Hypercast: An ADHD Podcast
Hypercast is your companion through the world of ADHD, offering an authentic and engaging look at life with ADHD. Join ADHD coaches Melissa and Brianna as they navigate the complexities of ADHD with heart, humor, and expert insights. From discussions on the latest research to personal stories of triumphs and struggles, Hypercast delves deep into every facet of ADHD.
Whether you're newly diagnosed, a long-time ADHDer, or someone who loves and supports an ADHDer, this podcast is for you. We explore a variety of topics, from ADHD relationships, late diagnosis, and co-occurring conditions to practical advice on everyday challenges.
Hypercast provides a supportive space for open, honest, and well-informed conversations about ADHD, including the cultural misconceptions and stigmas surrounding it. Melissa and Brianna share strategies, tools, and encouragement to help listeners thrive and navigate a world not built for their neurodivergent minds.
Tune in for insightful discussions, real-life experiences, and resources to help you along the ADHD journey, and know you're not alone. Hypercast is your auditory haven, bringing community and understanding to every episode.
Hypercast: An ADHD Podcast
Beyond Exhaustion: A Guide to ADHD Burnout
Ever questioned whether you're dealing with more than just exhaustion? This episode of Hypercast uncovers the reality of ADHD burnout—how it goes beyond mere tiredness to affect your body, mind, and emotions. We delve into the connection between hyperfocus and burnout, explaining why those with ADHD may be more prone to it. Listen in as we identify the key signs, dispel the myth of 'laziness,' and provide essential strategies to help you recognize and manage ADHD burnout. If you're tackling the daily hurdles of ADHD, this episode is a must-listen!
Melissa's Contact:
Email: melissa@likemindcoaching.com
www.likemindcoaching.com
Brianna's Contact:
Email: info@understandingadhd.ca
www.understandingADHD.ca
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Hi, there you're listening to Hypercast, an ADHD podcast. I'm Melissa, an ADHD coach and advocate.
Brianna:Hi, I'm Brianna, an ADHD coach and soon-to-be therapist. We are here to explore all things ADHD from unexpected challenges to unique strengths.
Melissa:Join us as we share insights and strategies that empower you to live your best ADHD life.
Brianna:Ready, let's dive into today's episode to ADHD Live. Ready, let's dive into today's episode.
Melissa:Hello, hi, welcome to Hypercast. Welcome to Hypercast. Today's topic is ADHD burnout.
Brianna:Oh God, let's talk about this. I don't want to, because I'm so tired.
Melissa:Melissa, I feel like burnout is about 40% of my existence in life.
Melissa:Sometimes, Me too, I just recently am recovering, so, yeah, definitely have a lot to talk about for this episode. Let me start by maybe defining what ADHD burnout is. Some of you may have experienced this, but you may not actually know how to define it. So what is ADHD burnout? It is a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion caused by the relentless demands of managing ADHD. It's feeling really tired, losing motivation, feeling stuck, and a lot of these things are often worsened by hyper-focus.
Brianna:How very dare the thing that I need to use to get through the day be the thing that is causing me suffering and pain? Rude.
Melissa:Hyperfocus. When it's utilized properly and in a healthy way, it can be great. When you fully succumb to it, it actually can overwhelm you both physically and mentally.
Brianna:I'm suggesting that using hyperfocus for the past four months straight to complete my second master's degree is not healthy for me.
Melissa:I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't done any all-nighters in the last month trying to do things, yeah. So why is this topic important? I actually have this written down because I knew I would get lost in what we were saying. This topic is important because many with ADHD and their support networks often mistake burnout symptoms for laziness or lack of effort, leading to misunderstandings and frustration. This misinterpretation prevents individuals from receiving support and empathy that they need.
Brianna:This topic is big because people just in general can experience burnout. Right, everyone has the possibility of this. The reason why it's important for ADHD is because it can happen more often, more frequently, takes us longer to recover from, because our brains deal with, like, way more information and we struggle with way more things. It takes us more energy to do simple tasks than it does neurotypical people. That's part of the thing that leads to the laziness, lack of effort. Misconception is that tasks that would not burn out a neurotypical person do, in fact, burn us out. No, it doesn't make sense to them why we are honestly disabled, because burnout is disabling. Right, it is the point where you cannot function anymore.
Melissa:It does come with varying levels of severity.
Brianna:I will say that, yeah, clinical burnout is different from burnout subclinical, yes, but I will say that as a psychologist. There are assessments for clinical burnout which, when you reach that level, there is brain fog, there is fatigue, there is exhaustion, and oftentimes people misunderstand fatigue and exhaustion as well. Fatigue and exhaustion is not being tired, it is a whole body experience where getting out of bed seems nearly impossible. You get tired standing up taking a shower, cooking for yourself. Forget about it. Right, that level of energy in tasks is impossible when you're in burnout, right? So, like things that would have been possible before that might have taken some energy, now take too much energy to accomplish.
Brianna:That is what clinical burnout is essentially say, and the reason it takes so long to recover from that is because you still have to do all those tasks. You still have to eat and shower and sleep and whatever, and work if you're not fortunate enough to get paid disability or be able to take time off. So you're not actually recovering. You're still spending energy and that's why we need to talk about this, because we need to be able to figure out how to get out of this ADHD burnout and not die.
Melissa:I am an ADHD professional and I am consistently bewildered by how often I get trapped by this specific thing. Often through my life. It's like I burn out, I recover. It's almost like a cycle. It's a burnout recover, a burnout recover, and I feel like I've been constantly looking for the solution to prevent me from ever having burnout again. I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully find that solution.
Brianna:Okay, so that's the other part of burnout. That is different for those of us with ADHD is that there is no solution like that. Right, there is no way to prevent ourselves from being burnt out because the world isn't designed for us and we are forced to do tasks that burn us out. Right, a neurotypical person can avoid tasks that stress them out. That could cause burnout most of the time. Obviously, there are situations where neurotypical people are being forced to do tasks beyond their capability, but they have an awareness that it's beyond their capability. They can feel it coming, whereas we tend to dissociate from that and push ourselves beyond the point, and that's how we get into that burnout level, because we didn't notice the warning signs or we were masking too hard to pay attention to that. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why ADHD burnout is worse than regular burnout.
Melissa:So noticing those symptoms or those signs, I think, is really important. If you suffer from migraine headaches, neurologists often will suggest that you pay attention to what your aura signs are. I feel nauseous or I get really tired. If you know that's a symptom at the start of your migraine and you take your medication, that is when it will be most effective. In the same vein as that, do we do that with ADHD? How do we do that with ADHD?
Brianna:Yeah, that's the piece. That's like I said, there's no solution per se, but there are tips and tricks you can use to check into your body before you get into that burnout stage. But basically the goal isn't to prevent burnout but to maintain regulation, so to build skills that allow you to self-regulate, and that's what we, as ADHD coaches, work towards. That's what I intend to do in my therapy practices really work on this like window of tolerance and building that ability to self-regulate, which includes that proprioceptive piece of being aware of what's happening in my body, noticing those warning signs and then knowing what to do about those warning signs. Because, even if you've noticed, sometimes our ADHD brains forget what the steps were once you've noticed.
Melissa:And sometimes, if you do take the time to recognize what those symptoms are, what those signs are, it's really important for us to write those down. Why? Because we forget them so easily, so easily. Brianna, do you know what some of your pre-burnout symptoms are?
Brianna:easily. Brianna, do you know what some of your pre-burnout symptoms are? I should, because I am in currently, or I'm just coming out of burnout and I should write them down and so this doesn't happen again. But I plan on adding them to my ADHD manual at some point once I have enough energy to look back, so this doesn't happen again and if you are interested in an ADHD manual, we are developing a workshop, so you can sign up for that. I will sign up for the waitlist I'm very excited about it because I need to complete my own.
Brianna:I've started it, I've worked on it. There's still things I need to add, like these burnout symptoms. I think for me, what was happening is I was masking more. The thing that pushed me over the edge was social expectations. Right, I was dealing with a lot in terms of my education and my job, and then also there was social expectations that were being placed on me and I was masking through them to the point of saying yes to too many things that people pleasing and normally I have enough self-awareness to be like, oh no, like I'm tired, I need to not do that, or I've already had three social events this week. Can we move this to next week? And just like being aware of how much energy I have, and I just was not aware of my energy levels. So I reverted back to my masking people pleasing and started saying yes to everything.
Melissa:A lot of times when we have a lot of expectations put on us, whether that be socially, from the family, from work, and then sometimes when it rains, it pours, and you want to be able to satisfy people or the requirements they have of you or the needs they have of you in every arena. But sometimes it's important to understand when you need to be your own advocate and say, hey, what can we do to adjust here, because I'm at a breaking point?
Brianna:Yeah, yeah, I was in a situation where I had less control over my environment or my surroundings over the expectations that were being placed on me. And all of it, like you said, it rains, it pours. All of it happened all at one time. So school picked up, work picked up, social expectations picked up. I was no longer in my safe space. I didn't have like access to my own bathroom, my own shower, my own kitchen for a period of time.
Brianna:So all of the systems that I had built for me, that work for me, were removed and I didn't notice how much I needed those systems in place until they were removed. And then also, at the same time, I had such a heavy workload, lots of deadlines, and there was also a lot of pressure to meet those deadlines. Nothing really could be dropped. So even though I knew that I was pushing myself really hard, it was also being praised, that's. The other thing is, oh, she works so hard, she's doing so well, look, she's doing so much to the point where I was feeling really good. But there were people in my life who were starting to feel bad as a result of not pushing themselves to the level that I was essentially to burn out and not receiving that praise.
Melissa:If that makes sense, no, it does.
Brianna:Not only were there consequences for me in terms of what I was dealing with, but there were consequences for the people around me, because they're like, oh, she's doing fine, I was not doing fine.
Melissa:That's when that hard masking piece was coming in for you. Yeah, exactly, and I can only imagine that when you've been taken out of an environment that's really comfortable for you, an environment where you are productive in the way that works for you, it's got to be stifling and overwhelming and you've got to readjust. It's constantly readjusting and that's going to really affect the amount of time it takes to get something done.
Brianna:Everything was taking longer and I didn't know why. Everything was harder and I didn't know why. And also I was like not really sleeping, not really eating. I should have known, basically I should have known. And then also I got really sick, physically sick, yeah. So burnout can actually take quite a long time to recover from, but not just mentally, like physically.
Melissa:I started a business over 10 years ago. I worked my patootie off and was barely sleeping and my throat started to hurt and I was like, oh, I'm fine. And then I got worse and worse. I went to the doctor and I had some rare, weird form of strep and it then went systemic because I still wasn't sleeping. They couldn't get rid of it and a big part of that was because I wasn't taking the necessary care of myself, and this was extreme burnout for me. I don't know if I'm ever fully recovered from that episode. And yeah, so we can do some great physical and mental harm to ourselves by not giving ourselves what we truly need, and that's taking us to this management and prevention discussion. So how do we take care of ourselves? Like? Self-care is very important to help us prevent overwhelm and complete burnout.
Brianna:I agree with you. But what is self-care? Because you say that and I don't know what that means, because everyone's oh, you have to prioritize yourself self-care and all I see are like face masks and taking a bath. What is self-care?
Melissa:Really, it comes down to what are our basic needs Food, hydration, sleep and we need to move our bodies around. That blood needs to move through our bodies.
Brianna:Well, I can't move my body right now. Blood needs to move through our bodies. Well, I can't move my body right now. I'm that pain issue. Yeah, because you shared your medical history, I'll share mine very briefly, just because I think it could help other people if they've experienced this. But I was so scared I was going to have a chronic condition like nerve fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, something of that. What I actually got was I got an infection and then I got reactive arthritis. That's crazy.
Brianna:So, all of my joints were in so much pain that I literally could not move. I was screaming in pain because of this ADHD burnout, because I pushed myself past the point, because I was not doing whatever. This magical self-care is, which, yeah, it's food, it's sleep, it's whatever but I'm bad at those things on a regular day with my ADHD, let alone a day where I have overscheduled myself and overcommitted myself. I'm not taking the time to eat regularly.
Melissa:And that is where sometimes we're overindulging in the hyperfocus and we may need to find what works for us to offload is where sometimes we're overindulging in the hyperfocus and we may need to find what works for us to offload, even though it can be physically and mentally painful to do. We need to find what triggers we can use to help transition ourselves, and that is very individual and it can be very hard to identify. I'm not going to lie.
Brianna:I'm feeling very resistant to the idea of giving up my hyper focus, because it is the tool that has allowed me to achieve everything that I've achieved in life. I am where I am with my education, with my career, because of this hyper focus. So when you say it's a bad thing, my defenses are immediately up oh, I'm not.
Melissa:I will advocate for hyperfocus all day long. It is one of my favorite ADHD traits. But the bad part is when I take it to a point where I forget that I'm a human being and I'm just a machine. Because I'm not a machine. I am a human being that has physical and mental needs, and I forget this over and over again. I hear you I also forget this, that's how I am where I am right now.
Brianna:I just I'm having trouble with this concept of because I took on so much, because I needed my hyper focus. It was the thing that was allowing me to meet commitments, to achieve what I wanted to achieve, to meet the goals I wanted to meet with the time crunches that I had assigned myself and were assigned to me against my will. It was the thing that got me through. It also was the thing that was causing me harm, and I guess coming to terms with the duality of that concept can be a little difficult.
Melissa:Yes, I feel like I confront it every single day and the only ways I feel like I've been able to combat it and I feel like I've talked to like multiple coaches and multiple therapists I probably spend thousands of dollars in therapy just talking about hyperfocus but some strategies that have helped me personally. I don't know if they'll help everyone, but I will chunk things. If I have a big project, I try to chunk it and say this is my cutting off point for this. Sometimes the timers help, but sometimes I want to reach a point. If I've written three pages of something or I've edited X amount of something, then that is like my point where I can go. So that may be a transition point for me.
Melissa:I also like to utilize what I call progress notes. So I'll leave like a sticky note wherever I was working. If it was at my computer, I'll stick it right on my computer monitor and I will write what my exact thoughts were as I was finishing, what exactly I was working, will write what my exact thoughts were as I was finishing, what exactly I was working on, what my thoughts were for, what I'd like to work on next, Because it does help me when I go back. Help with that transition piece.
Brianna:Yeah, I really like that. Actually, it's like a trigger to like help you get started again, because I think that's my other big problem with yes, I am a human. Yes, I have needs I need to eat, I need to sleep, I need to drink water, I need to pee. I accept that about myself. There's two pieces here. There's that I was told I was robotic as a child, and so my defense mechanism was to fully embrace that and make that a part of my identity.
Brianna:The reason I'm bad at communication is because I'm a robot and I don't need human weaknesses, so there's that I'd have to work through. But then there's also. The energy it takes to restart a task does not seem as worth it to me as finishing the task and then going through burnout, and I realized that these two things are not equal. But I struggle so much daily with restarting tasks that have been interrupted that it is one of my biggest pain points. It's one of the things I struggle with the most, and so I will do anything, including go into burnout, to avoid having to restart. So I love that hack of little progress notes of hey, this is how you restart. This is what you were thinking when you took that break to go eat something, to go pee.
Melissa:I realized I was never going to remember, and that's the reason why I don't want to walk away is because I'm afraid that I won't be able to get that thought back or that pace or that space in my head back to be able to complete what I'm doing. I also like to set myself up for success. Literally Wherever I'm setting up my computer to work, I will surround myself with bottles of water and snacks, just because I know I could have had the best intentions of getting up and making myself a meal, but that may not happen. So I set myself up for the things that I need, and it may look like a chaotic mess to anybody else, but it helps me and that's what matters.
Brianna:Absolutely. This is like a little mini coaching session for me, because I'm going through this burnout thing. I do have tips and tricks that I just chose not to employ. That internet TikTok, whatever it is where it's. I'm a beverage goblin. I need three drinks one for hydration, one for caffeination, one just for fun. When I saw that I'm a beverage goblin, I need three drinks one for hydration, one for caffeination, one just for fun. When I saw that, I was like that is every ADHDer's experience. Yeah, the thing that I do is I front load. So, yes, I love a girl dinner. I love a good snack plate, a charcuterie board, if you will.
Melissa:A bento box.
Brianna:Yes, pre-meal prepping, pre-prep stuff in the fridge where, if you have to get up, you don't have to spend time deciding or whatever so helpful. But what I like to do is make sure that I drink a glass of water before I start, make sure I eat a full meal before I start, even if I'm not really hungry, even if my ADHD meds are suppressing my appetite, whatever, even if I'm not full meal, make sure I have protein, make sure I have vegetables. Take care of like bodily functions, go pee, have a shower, walk the dog, get that exercise, get that movement in my body, and then I will be uninterrupted from like 2 or 3 pm until 9 pm. Right, is it healthy, healthier than what I was doing, not eating until 11 pm when my body was like feed me or die?
Brianna:So if I front load stuff, and then give myself permission to hyper focus on whatever it is until it's done.
Melissa:And sometimes, if I know I've been sitting for a while, if I do set a timer it's not to stop. But I will get up and still stay in front of my computer and I'll like, I'll move my legs around, my arms around, shake everything out to get my blood flowing, because it's not a full-on exercise. But you know what? It is better than sitting still in some pretzel-hunched position for hours.
Brianna:When I bought my standing desk. It was the biggest life-changer for me. I was honest with myself, so I spent an extra $50 to get the one. That's electronic, that moves up and down and I go up, I go down. It's so good for my brain too, because I go up, I go down, I go up, I go down and it's like my little fidgeting, but it's exercise.
Melissa:It's almost like changing locations too.
Brianna:It's so good and that novelty creates interest again.
Melissa:Yeah, You're talking about preloading. Yeah, its interest again. Yeah, you're talking about preloading. Yeah, oftentimes I will try to also do a workout before I start eating, before I start as well, because guess what? Your brain requires calories to function at its most optimum levels. So, getting good food on board, getting exercise on board, that helps me regulate my ADHD symptoms, that actually even helps my focus. So, preloading all these things, preparing ourselves, setting ourselves up for success Sometimes that may take me a little while, but I'd rather take the time ahead of time than just feel awful afterwards.
Brianna:Exactly, I also do social things before to meet social expectations, I'll go say good morning to whoever I'm with at the time, or I'll reply to text messages, or reply to emails or whatever Anything that's going to require me to break focus, but also meet those social needs that I have, meet the social needs and expectations and relationship markers of whatever relationships I'm in. So then I won't be interrupted later.
Melissa:And I have a scheduled time every single day. The dog eats at six o'clock and then we go on a walk. That is a hard and fast rule. So, regardless of what I'm doing, I will write myself a progress note and I will go on that walk because I actually know time and time again, I get benefit from that every single day. I get social interaction, I get to get out and breathe fresh air, I can move my body and maybe it's a time for me to eat dinner too.
Brianna:Dogs are very helpful triggers to remind me to eat also.
Melissa:They will tell you when you're not doing the right thing. They're like we don't have thumbs. We're hungry.
Brianna:I know someone who trained their cat because they gave them a treat every time they took their meds. So they trained their cat to bother them when they needed to take their meds. Isn't that so smart?
Melissa:That's great. Oh, meds, that's the other thing. If you decide that you want to sit down and have just a period of hyperfocus, if you have medications and your time for dosing is coming up, set yourself up for success and put it next to your zone where you've got your snacks and your water.
Brianna:It can help with burnout, though If you're not focused on your task, you can't be hyper-focusing, so maybe forgetting to take your meds is good it actually helps regulate and maybe it will remind me that I need to get up and move my body a little bit.
Melissa:Or yes, yeah.
Brianna:Taking your medication is actually an important part of the regulation piece. That would prevent burnout. Yes, it allows you to choose what you're focusing on, but you may choose to focus on self-care or taking a break or whatever it is, and not get stuck in that hyperfocus that could happen if you're unmedicated, if you're choosing to be on medication. We're not advocating for Specifically, but if it works for you.
Melissa:If it works for you, we fully support it and I am going to be in full support of you. May want to cover your ears, brianna, but sometimes we need to take a day off. Sometimes we need to take a day off. Taking a day off means taking a day off of whatever you need, whether it's taking a day off of work or just. I have a tendency to. Even on weekends I want to work all weekend long, but maybe going to a movie or just sitting down and breathing for a few minutes, going for a walk with your dogs these things are really good for your physical health, your mental well-being, and sometimes I treat those times. I'm like, oh, if I can breathe a little bit, maybe I can remember to make a healthy meal.
Brianna:And you keep bringing up stuff. That just is so triggering to me because I know that I should and I wasn't doing it and now I'm here. But yeah, that balance piece of actually having a weekend and taking the weekend or taking a day off and not doing work, having that flex time, that flow time, that even what is it the kids are calling it these days bed rotting you just don't have to use your executive functioning or even have a little bit of fun, go outside, whatever, but even if that's like too much, you just need a day to like decompress inside and not talk to anyone if that's what you need, dude, I love a good day where I just stay in my pajamas all day and I like watch reruns of stuff yeah, it's so healing to just not be always doing, always responsible for whatever it is, and just having that time off.
Melissa:And yeah, I'm guilty of not doing that my biggest problem is I always think that I have enough time for all the things. No one with a PhD has enough time. I'm like I have time for half of the things that I have on my plate. I delude myself over and over again. I will never understand how much fits in a day. I will try. There is no way in knowing.
Brianna:There is no way in knowing. The neurotypicals are insane for believing that they could possibly know that. There is no way that we could possibly predict how long tasks will take. How many tasks will fit in a day, yeah, no.
Melissa:So something I also wanted to bring up is that there are different levels of how extreme this burnout can be, and sometimes this burnout can be very extreme, where we can get very physically sick. Our mental health can be unwell. I've been there, and the reason why I feel like I've been trying to solve this problem for at least like 20 years is because it is something I have to revisit over and over again. I'm like I'll never learn my lesson. I don't know if it's a lesson to learn. I think it's more of a just figuring out how to take care of myself best and not feel bad about who I am or how I function.
Melissa:But if it does get extreme, if you're losing interest in things, if you're noticing signs of depression, if you notice you're becoming very physically ill, if you're not sleeping well, there is a time and place where you may need more intervention than internet hacks things that we may suggest for you to do. Brianna, you are a professional here. Do you want to take this up and talk about what someone should do if they get in a position where they feel like they may need help beyond themselves?
Brianna:I would love to.
Brianna:At the top of the show I was talking about clinical versus subclinical burnout.
Brianna:So if you were at this extreme level of burnout, you can actually go to a psychologist and receive a diagnosis which may grant you temporary leave from work, disability access.
Brianna:They may be able to guide you towards resources for hospitalization, even if that's what you require to force yourself to take a break to deal with some of these physical symptoms, some of these mental and emotional symptoms that can be quite dangerous. Yeah, if you're in subclinical burnout with the brain fog, the fatigue, loss of motivation, there are ways that you can recover from that through mindfulness, through meditation, through therapy, through taking that break, through practicing self-care. And there's a way of self-healing. If you were at a clinical level of burnout, one of my friends recently went through a clinical level of burnout and had to take time off work and was able to do so as a result of going through a psychologist, going to a psychiatrist for the medication that they needed and their workplace was actually really great in working with them at a slow return and giving them just a little bit of work to ease them back in, which is not the case with every job.
Brianna:And I know that there are some people who can't take the time off work. So that's why I'm suggesting to go see a psychologist and get that disability benefit, because it does qualify as a disability, because it is disabling, and if you get physically sick as well, that also.
Melissa:Yeah, make sure you visit your doctor and let them help you identify what exactly is happening. You may need both an actual medical doctor and a psychiatrist to help you get yourself started going in the right direction.
Brianna:Absolutely. I know it's hard to recognize the signs. If you have ADHD, recognizing the signs is quite difficult, but once you're there it's hard to miss. So if you know that you need help, obviously it's exhausting. You can barely get out of bed, right, but have someone make a call for you. Get yourself to the doctor if you can. There's telehealth these days. There's online therapies that can help, but you need to reach out. You need to get some help. You can't just fight through on your own with this one. You need the support to get out of it.
Melissa:I think it is very noticeable when you reach that clinical point. If you're getting sick and you're not getting better, if you can't get out of bed or you can't leave the house or you're just so tired you're not functioning at all. Those are the really big signs that it's time to reach out for help and, even if you don't know if you can do it yourself, reach out to loved ones ask for help.
Brianna:Yeah, absolutely. If you get to that clinical stage of burnout, it can have long lasting, sometimes permanent effects. So you really don't want to let yourself get here.
Melissa:I feel like part of the reason I am an ADHD coach is because I've been seeking out answers on how to not just embrace my ADHD, but also how to figure myself out in these moments and how to make my life healthier. I feel like I'm seeking and I'm sure we all are, even though we're experts.
Brianna:We still struggle. We've experienced this and want to help other people not experience this or recover from experiencing this right. One further piece that I really want to highlight is, like the social support, because part of the burnout experience is social withdrawal, where you just don't have the energy to talk to people and also there's this like stigma and lowered self-esteem issue that comes with it as well of I used to be able to do so much.
Brianna:I was doing so great. Now something's going wrong. I don't know what's going, so you feel bad about yourself, you don't want to talk to people, you don't want to show other people your weakness because in the past it's been used against you. This is one of those things that you really need to reach out.
Melissa:Yeah.
Brianna:You really need to overcome, if all of the things the extreme fatigue, the brain fog, the physical symptoms, all of those things if the one symptom you can overcome is social withdrawal and ask someone for help, that is the piece you need to direct your energy to work.
Melissa:This was a very revealing episode. We've been talking about what exactly ADHD burnout is, what symptoms to look for so you're aware of what you may be experiencing, maybe how to mitigate and prevent some of it and set yourself up for success. And if you notice signs of extreme burnout, that clinical burnout, when you need to reach out to loved ones, to medical professionals, to help you get you through that.
Brianna:And if you are gaslighting yourself and you don't believe that you're that bad, there are free online. You can go Google burnout assessment. It's a self-report quiz and maybe the numbers would be revealing for you, because it does have a level of severity and it does have the steps of what to do If you're like severe. You've answered nine out of 10 of these questions. Go see a doctor. Tools like that can help.
Melissa:Also reach out to online communities, because they can be really helpful. I don't want to say they should be your assessors, but a lot of us have experienced this point of burnout. Even if we're just looking for support or not feeling alone, online communities are a really great place to turn to to get that support that you may need.
Brianna:Community is really helpful when you're recovering and then not feeling alone piece when you're in the burnout. I will say that I didn't have the energy to reach out to community support groups. I reached out to my one person, but yeah afterwards.
Melissa:They're super helpful, even that one person can help point you in the right direction.
Brianna:Yeah, yeah, before and after, during, spend all of your energy reaching out to that one person who can advocate for you on your behalf. I'm really pushing this point because it is so important to have a support system, just one person in your life that can help you.
Melissa:Awesome. I think that sums up everything. This is a really emotionally heavy topic for me to talk about, brianna. Anything else you want to say, burnout sucks, burnout sucks. Yeah, it does.
Brianna:Zero out of 10. Would not recommend, would not go again. I am going to be writing down my triggers and never letting myself get here again.
Melissa:I've been working on this solution for 20 years and I still don't know if I know what all my triggers are, and I think I need to pay better attention. Anyway, thank you for joining us and we wish you well, and thanks for listening.
Brianna:Tune in for links to our social media and websites.
Melissa:Whether you're seeking practical tips, heartfelt stories or just a sense of community, hypercast is here for you, remember you're not alone in your ADHD journey.
Brianna:Together, we can navigate the highs and lows with courage and compassion.
Melissa:So until next time, take care, stay curious and keep embracing your unique nerdiversity.
Brianna:Catch you on the next episode of Hypercast.
