So That’s What Burnout is Like

When a late-diagnosed ADHDer discovers how to manage crisis before it peaks

The whole of 2023 so far has been a whirlwind. I embarked on my first solo international trip. I started taking art classes. I made a great impression at my job. I’ve been barreling through decades-old trauma in therapy and making incredible progress.

“Incredible” doesn’t always mean “good” or “feeling great,” though. In the context of healing emotionally and mentally, it means there is a lot of feeling to do. More conscious, deliberate feeling than I’ve ever done in my life. It’s exhausting but in a good way, like after a great run. The first mile is always the worst. Then the adrenaline kicks in.

I haven’t been able to contain my ideas. I’m developing publications, books, and other projects. I’m an avid Tetris player training for competition and I’m improving daily. I’ve been writing like there’s no tomorrow.

Yet I’ve not been able to finish anything. Trip reports, essays, books, short stories and long—I am always writing and revising. In some cases rewriting. I feel so robust and creatively alive, so what’s the holdup?

Executive dysfunction and ADHD burnout.

It took me a couple of weeks to understand what was going on. I was excelling at work, investing in my self-care, and bursting with creative projects. I felt great and was even proud of myself. Look at me healing! Pursuing passions! Creating things in ways I hadn’t before!

After awhile I realized how much I had put onto my plate. I reassessed and reminded myself to be patient and realistic with my resources. Not everything had to be done the instant I thought of it.

Unfortunately that is not how ADHD works; at least, not my particular flavor. ADHD is understood to be a dopamine and norepinephrine deficiency. It is less often explained that it’s a disability in executive function. Things like working memory, time management, emotional regulation—things a non-ADHD brain do autonomously.

Task prioritization and working memory are two of my weakest areas. To my brain, all tasks are not only the same priority, but they are all high priority. It may be a survival holdover from my CPTSD. Or it could just be an unfortunate combination.

To explain what I mean, imagine you are doing the dishes. In the middle of the load you remember you need to bake bread that afternoon. You then recall you need butter. A non-ADHD brain could finish the dishes then add the butter to their grocery list, run out the door to grab the butter and have the bread ready in time. If it was more time-sensitive, you could pause the dishes altogether, go get the butter and start baking the bread, then finish the dishes.

I cannot do that. If something pops up in my head, I cannot either autonomously finish the task I’m on or remember to do the next one. If I have a thought, it takes inordinate mental and emotional energy to hang on to it until I can stop and rearrange my task list. The to-do list in my head is a horizontal run-on sentence instead of a vertical checklist.

For things like chores and baking, this may not seem consequential. But imagine that daily chores and life maintenance are like that without reprieve. Then mix in things like paying bills, maintaining relationships, managing long-term projects, and taking care of oneself. My brain does not know the difference between any of these tasks.

While I was cruising toward the Maslow’s hierarchy peak, the foundation around me began crumbling for all the things I couldn’t recall or complete. Other things started bubbling up between the cracks. Guilt for all the things I had committed to and not finished. Perfectionism and shame preventing me from finishing the things I could. Impostor syndrome fraying the ends of every conversation and task.

On the surface I remained outgoing and confident. I felt sincere joy for my accomplishments. But inside I couldn’t silence a grating voice that insisted I was an NPC on the periphery of life. That nothing I did had enough impact to continue doing it. I had gone too long without showing anything for the work I was doing. Frustration frazzled my nerves when essays and projects didn’t match the result I imagined.

At the end of April I received word that my job—an assignment from a temp agency—was being termed. I was in limbo: waiting to be hired on full-time or swept back to the agency. The prospect of returning to the uncertainty of temping was stressful. I preferred to stay on with my current assignment. Yet I relished the idea of having a week off to catch up on things. To sleep in and tackle my endless list of projects. I envisioned dedicating a day to each area, switching hyperfocus on and cruising through it all to get caught up in the way that felt right to me.

Despite it all, I felt fine even though I recognized something was starting to go wrong. The understanding that I was staring to burn out dawned on me in the middle of a therapy session.

“Oh!” I exclaimed after I explained everything out loud. “Wait, is this burnout? Is this what it’s like?” I started giggling. Of course, of course that’s what it was.

My therapist laughed with me and nodded. “What does it feel like to see it now instead of later?”

Instant relief. A warm glow of radiant self-compassion. A healthy dose of pride—this meant big progress. Anyone who has committed to emotional healing knows the process isn’t linear. The most meaningful moments are when we can use tools, recognize new things, and react better. I saw all of these and I felt empowered to do something about it. I could assess and develop contingencies instead of bottoming out and crashing.

Before my ADHD diagnosis, burnout was something I experienced acutely and with little warning. I would wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed then be a blubbering mess by the end of the day. It would only take one thing to snap, the wrong thing, and the floodgates would open. Restabilizing could take weeks while I reset the dominoes inside me. The overload would be obvious only after I emerged from the swamp. It wasn’t until after recharging I’d recognize the breakdown as burnout at all, much less able to see it looming.

I have come to understand that that isn’t how burnout works for most people. For others, it’s a gradual process. A tightening of the shoulders that never eases. An unsolvable sticky problem. Something grating in the back of their mind that grows as it festers. It’s something they can feel, predict, and sometimes prevent.

And here I was, doing that for the first time. On one hand, I was happy that I recognized it before it became a crisis. Something I could manage and deflect in advance. On the other hand, there was grief.

Grief is common with late-diagnosis ADHD adults. I process mine intermittently. Sometimes the grief is for the neglect and ignorance from adults responsible for me as a child. In hindsight my symptoms were crystal clear. Even if inattentive presentation was unknown and undocumented in girls, I still needed help. Sometimes the grief is for all the potential I have always possessed and cannot utilize the way non-ADHDers do. I don’t have less than others, mine is just different.

In this instance, the grief was understanding that progress and medication will never correct the issue. For all the progress I made, I was still swimming in a sea of unfinished things with no focus. It is permanent, it is incurable, and it will always cost me more energy to break even. Learning to understand my needs and adapt is taxing. Medication has drastically improved my life and health but it is not a cure. It’s management of my symptoms. This time, the grief was understanding that the hard way. I have to look both ways to ensure I have all the resources before barreling forward.

I still have a mountain of work to do. At the time of this writing, I am still unsure what the next thirty days’ future holds for my work life. The uncertainty makes it all the more precarious in choosing a plan of action. I have a lot to learn about what my day-to-day abilities are and think about them in a way I haven’t before.

The good news is that I can do that and avoid complete self-destruction. The bad news is that there is no avoiding disaster entirely, just managing it. And managing my permanent disaster-status means being realistic about what I can and cannot do, how I do it, and allowing myself to be imperfect along the way.