Greetings Everyone

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I'm Mike, an aspie in my 50s just diagnosed and dealing with it. Oh my, surprise surprise. The more I learn about autism and Asperger's in particular, the more certain I am of the diagnosis. It is one thing to feel like an alien all of these years. It is another to know that I AM an alien and will always be so in the NT world. I don't want to compromise so much anymore, trying so hard to 'fit in', yet of course I must satisfy the basics so they leave me alone. It's that line between behaving fully my autistic self and the social mask I've been fairly competent perfecting to get by. I'm sick of trying to be normal, or at least more normal than if I didn't try so hard. It never really works anyway.

Has anybody here felt burnt-out from too much high-stress? I seem to overload quicker now than before. I just can't cut it, even working part-time from home is too much. Are the effects cumulative?

I sure need some company from my own kind. Solitude I can handle 90% of the time, but not 100%. I'm glad to be here!

Hi, welcome .

About burnout: I've been there, and overload has been a bigger problem since. Maybe part of the cause of that is that it's indeed cumulative; it can take people years to get out of it, and they do remain more vulnerable to stress. But for me, there was also the factor of learning about my autism around that time. I began to see that I'd been trying to do more than I could handle, and I didn't want to do that to myself anymore. You might say that I finally knew I really couldn't do it (the "normal" thing), and this ended my ability to delude myself into thinking that I could do it if I just tried harder. I can't tell you anything about long-term effects on work, because it's been only about six years, and before that I was in high school so I didn't have any job experiences.

Echospectra, thank you for your kind reply.

Story of my life!
I'm 41 and just learned about AS less than a year ago. No official diagnosis, but at this point in my life, I'm not going to seek one out, either. I am just grateful to finally understand WHY my life has been the way it has for the last 41 years!

Cindy, yes it is better know after all these years of mystery. It took me around six months for it to sink in, to accept how profoundly different my world is from almost all other humans. Oh my gosh. Forever alien.

Don't know, but I felt better when I realized that I had AS.

I know that I'm not the only one, my case has a name, it's easier for me to seek help or find info, stuff like that.

welcome mike. I know what you mean about burn out - I crashed about a year ago through being harassed and trying to fit into a call centre after a string of abandoned low status jobs, and I'm still not right - I get overloaded easily, I dont know whether its the psychological effect of the experiences I have had over the last few years, depression or just knowing more about what sets me off. I discovered I have AS just over 2 years ago, around the time my older son was diagnosed. Now I have had a little time to come to terms with being different not cursed I am glad I have the diagnosis (I was officially DX'd in September after a fight to get help), as it explains such a lot. I like coming here as it it is nice to spend time socialising without pressure, with people who are surprisingly a lot like me - for the first time.

Ub3r - yes, it is better to know, to have a label for the condition. As for getting help though - the healthcare/HMO system in the US has a way to go before accommodating AS in adults (children, yes to some extent, but adults?).

duncvis - Thanks for the welcome, and sharing that you experience burn-out too. I'm wondering if this burnout phenomenon is a more general occurence for adult aspies in pressure NT jobs over time. There is no way I can function at the level I did just a couple of years ago, and I don't know why. It's not depression (though I have a background of that too). I can only describe it as a sensory overload just being with people for more than a few hours in a busy environment. I'm doing parttime contract work but may pull the plug on that too. Bye