On Autism and Burnout

My art practiced died with the person I thought I was

2020

I’d been struggling to connect with making art for a few years now. Something that once felt like my entire identity that had flow and meaning has been rendered inert and unreachable. I’d heard all the things about creative block, times of harvest-any cyclical metaphor that speaks to the rotations our human experiences seems to make, rather than linear journeys. But this was not that. This wall, this stoppage that started in 2020, was deeper.

2022

After a few days off for Christmas season from the warehouse, still unable to train Jiu Jitsu from exhaustion, I woke to the feeling of being encased in iron. I could barely physically move. I only had 10 weeks left until my Autism assessment would begin and I needed to work extra hard to put every penny towards it. But working hard no longer held the value I forced myself to comply with. Given how little I was paid to work in a job that was based on my disability, having to work hard took on a new context. Arriving home from the holidays, I couldn’t physically return. I couldn’t get up. In hindsight, I don’t even recall if I taught Jiu Jitsu at this time. It was a desolate time that robbed me of all the joy of training, connection, and friendships that accompany it, in service to a company that didn’t pay a living wage, provide meaningful health insurance or be anything but a dead end. Something I tried my whole life not to be, but saw myself as and unable to extricate myself from.

2023

If I wanted to continue to work long term, I needed to stop. My psychologist who encouraged me to take a Leave of Absence said what I was describing was burn out. I resisted because I was so afraid of no money. Also, knowing this wasn’t a random thing but something I’d fought against happening everyday of my working life for years. I felt like a failure. If I gave into my desire to drink again, coming back from this detached state would get so, so, so much worse. Everyday I walked past the liquor store and said “not tonight”, pushing the craving forward. Outside of alcohol and repression, I’d run out of coping skills. And I was imploding.

The only thing I did in these days away from work was sleep, from morning til night. Watching my favourite X Files. Or maybe that’s too much of an impression of consciousness. It was on in the background as I stared at the ceiling. When I did have energy, I began for the first time in so long, to draw.

This is the work I made recovering from that burnout in late January of 2023.