What overwhelm looks like for me: Because it still happens sometimes even with a good routine
Originally published on Medium
I need to brain dump my thoughts onto paper daily at first and then multiple times a day (but I don’t save the paper).
I think so loudly that I miss what’s happening around me.
I bump into more objects and lose track of where my limbs are.
My brain is busy when I try to sleep and is still going when I wake up.
My stomach is tense and my breaths are shallow.
Video is overstimulating reading is overstimulating I’m under stimulated inactivity is somehow overstimulating.
I need multiple lists and reminders to remember what I’m doing.
I’m stressed by
everything.
And I don’t notice all this until I finally remember to
stop
take a deep breath
and then I realize: Oh. I’m overwhelmed
Improving my mood by changing my wake up time: I experimented with different wake up times and 6:15 am won
Originally published on Medium
I experimented with waking up at different times to see how it affects my mood. And I noticed an improvement when I wake up before 7:00 am.
The experiment started this summer when I took advantage of my flexible schedule and began snoozing my usual 7:30 am alarm.
My brain interpreted the later wake up time to mean “Go to bed later!” And since I slept later again, I snoozed the alarm again the next morning.
And so the Sleep Late-Wake Late cycle began again.
This happens sometimes, thanks to a lifetime of sleep troubles. It’s a familiar cycle that I have to break out of. And I can’t break out of it by going to sleep earlier. That NEVER works.
What works is a hard reset by waking up very early.
Even if I sleep late the night before.
This summer, I accidentally broke the cycle by waking up early for an appointment. The alarm rang at 6:00 am and I opened my eyes, fully awake. I didn’t even think about tapping the “Snooze” button.
The scientist in me wondered “Is my 7:30 am wake up time making me want to snooze my alarm?”
So I decided to test it out. I woke up at different times each morning and noticed how I felt.
7:00 am — Feel more awake but still tempted to snooze my alarm.
8:00 am — Feel so pessimistic, want to keep sleeping. Ugh, why am I getting up.
9:00 — Feel a bit more awake but still groggy. And now the day feels off since I woke up later than usual.
6:30 — Feel more awake, getting up was less of a chore, less tempted to snooze the alarm
6:00 am — …Am I me? What are these effortlessly positive and happy feelings?? Not tempted to snooze the alarm. Hmm…
6:15 am — I think this is the right time. Still feel positive, happy, looking forward to the day, not tempted to snooze.
My conclusion based on my very scientific self-experiment? Waking up between 6:00–7:00 am greatly improves my mood.
This doesn’t surprise me though. I’ve always loved being up early. There’s something special about being awake when the world is still asleep. I used to wake up at 5 am for church activities and half the fun was being out and about early.
Oh and update: One month later and the 6:15 wake up time is still working.
I wake up at the same time everyday (yes, even weekends). Improving my mood just by changing my wake up time was a successful experiment.
My next challenge? Going from “No, I’d rather stay awake than go to sleep” to “I like going to sleep!”
….We’ll see how that goes.
Rest is actually work: How resting made me a better signer
Originally published on Medium
I was working as an ASL interpreter when the 2020 pandemic started. This meant I drove around a lot to interpret for the Deaf community in different situations. Basically anywhere you imagine a person being — at a doctor’s appointment, in a college class, at a conference — I was there, interpreting and supporting a colleague working with me.
And in between all that interpreting, I signed at church and with church friends. And I practiced at home because I like to improve my language skills. So I did a lot of signing.
But you know what really improved my sign language ability? What made my signing improve so much that a Deaf professional wanted to know how I did it, was I getting mentored?
When he asked the question, I paused for a split second. I thought about it. What had I done?
Well, nothing.
I hadn’t done anything different. Just being home, not working as much, resting more than I ever had, becoming more myself and less anxious.
Oh.
I smiled, shrugged and signed my answer: No, I’ve been resting.
Is my autistic burnout over?: I don’t know, but probably not
Originally published on Medium
I’ve written about what’s helped me through autistic burnout, a process that started about 4 years ago. Maybe you’re like me and wondering: is my burnout over?
I honestly don’t know.
I don’t think it is.
It’s like when I’ve been really really sick and I’m finally feeling well enough to sit up and read or watch TV. I’m definitely not super sick anymore.
But am I completely better? Not quite.
I still need to rest from my usual activities. If I don’t, then I’ll be sick for longer and possibly get worse.
I think that’s the phase I’m in now. I can’t push too far or my burnout will return and maybe be worse than before.
I’m still in resting mode, but I wanted to share what’s helped me get here.
How qigong helped me through autistic burnout: The movement practice that helped me be more present
Originally published on Medium
I wrote about the books and tools that helped me through autistic burnout last week. One of the tools I briefly mentioned that was (and still is) a big help was my qigong practice.
I found qigong on accident.
I was looking for a movement activity to loosen up my tight muscles. I had tried yoga before but it didn’t help much. I did it for about a year and my muscles remained stubbornly tense
I wanted to try something else. I’d heard about tai chi but the few videos I tried on YouTube were too hard to follow. I needed a version of tai chi that was for old people.
So I Googled “tai chi for old people”.
And that’s how I found out about qigong.
I found the YouTube channel Qigong for Vitality and did the videos, usually in the morning. I did the 5 minute Qigong warmup video almost daily and surprisingly that short video helped my tight muscles relax. I eventually bought the membership to access the 30+ minute videos.
The slow movements helped my mind reconnect to my arms and legs, hands and feet. Before, I had to literally put a hand on my limbs to feel them in space. With qigong, I eventually was able to sense them without touching them.
Like yoga, Qigong can be exercise but it’s more a meditative practice. Sitting quietly to meditate or pray usually required a huge effort from me to focus. Performing the slow qigong movements gave my mind something to focus on and it learned to be quiet. After a long time, I could quietly meditate and feel refreshed afterwards.
When explaining qigong to friends and family, I said it helped me calm my overstimulated mind and body. Later, I learned about polyvagal theory and realized that qigong was really helping my vagus nerve. A sign of vagal nerve stimulation is yawning and I yawned A LOT practicing qigong. Sometimes I yawned so much, my eyes were full of tears.
Qigong helped get my body out of flight, fight, and shutdown mode and be more present. Instead of mentally withdrawing in social situations, I was mentally present. I started to notice in real-time how I felt. And I started to notice how often I felt drained around certain people. I started to notice who my body didn’t like being around.
My body was talking to me and I could finally hear it.
Books and tools that helped me through autistic burnout: Because therapy wasn’t for me
Originally published on Medium
Most of my professional help as a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD woman came from books. I love learning from books. I can focus on the book’s message, stop reading whenever I’m inspired to think or write or act, and even quit the book if I don’t want to finish.
I wanted professional help like therapy or coaching to work for me. But it wasn’t right for me. I did one intro therapy session once. And, after getting diagnosed, I tried a coaching session for autistic/ADHD adults. The therapist and coach were nice people.
The problem? I couldn’t turn off my social mask setting. I kept trying to match the person’s energy and anticipate the best way to answer questions. I couldn’t let myself be me. The social aspect was too distracting for me to let them help. I didn’t want to force it, so I didn’t schedule more sessions.
Thankfully, I still had books.
These are the books that helped me go from “What’s wrong with me?” to “Am I burned out?” to “Ohh! I’m autistic!” to my current “Okay, I understand I’m autistic. What now?” phase.
Oh, and this list is not all in chronological order. My memory isn’t that good. I also linked to the book or tool on Amazon (except for two), so I’ll earn a small commission when you click those links.
Permission to Feel by Mark Brackett
This book taught me that emotions are important. And explained their importance in a way that made sense to me.
And I realized I had no emotional intelligence. Yes, I could write you a scene about a character experiencing complex emotions. But identify those emotions in myself? Not really.
I didn’t like that. So I used the book’s emotion grid (link to image of grid) to practice identifying emotions. It was SO HARD. At first, I identified if I was feeling red, blue, green, or yellow. Then I used the grid to name that emotion.
Emotion Magnets and Mood Tracker
The emotion grid was great but I wanted a more tangible way to practice. So I bought these emotion magnets (not an Amazon link). I put the magnets on the refrigerator for easy access. I liked to figure out my emotions in the morning or after being around a lot of people.
I worked backwards and used the “I want to feel…” prompt to see how I wanted to feel. And then that clarified how I was actually feeling — the opposite. And sometimes, I carried the magnets in a tin in my purse to practice on-the-go.
Like I said, emotions are hard. I needed a lot of practice.
So I did more.
I really really wanted to understand emotions so I bought a Mood Tracker planner to track emotions. The patterns showed me I felt annoyed or upset more than I realized. It gave me the hard data I needed to make changes to feel better.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
This book taught me to get out of my head to heal.
What stuck with me: Trauma lingers in the physical body. Moving the body helps release the lingering trauma. So I needed to connect more with my physical body. Not easy. I didn’t feel my arms and legs in space. I had to concentrate on them or put my hand on them to feel them as connected to me. Guided somatic meditations and my qigong practice helped with this.
Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect and Running on Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships with Your Partner, Your Parents and Your Children by Jonice Webb
These 2 books were external validation that I didn’t get needed emotional support growing up. And that’s a generational problem, so it wasn’t my parents’ fault. They didn’t get what they needed either.
But it happened and it affected me and that is a real problem. I needed this external validation since my internal validation wasn’t enough at the time.
When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection by Gabor Maté
This book taught me that ignoring the body’s needs can manifest as serious physical illness.
I kind of already knew this. Every time I missed too many hours of sleep, I got a 24-hour cold that resolved if I slept all day. My body always forced me to rest before I missed too much sleep. This book made me think: I need to listen to my body’s small warnings now before they become more serious.
Looking back, I see my answer to healing was in my body, not my mind. I had to quiet my mind to hear my body’s urgent warning:
We’re tired. It’s time to rest.
Edited to add: I added the article links to one webpage. See them here: https://healingresources.my.canva.site/