Ever since I started to come to terms with the fact that I have a limited amount of energy at my disposal most days, I tried to find a strategy to allocate my resources in the least frustrating way. As the simple act of choosing activities / tasks – e. g. what needs to be done today / what would I like to do? – can be daunting, I decided that it would be wise to reduce my own expectations to the absolute minimum. And so I came up with the “one thing a day” rule.
I believe I started this last year when I was on vacation in the Netherlands and felt pressured to do many things – you know, make the most of the limited time I had there. What happened, however, is that I crumbled under the pressure: I was incredibly tired and felt anxious and guilty at the same time, which resulted in a type of choice paralysis. There were too many things to do, so I ended up doing none of them, because they all felt dreadful. I then gave myself permission to do only one thing a day instead. This could really be anything: go for a run, a bike ride or a walk, go to the beach, do a workout, or vacuum the apartment, shop for groceries and so on. It isn’t forbidden to do more than one thing, of course, if I end up feeling like it. The only rule is that the minimum is one thing.
Up until a couple of years ago, I used to take pride in my ability to do way too many things in a single day, as we habitually did in my family. The first and most important rule has always been: don’t be lazy!
Sleeping in? Lazy!
Having a late breakfast? Lazy!
Wasting the entire morning away without being productive? The laziest!
Little did we know that the joke was on us – sleeping in and having a late breakfast, “wasting away” an entire morning, not being stressed out about getting things done and thus regulating the nervous system: all very productive ways to start a day! I wish there could be more of those.
The “one thing a day” rule works perfectly when I’m the master of my own schedule (when I’m off work for instance). It’s a little bit flawed most of the time, as I, like most adults, need to have a job in order to pay for life. The problem with that is that “going to work” ends up being the one thing I do most days, and there’s usually not much energy left to do anything else after that one thing. In fact, going to work probably counts as multiple things in terms of how much energy it requires from me.
I’ve said it before, I like my job. I like my colleagues, and I feel like my contribution matters, and for that I’m so grateful.
Despite all that, work takes up too much of my resources, there’s no such thing as a work-life balance for me. There’s only work, then there’s recovering from work, and then there’s work again. To truly thrive in life, I’d need a lot more down-time, more sleep, more flexibility in terms of working hours and probably fewer (work-related) social interactions, even though I quite enjoy these, as they’re my main source of social contact – which is, however, due to the fact that I have no capacities left for social interactions outside of work on working days… As you can see, it’s a bit of a vicious cycle.
If all of this sounds a bit overly dramatic and exaggerated to you, then you might have a point. I sure would have thought the same thing back when I was pushing myself above and beyond all my limits, constantly on the edge of (and possibly in the middle of) burnout, lacking all sorts of self-awareness.
The thing is: None of this is an exaggeration. I’ve felt like this all along and “dealt” with it one way or another – partially with meltdowns of varying intensity, partially by numbing it with alcohol (side note: don’t do this, if you can avoid it) – only to realise the overwhelm comes back ten times stronger as soon as the tipsiness vanishes -, by pretending to get by just fine, by “sucking it up and getting it over with”.
I’ve done therapy, where my therapist and I mostly worked on my acceptance of this limited capacity of mine. I’d be lying if I said it was an easy thing. In fact, I hate that everything is so exhausting, and if I could change it, I would do so in a heartbeat.
However, I recently had confirmed that there’s in fact – as I suspected – a reason for why my life’s so exhausting, and always has been: I’m autistic.
Many everyday things that most people simply tune out or don’t think about much have a huge impact on my well-being. Sounds are irritating (and, depending on how depleted I feel, can tip me over the edge), and so are bright lights and direct sunlight. Social interactions are draining, even the rewarding ones. The latter is probably the most difficult to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it: I need to honour my limits (and get loads of alone time), even when it comes to things I enjoy. It’s a necessary meltdown / shutdown prevention measure that often frustrates me, because staying “functional” in order to be able to work has to be the top priority.
This seems like as good a time as any to point out that two things can be true at once: I can be happy and grateful that I finally know why I am the way I am and also frustrated because life is often difficult for me.
I can be fond of my colleagues and wish that I didn’t need to spend so much time at work. I can truly enjoy my alone time and feel lonely every now and then.
And I’m also happy to report that I did not only one, but two things today*: I went to work and I wrote this post!
How do you deal with low energy and overwhelm/overstimulation? Feel free to share in the comments!
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I’ll leave you with this meme, just in case you may be tempted to react this way.**
* Technically yesterday, but I suppose it doesn’t make much of a difference to you 😎.
** I get it, by the way, I was too before I knew anything about autism.
Carrot Days 