This might sound counter-intuitive but - tell your therapist exactly this.

That you don’t feel heard (ideally, why that is), how you feel about her stance on medication, that you’re tired of therapy and don’t know how to benefit of it right now (maybe coupled with what beneficial would look like to you) and whatever else is in your head in regards to this session.

This may seem confrontational, but it really isn’t (or doesn’t have to be). It is providing crucial information to a professional about where your head is at in regards to the therapeutic process the both of you (ostensibly) want to start together. It will help her understand where you’re coming from and maybe her reaction will help you get a better feel for if you are indeed a good fit, or not.

I wish you good luck!

Hey, I’ve read your words, and I feel for you.

It seems like you’re caught in an impossible situation - having to work to keep insurance, and not being able to reduce workload without jeopardizing that, worsening the burnout either way. I’m sorry it’s so hard right now.

I would share my own burnout and recovery experience with you to maybe help, but the “getting better” I was able to achieve so far is entirely due to a looong paid medical leave (about 1 year), a 6-week low-intensity in-patient program and the space for transformation that gave me, and I don’t think I could’ve done it this way while continuing to work or support a family. I don’t say that to put salt in your wound, I just want to express that getting better is basically like getting another job - it requires ressources and time and energy. If you absolutely cannot take a break, then please be gentle with yourself if it takes you a lot longer than this to get better. Also, for full disclosure, while I’m now back to normal, my “normal” actually entails being chronically low-level depressed and not being able to consistently function in many ways considered normal for an adult (hence my being on this sub), so it would feel a bit phony to pretend to have the answer.

However, I have one recommendation that might be helpful. I’m not sure if you have the capacity for it, but I really benefitted from the book “Burnout” by Emily and Amelia Nagoski ([https://www.burnoutbook.net/](their website)). It’s not a cure-all and not ADHD-specific, but it is a great guide to explain how stress works and how to really cope with it, especially on a physical level. It’s great for perspective and concrete exercises, and a pretty good read.

I sincerely wish you some peace and room to breathe, somehow!

I have received the result of my ADHD diagnostics, and did not receive the diagnosis for various reasons. Those reasons are valid when viewed through the lense of a diagnostician and I understand why the decision is being made that way. But I still do have many of the symptoms and problems in every day life, which fit the bill (also according to the diagnostics, but that’s not enough), and the alternative explanation they offered is basically ineffable due to lack of research, and in practice this just means that I will not have access to med treatment, even though they might still be helpful. In truth, I think I’m mostly disappointed that I cannot benefit from the well-established treatment protocol for ADHD, and don’t know how hopeful I can now be to get a handle on my life at any point in the future.

I don’t stand alone in this, my therapist is still going to give me a cognitive-behavioural training designed to help with executive function deficits. And I have already learned, that I’m allowed to stay 'round here even without the label. :)

But together with some other stressful stuff happening, I’m not doing so well, I think.

Thanks :)

Which text are you referring to? Sounds interesting!

Yes, she is! I personally am just so glad I could help at all and not have her watch go through that ordeal by herself… and to have managed to make a significant difference for her, she says. That doesn’t always happen when trying to help and support, and I am so happy that this time, it did :)

I feel fantastic right now - in the last week, I have hyper focussed for several days to help a dear friend prepare for a court date (the kind of task that has “important/interesting to me” and “urgent” written all over it), and due to our preparation, it went really well for her. And I am happy, relieved and quite proud of us - while also feeling completely trashed from overtaxing my physical ressources in the process.

Absolutely worth it, though. I will, however, now take a break of several days.

There’s a difference between signalling the brain to release its own dopamine and taking external dopamine. (Important note: All of this is a simplification, I am not an expert!)

The first could be done with drugs (legal and illegal) or other dopamine-stimulating activities with instant rewards, and it absolutely has the ability to change our reasoning (like “Oh yeah, I’ll definitely feel better if I sit motionlessly for hours scrolling memes I don’t even find that funny, and should not, as logic and knowledge dictates, maybe go outside and move my body a little, because that won’t feel as good (doesn’t release as much dopamine)”). So here, the answer is yes, totally. Which is why for example ADHD medication tries to effect an easier release of dopamine to make it easier on the brain-carrier to make different choices, away from instant reward towards delayed gratification.

For the second thing - dopamine’s precursor, L-Dopa, is the straightest way to actually add more dopamine to the brain (since dopamine itself can not pass the blood-brain-barrier, but L-dopa can and is then synthesized into dopamine), which is done in Parkinson’s patients and helps them tremendously. Interestingly however, if you overdose it, you can fall into a drug-induced psychosis, a state in which one could argue that logic and reasoning are indeed affected, so that’s another yes, but not in the way you mean, I think.

In conclusion, brain neurotransmitter chemistry is pretty complicated, but interesting, and the answer to the question if changing something about it will lead to different ways of thinking is very often yes, which is why medicine is doing it :)

I wanted to let you know that your story resonated deeply with me. We had a similar family dynamic in parts (esp. the teaming up by apparent neurotypes), only nobody is officially diagnosed (I’m still waiting for results), which made it even harder to make sense of for a long time. So I feel for you!

During my university years especially, I also struggled heavily with keeping up with household stuff, which made me quite the unpopular flat mate… it’s a huge source of shame for me, and still affects me to this day (though I’d like to believe I’ve gotten better).

Thank you for sharing, even if it is uncomfortable, it made me feel less alone with these experiences - so please don’t feel like you have to apologize :)

Anyone else? Yes.

(Thanks for the reminder! :D)

This week as well as last week, I am still waiting for my diagnostic report to tell me if I have ADHD or not - the sessions were in September. The wait time has been announced, but I am still impatient, which is kinda fitting, I guess… While it is clear to me, my therapist and the diagnostician that I likely have some kind of neurodivergence, it’s not quite clear if ADHD is the ticket. Which also makes sense - if it was super-obvious, somebody would have noticed before my thirties, I hope. I guess I’ll know soon enough.

Either way, I still find the ADHD communities such as this one very, very relatable, so if it’s alright, I’ll just stay on even if I didn’t meet the diagnostic criteria. :)

4-5 / 0-1 / 4-5 / 0-1, repeated for at least 1 minute, better 5 minutes or more. (not too deep or light-headedness can happen)

This is resonance frequency breathing (at round about 0,1 Hz) which maximizes heart rate variability and activates the baroreflex (blood pressure). It’s usually used with a HRV biofeedback device to find the best individual breathing frequency, but it’s not strictly necessary. Just find the speed around these marks that feels good (without feeling like you’re out of breath or getting dizzy). Breath into your belly.

There’s tons of studies for its effects, but mostly it activates your vagal control, and thus tones down anxiety, can help with depression and PTSD symptoms when done regularly, and also helps with high blood pressure, can make recovery after heart surgery easier, is used in professional sports, may help with IBS etc. Look for papers on “HRV biofeedback effects”, if you’re interested.

The most immediate effect I personally have is feeling both more relaxed and more alert, similar to after meditation.

I’ve been using ChatGPT to find inspiration for greeting cards (for birthday, wedding etc.) for people I don’t know that well.

I don’t want to scare you, but seriously, do NOT just try to push through the burnout by yourself “until life lets up” and leave it at that - I tried that, and all that happened was a break-down, and afterwards not being able to work, period, for several months. My life back then was not sustainable for my body, and it told me through burnout as a last measure to get me to stop living like that.

In recovery, I’ve also met people who went farther than me (often medication-assisted) and did themselves literal organ damage - one lady had a nearly complete shut-down of the adrenal glands, another had a series of mini-strokes due to elevated blood pressure… it gets bad.

You say there are only two weeks to go, and I wish you the best to get there in one piece. Do try exercising, avoiding screens for two hours before bed, listen to an audiobook to fall asleep, try lavender tea or something, use all the tips.

But please know that afterwards it will not necessarily be over, the exhaustion may stay or come back easily, and you really, really need to reach out to a professional, your GP or psychiatrist and look into treatment options, not just coping options.

Wish you all the best!

In christianity, there are recognized forms of prayer that are literally the same technique as focus-based meditation - only that the focus is not your breath, or a candle, but your inner connection to god as you experience it. This is called contemplation and has a centuries-long history in christian mysticism.

If you practice it, I confidently say you would gain quite the same benefits as you would with focus-based meditation.

Also I have tried both, and don’t feel much of a difference in terms of “what I’m doing with my brain”.

I’m sure you’re talking about people going " Please god, give me the new car I’ve wanted for so long" rather than prayer as a spiritual practice to gain connection to the the “first reality before any thought arises”, which is how modern christian mystics define god, so this likely isn’t relevant to you and your beliefs and also isn’t meant to be a rebuttal of your overall stance.

I just wanted to let you know that in this instance you are, indeed, factually wrong.

I was in a very similar position during 2022. It’s a perfect burnout recipe, chronic stressors everywhere and no power to change them. I could feel it building, but was still able to work and the personal stakes were high, so I wanted to make it to the end (which would have been in early 2023). I didn’t. I had a break-down in fall, I couldn’t do anything anymore (no focus, no energy, really bad memory, lots of mistakes at work). I took sick leave and have been in recovery since, and still don’t feel really alright. I have met people who went further than me and have done themselves really bad, and even physical damage doing so - psyche and body feel different, but they are parts of the same organism, and to overtax one is to overtax the other.

In no way was it worth it. I would have chosen differently if I had known what the later stages of burnout felt like.

I really mean it - if it’s in any way feasible and you’ve exhausted other pathways to change inside your role, quit before your body does it for you.

When you feel the burnout building up, you really should not try to stick it out “just until this project is done and I can get some rest”…

I think it’s not half as interesting as you think it might be…

I had a huge trash bag in my home office from a long ago deep clean of my flat, filled with all kinds of stuff. It was there so long it was basically furniture.

The sticking point was that because of local laws, I had to sort out the recyclable trash and dump it in the special dumpsters before getting rid of the rest. (Also, I knew that before gathering the trash all together like this, but it seemed easier at the time…)

Last week, due to external pressures, I finally managed to lug the bag to the dumpsters and do it. It only took 15 minutes, but it sucked exactly as much as I thought it would - just putting my arms in there searching for paper and recyclable plastics, not even knowing what was in there anymore… thankfully it didn’t smell, but when I accidentally grabbed a very old, unsuffiently packaged positive covid home testing kit, I called it a day, dumped the rest (neighbours be damned) and went home to scrub my hands clean…

0/10, would procrastinate again. :D

This happens to me with surprising regularity… HOWEVER - I recently managed to do a chore after 9 months of procrastination, and while it did only take 15 minutes, those minutes sucked so bad that, for a change, I felt really justified in putting it off as long as I did. So it can go either way, I guess!