My mind as a dumpster fire

how it feels to be really burnt out (as of last week)

Not such a fun topic, very personal and distressing for me and also for those who share this lived experience with me but none the less very very real. It’s something that I have lived with all my life.

To the point. I am as I have recently (within the last 2 years) realised very autistic. When I was younger this was a pejorative term and still is with the MAGA xenophobe type mindset.

I burn out and I get dysregulated. This isn’t about how that feels, this is about where it can end up.

There will be more stuff about management and regulation later, not today.

The more I look over my life and the more I research cognition and neuro diversity and "me" the more I become aware that I have very likely been in a period of high functioning crispyness for around 3-4 years and the last year I have been very very crispy indeed. Fo

This piece isn't about the circumstances or the build up, its about what it actually feels like for me.

My autism now seems really obvious, it wasn’t for the longest time. I just thought I was somehow entirely dysfunctional, it’s led to various forms of (what I now view as) self harm as coping strategies involving disproportionate drug use etc. Again we can have fun on that subject later.

Today we burn.

A bad thing happened, I was upset, I don’t often actually know what I am upset about at the time. It takes a long time for this to be available to me to process.

I tried to stay regulated. I have a framework that usually works.

Around 3 weeks ago that started to fall apart, my ivory tower suffered a huge bout of no maintenance.

this is what it felt like and indeed what it feels like at the time.

What makes things viable for me is patterns, this is what I "feel" in some cognitive sense, the web of connections, I see and feel and hear patterns in information and things, I like to see the possibilities and that leads to a sense of connection to “other” and the "world" and thus possibilities for future states and emergent behaviours. It keeps me interested. Wave functions over the superset of the "universe".

This keeps me alive if I'm honest, the endless web of possibilities and "things" emerging from "things".

When I start to really burn out this web collapses to a single point of "me" in isolation from all "things", there is nothing left, no other people, no connections, no forks in the road just single binaries, black white, 1/0 oppositions, absolutely no nuance. Its all very very "real" (this "real" is of course not real).

So then I become entirely disconnected from anything, nothing can cut through this dualistic nature.

Time (which I admittedly have a poor grasp of anyway) becomes a real and absolute thing, there is no room for a before or an after there is just and endless now.

This “now” is so dreadfully isolated.

There are no more patterns to see there is just "me" a deeply truncated version of "me" that admits no change and no possibility.

Everything is set and its unbearable, the worst aspects of my experience and feelings become utterly fixed and utterly paramount, even were I to remember "good" times in this state it matters not because what is so terribly real is the "now" of this state and the certainty that this is real and will not move. Even if its moves I will be back "here" again. How much more of here can I bear.

There is a tell here I realise, for me I become obsessed with the sense of being trapped in circumstances beyond my control (for me its Brexit and the horrors of the modern worlds economics and the precarity of existence in my society right now). This is a reliable symptom for me to tell me I an heading into this cell of my own mind.

My mind is now entirely truncated into this sense of non change, of non connection of no pattern of no wave form function, the super set has collapsed and there is just me and there is nothing else.

It is unbearable. I want it to end and I am aware of how much me suiciding would damage individuals I know and care about but that’s not enough because the connections aren't there any more. I can't see myself as belonging to any group and being cared for and about and having any level of impact in their existence that’s enough to give me a reason to continue.

I am aware that this is NOT a permanent state, that I have been here before, that I have experienced many states and that these can and will shift but, this burnt out state is overwhelmingly permanent at the time.

It’s terrible. No connection, no meaning, no change, nothing other than me myself and I and that is not enough.

There is something quite philosophical here, the idea that really "me" is defined by "others" my personality and "individuality" being defined by "otherness". Its not a new concept and I will return to it.

Regardless the "me" of this state is unbearable. Perhaps if I was "simpler" this being locked into a deeply truncated "me" might be enjoyable.

This can last for a very long time. I reiterate painful mistakes and situations, endlessly, this compounds the sense of isolation and non change, non connection.

It feels like my sensorium has completely shut down. I usually become largely catatonic at this stage. If there are to be any attempts at actual exit (in the suicide way) it's gonna be then. Catatonia leads to how can I kill myself in the least painful manner. It is a perfect concrete and inescapable logic. No emotion just factual this is the only thing that makes "sense".

I can't remember the past and how I have felt in the past.

All my human conscious experience has collapsed past an event horizon from which there is no escape. No more information has relevance as it all leads here. Its unbearable and so just what exactly is the point of continuing. Game over. Get me out of this cycle. Time to die.

Now here's Tom with the weather.

I suspect that whats going on behind the scenes is a literal shut down of significantly busy parts of my cognitive systems, like a short circuit, the synapses have shut down or reinforced to this "singularity" this cognitively inescapable conclusion.

It's frankly horrible and more to the point it's dangerous. This time was close. This is not the only time. It's far too familiar.

I take this seriously and I don't think I talk about it enough. I don't think we as a culture take this seriously enough, from my reading this is a huge issue for neuro complex people, it's a huge issue for everyone and I suspect the mechanics are very similar, it may be more of an issue for neuro complex folk (statisticly this is indeed the case) because of the huge pattern finding mechanism myself and the people I talk to about this use as our baseline cognitive process. This is something I intend to research more.

I suspect that this can be managed more effectively via tracking of where I am at and where I might be at later. My thoughts are leaning to somehow breaking into the inevitability phase by reminding myself that this has happened before and will happen again.

To break the permanence of the magic spell of the burnt out phase of the cycle. To insert a wedge to allow some connection to creep in again hopefully pre catatonia and suicide ideation phase.

I've got some ideas around this and am starting to prototype a system. I managed to handle it pretty well for a while a few months ago with a set of supplementation and an exercise regime and other things, I'll get to those in another piece.

That protocol managed the dysregulation episodes quite well. Now I want to manage the more severe episodes quite well.

If you've read this far thanks. I appreciate it.