Source
r/autismacceptance•
CrowsRidge

Battling lethargy after expensing energy

Let's hear some tips and tricks for individuals who give their workplace or other social/environmental requirement energy to the point of exhaustion, leaving little drive to seek your own interests and home requirements afterwards.

Ever have a rough day at work only to come home and want to sleep? A rough week? Month? Year? Therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist just throwing diagnoses and pills at you?

You know you want to spend time with your loved ones but you feel out of it like you just came back from being marooned on a desert island? (Some of us aspies might actually like the sound of that huh? Solo life, testing your resolve, resourcefullness and knowledge... I'll stop), Tired of being called lazy or unloving when you know you're not? Wish you could do something more than sit on the couch with the TV on? (Unless TV shows are your interest of course). Is your spouse or children showing signs of stress from your lack of/too much emotion?

How do you cope? Work out? Better nutrition? Medication? Stop drinking? Or perhaps a combination of multiple things?

Set time/space aside for yourself?.. Or did your remedy regime call for something more life altering? Move cities? Go back to school? Career/occupational change?

My goal here is to share coping mechanisms that allow us to be the best we can be in our lives, without the usual breakdowns and burnouts that seem to periodically (or constantly) affect us.

I'll close with a line from Sean Carter (known by his stage name Jay-Z)...

"May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's"

Posted Apr 20, 2017, 7:34 PM UTC

94
Verypneumatic•
  • exercise
  • meditation
  • reading
  • playing an instrument
  • good sleep
  • healthy nutrition
  • optimism
6
Jimjongjung•

Generally taking care of my body and learning what to let slide have been helping me. Like I don't keep my place perfectly clean. Because it takes too much energy to do it. I don't worry about other people's opinions if I logically look at it an it seems silly. I severely limit my exposure to the news because its mostly bad and its things I can't do fuck all about. And when I need to rest I rest because usually that's what gets me back on my feet faster than stumbling around and worrying about if I should be resting or not.

4
Paciphae•

If I'm understanding the question, (I might not be); when I'm lethargic I take a nap. When I was working, I would come home incredibly stressed out, and go PVP in WoW for an hour before I went to bed. Anything that I wanted to do besides work and sleep, I tried to do on my days off. It was extremely frustratng.

I don't think it's possible to spend time with your family and be social, when you're exhsusted. The only answer to that, (at least from my perspective), is to find a lifestyle that doesn't leave you too exhausted to do the other things that you need or want to do.

Personally, I threw in the proverbial towel on having an ordinary job. I'm pursuing SSI and selling my art.

4
rosalindar•

I hear you, I have absolutely horrible experiences with lethargy and feeling like I'm spreading myself way too thinly. As a result, I've been suffering from anxiety for nearly a year.

I have a demanding job in the archives profession, a relationship, and a four hour daily commute from home to work. I basically get no time to myself anymore, and it has been getting me down. My only solution to one of these problems is to move from the area I currently live in. There are no others methods to cope. My advice to any Aspie is this: try not to live too far away from your workplace if you can help it - travelling in peak time is the pits. But that, for me, is not the worst thing. The loss of time, and inability to find solace from the working day in my special interests has really had a horrible effect on my psyche. So I'm hoping to change that soon.

On coping methods generally, one book I've found incredibly helpful (especially for girls with AS/HFA) is Liane Holliday Willey's 'Safety Skills for Asperger Women'. It is an absolute goldmine of tips and methods to cope with the challenges AS presents. In particular, the chapter on making organised systems for coping with life's demands is excellent. I tried one of the methods suggested (separating tasks out into manageable chunks, rather than attempting to multi-task). I made a list of all the things I needed to buy in the local town, and devised a loop to follow, starting at the music shop and ending with the supermarket near my flat. It really worked well! I could remember what I needed to get, without getting disorientated or facing an overload. As a result, I was able to enjoy the rest of the day. I'll be taking this advice from now on, separating my tasks into chunks and doing them one at a time. It makes sense to me.

All the usual things, like exercising, optimism (as u/Verypneumatic said) and eating well are good too. They do help (I say this as someone who lost over 50lbs and feels so much better for it). My biggest tip though would be to accept the AS challenges, and the fact that we have them (no shame in this) and devise methods for coping. Eventually, like eating well or exercising, they may become easier. Setting them up in the beginning is the hardest bit, I find. Also, I can't stress how important it is to devote time to your interests (not too obsessively but enough) to recharge from the challenges. It may be different to the normal way people unwind but that isn't important. Best to work with the AS, not against it.

2