Is This Autistic Burnout or Have I Hit Rock Bottom?




Writing is my outlet. I don’t write on Medium to pay my mortgage. I write here because it’s the modern-day version of the green diary I furiously scribbled in as a teenager.When I don’t have the motivation to write, there’s a problem. I have dozens of barely-started articles in my draft folder. Finishing them feels insurmountable, especially when I typically crank out my writing in a single sitting.I had the best of intentions at the beginning of summer. I worked on a glow-up. I tried so fucking hard to push through the dense scary forest of emotional burden so that I could finally feel freedom on the other side. I beat the Depression Monster lurking in me; not enough to murder him but to sufficiently lock him a the bottom of my psyche’s abyss.

It began unraveling and then it snowballed. This past week I’ve barely gotten out of bed by doing just enough to make work Zoom appearances and getting my kids to school. Otherwise, I’m in bed sleeping or aimlessly messing around on my phone.I stayed in bed this morning until 11:30 a.m. when I had to pick my kids up from school. I made them lunch and then crawled back into bed until dinnertime. Mother of the year over here. I’m depressed from only having my kids half their lives and when I do have them, I waste it being in bed.