happens in big organisations, this is even more of a problem.
- We are not good at organisation and when computer systems change this can be a defining moment in the whole organisational process – it was for me.
- We are not good at being on time and in the right place and sadly this never gets easier and as burnout starts to embrace you, this particular trait gets worse and worse to control.
I have thanked my colleague, who for many years literally held me together. I didn’t know I needed the support she gave, but I know now, because once she left and I was on my own, deadlines, organisation and falling in line with work structures soon wore me out. The ability to focus and think for myself inside a structure, lead very quickly to the beginning of burnout. Working with others became more difficult and I didn’t realise how much I needed the support that I had lost. Sadly no one else realised either.
Having turned up to work not fit for anything, talking nonsense and crying uncontrollably, I was rightly sent home. I had every intention of having a day off and returning, but after a visit to the Dr, I was given 6 weeks off. There was no mention of anything wrong other than anxiety, which was the last thing I felt, despair, low self-esteem and failure, were the problems, but anxiety seems to be the answer to all mental health crisis.
The first problem was literally not knowing what to do with 6 weeks off. This didn’t sit well with me. I get bored very easily, missed my friends and colleagues, missed the children terribly, felt a bigger failure than ever for not being there for the kids and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with the time.
Doing nothing bores me stupid, doing house-work is nearly as bad. Going on holiday seemed rather extreme as others were working, and ruminating creates more and more bad thoughts that crawl around your brain creating depression and anxiety that wasn’t there in the first place.
I went back to work after the six weeks, but burnout had not gone away, I struggled on and eventually, after further research realised, I had BURNOUT! I decided to make a plan.
How to make a burnout plan.
- You need to understand and acknowledge that there is a problem and you must address it.
- You need to create strategies, that may be life-changing, to help you rebuild your future, so that you don’t hit another burnout ever again.
- You need to find support and help so that you have the knowledge and understanding of the most important factors to help you reset and rebuild your life with someone there to help you stick to it.
This is my plan, it is work in progress, but I know that it is definitely working.
I made a list of what I am good at.
DON’T focus on the things you find difficult you need to drown that inner voice that shouts failure at you
I created a self-care plan.
This must be personal to you and not based on the prescription of another person who doesn’t understand you.
Just because relaxing on a beach or having a hot bath is one person’s go-to, it may not suit another. Mindfulness may be the solution some people need, whilst others want to run and run as fast and as far as possible. Make a plan by researching yourself. You are the priority find out what you need!
I read several self-help books, some were general, others were for ADHD and from there I learnt about a whole host of things about ADHD, how to reset your life and what you can do to live a fulfilled existence.
Having learnt about myself I created my self-care sheet. It is quite extreme and I couldn’t have done it without the support and love of my husband.
I quit my job.
I decided that as most of my gifts were not being used in my current role, I must leave and make a new career path.
I had an ADHD diagnosis
I took tests online and booked to go to a talk on ADHD from there I went to the Dr and discussed the idea of giving up my antidepressants in favour of looking into an ADHD diagnosis. I booked a psychiatrist, who confirmed that I had passed all 18 of the necessary areas to confirm I do have ADHD.
I went to yoga classes
which is something I do enjoy, although I have to make myself go, which can be hard. It helps me keep fit and I love the calm of the teacher as she helps you through the exercises. I also started doing 3 minute mindfulness sessions when I woke up and before I went to sleep, I didn’t manage to keep this up, but it helped at the time.
I started writing a blog
I love writing and this soon got enough interest to help me take the decision to become a writer as I love nothing better than researching a subject and then writing about it.
I paid for an online diary
this helps me sort out what I have to do each day and gives it a time slot to get the jobs done and a colour which reminds me of the jobs I hate and the jobs I like.
The red things are jobs I don’t like. Too many red in a row lead to burn out, so now I make sure that for every red – which for me includes creating the daily diary, I need a green task – write part of my blog. Everything is timed, so that I know when I have to do the next task – make the bed – another red – check my blog – a green. Coming on holiday was a nightmare, packing, sorting, getting up early, travelling – but sometimes a whole host of reds leads to a long green, so you have to make the decision that it will be worth it!
I discovered that you can make red tasks more interesting – for me this means that either I do it with someone else – I shout to my husband, can you give me a hand? Or I plug into a book that I am really enjoying. I will happily wash up, clean the bathroom or do any other hateful housework task if I can listen to the next chapter of my book.
I had some CBT – I think my therapist would admit that this wasn’t really the way forward for me, but it was what was offered and just talking to someone who has time to listen is a great way forward. I did learn a few things that I am happy to share.
Acknowledge what you enjoy and try to set boundaries, if you don’t, ultimately you will end up with burnout!
I have found this quite a difficult task! Many ADHDers are people pleasers. If someone asks me to do something my automatic response is ‘yes of course’. Perhaps it is time I thought about myself, do I really really want to do this for this person, or are they asking me because they know I will do it……….
Check out your relationships, ADHDers are well known for burnout due to making promises that they can’t possibly sustain over a long period. It starts with feeling that you are being used as a doormat. Ask a busy person is surely aimed at ‘ask someone with ADHD, they’ll do it!’
Finally it has taken me two years to understand what is happening and a lifetime to get it right. Look out for your loved ones and make sure they are not heading towards a burnout. If they are, support them all the way, please, for your sake and your friend.
With thanks to Dr Annie Clements. About Autism & ADHD — autismADHD (autismandadhd.org)