My Road to Burnout
For a long time, I thought I was coping.
Looking back now, I think I'd actually been travelling towards burnout for years.
I just didn't know that's where I was heading.
I'd built a successful career
I started my career on the ground doing construction work.
Over the years, I worked my way up.
From construction, into project management, and eventually into senior project management.
I was good at what I did.
I could manage people, solve problems, deal with pressure and keep projects moving.
From the outside, there probably wasn't much reason to think I was struggling.
And for a long time, I didn't think I was either.
I'd built a successful career.
I was progressing.
I was functioning.
I was getting things done.
What I didn't understand was how much it was costing me to keep doing it.
Anxiety had always been there
Anxiety wasn't new for me.
It had been part of my life for as long as I could remember.
But as my career progressed and the responsibility increased, so did the anxiety.
Eventually, it really started to ramp up.
At the time, I didn't connect that with anything bigger.
I didn't know I was AuDHD.
I didn't understand masking.
I didn't understand nervous system overload.
I didn't understand capacity in the way I do now.
I just knew that I was anxious.
So I did what I'd always done.
I kept going.
Then came depression
At one point, I went through a bout of depression.
It was difficult, but eventually I managed to work through it.
Things improved.
Life moved forward.
And for several years, I carried on.
Looking back, I think that reinforced something I'd probably believed for most of my life:
Whatever happens, you push through it.
Something gets difficult?
Keep going.
You're exhausted?
Keep going.
You're anxious?
Keep going.
You're struggling?
Keep going.
And most of the time, I could.
Until eventually I couldn't.
Work started becoming chaotic
The two years leading up to my burnout were different.
Work became increasingly chaotic.
There was continuous change.
Not one big change that happened and then settled down.
Change after change after change.
Just as I'd adjust to one thing, something else would move.
Responsibilities changed.
Expectations changed.
The environment changed.
And I kept adapting.
That's what I'd always been good at.
Or at least, that's what I thought I was good at.
What I couldn't see at the time was the cumulative effect all of that change was having on me.
Every adjustment required something.
Every uncertainty required something.
Every new problem required something.
And eventually there wasn't much left to give.
But I was still functioning
This is probably the part I understand very differently now.
I was still working.
I was still solving problems.
I was still turning up.
I was still carrying responsibility.
So I assumed I was coping.
That's the trap.
Functioning and coping aren't necessarily the same thing.
Sometimes you're functioning because you're using everything you have just to keep functioning.
There's nothing left for recovery.
Nothing left for yourself.
You're borrowing from tomorrow to survive today.
And if you do that for long enough, eventually the bill arrives.
Mine did.
At the end of the second year, I imploded...
There wasn't a graceful decline.
I didn't recognise what was happening and calmly decide that I needed some time off.
I imploded.
After two years of continuous change, pressure and pushing myself to keep adapting, something finally gave.
And that's when the real burnout began.
At the time, I didn't understand what had happened.
I didn't have the language for it.
I didn't know that there could be years of accumulated stress, masking, anxiety, pressure and overload sitting underneath what looked like a successful, functioning life.
I just knew that suddenly I couldn't do what I'd always been able to do.
And that was terrifying.
Looking backwards changes the story
It's easy to look at the moment I imploded and think:
"That's when everything went wrong."
But I don't think that's true anymore.
The burnout didn't begin on that day.
That was simply the day I could no longer compensate for everything that had come before it.
The road there had been much longer.
The anxiety.
The depression.
The constant pushing through.
The increasing responsibility.
The continuous change.
The pressure.
And probably hundreds of smaller signs that I didn't recognise because nobody had ever taught me what I was looking for.
I thought I was resilient because I could keep going.
Now I think resilience also has to include knowing when you shouldn't.
I wish I'd understood that earlier
I don't look back and think I should have somehow known I was heading towards AuDHD burnout.
How could I?
I didn't even know I was AuDHD.
But I do wish I'd understood that constantly being able to push through something doesn't mean pushing through it isn't affecting you.
I wish I'd understood that anxiety wasn't something I simply had to tolerate.
I wish I'd understood how much continuous change was taking out of me.
And I wish I'd known that you don't have to wait until you completely fall apart before you're allowed to say:
This is too much.
Because burnout didn't suddenly happen to me.
Looking back now, I'd been travelling towards it for a long time.
I just didn't know that's where I was heading.
This is part of my ongoing journey of understanding AuDHD, burnout and myself. I share these reflections because sometimes recognising our own experiences in someone else's story can help us understand things we couldn't see at the time.
AuDHD Companion — Understand your patterns. Understand yourself.