JoSchi
Member
Hey Aurora, thanks for sharing! Where were you based here in Lux?Hi Joel,
funny to read from someone from Luxemburg. I grew up there and frequently visit. What a coincidence!
I'm 25 and quite independent. I just finished medical school, but after dragging on for the last few years, I was completely burnt out at the end of it. Right now, it feels somehow impossible to plan things ahead. Change already usually makes me very anxious, but right now, I just can't deal with it at all. But I hope that it'll get better after a break.
There are certain aspects in life where I need assistance from my partner. For example, I can't handle keeping a place reasonably clean and tidy, or remember household chores. People keep calling me lazy, which stings, but I honestly can't, as much as I want to. I get paralyzed, don't know where to start, get caught up in small things or simply forget, even with a plan. When I still lived on my own, I'd break down crying every few months because the chaos around me suffocated me, and my partner would help me clean up everything by telling me exactly what I should do while he would do another thing.
When I am just too overstimulated or oversocialized by my surroundings, he also provides mental support. Since he's on the spectrum too, we both look out for each other.
I don't have a regular therapist anymore. I used to, but for something different (although I did also adress my problem with social meltdowns, and while the therapist surely tried her best at the time to give me advice, since autism wasn't on her radar, it didn't really help). Now, I know the psychologist, who mini-assessed me (like a pre-view before doing an entire assessment) and whom I liked and know I could go back to if I needed it.
I don't really have much support from my family, since I didn't tell them about my diagnosis and don't know if I ever will. They're not extremely open to that. So that one's on me.
I noticed that when I was just studying and spent a lot of time home alone with my books, I could easily handle the workload. I started to decompensate when work involved being somewhere else and working with other people all the time. At the end of uni, we have this practical year where we have a 4-day-work-week, 8 hours a day (the doctors work 5-day-weeks and basically do up to several hours of overtime per day). I felt that the 4-day-week was the utter maximum I could handle. Even with that, I had to take sick days sometimes because I was so overstimulated I'd start crying at the thought of going the next day (I honestly liked the work and the team, it was really just overstimulation). I'd just be completely worn out at the end of the day, not even being able to talk to my partner, let alone do something else. I'd love being able to start working in a 4-day-week from the beginning, since I feel like I just couldn't handle 5 days. Maybe even 3 days if I can't handle 4 days, but that's very rare and hard to discuss with your employer, since they expect work beginners without kids to be able to put it all in, do 5 days, overtime and on-call shifts. I'm honestly scared that I'll crash even under a 4-day week. I'd wish for a lot more flexibility from the workplace.
Like I said before, it's super important to have a partner you can relate on. And so it is here, glad to hear that! I can relate a bit to this chaos things and not able to do anything, it's not quite the same for me but I get the feeling.
Will you take the risk and tell it your family? I would do it, but I don't know your circumstances..
When it comes to work, I can totally understand this. I work for the government and have to deal with a lot of people, that's why I made the request to only work 4 days a week, still pending. It's overhelming on some days..
What are your plan for the future? Would you say that that an online solution could help you?
Regards,
Joel