🌿 Before the Burnout: Learning to Catch It Sooner 🌿

Jul 30, 2025
3 min read

There’s a certain kind of burnout that feels different. Not just “tired” or “a bit stressed.” I’m talking about that heavy, full-body, soul-weary kind of burnout that many neurodivergent people will know all too well. The kind that sneaks in slowly, until suddenly, you can’t do basic things and everything feels like too much.

It took me a long time to realise that this wasn’t just how life had to be. That the cycle of pushing and crashing wasn’t “normal.” That I was burning out, over and over again.

And the truth is, I still catch myself on the edge sometimes.

But I’ve also started noticing the signs a little earlier. I’m learning to listen, to my brain, my body, my sensory world, and make small shifts before everything tips over. I’m sharing some of what helps me here, in case it helps someone else who’s walking this path too.

🌱 1. Noticing the little signs

It rarely starts with a breakdown. For me, it’s tiny things:

Suddenly everything feels loud
I forget what I walked into a room for
I feel irritated by tasks that were fine last week
Messages pile up and I just... avoid them
I start feeling disconnected from myself, like I’m watching life instead of living it

These are my early signs now. I try to pay attention to them like little breadcrumbs. They’re not dramatic, but they matter.

🍃 2. Giving myself space to stop trying so hard

When you’re neurodivergent, there’s often this quiet pressure to keep up, with work, social expectations, house stuff, parenting, masking, being “OK.” It’s exhausting.

I’ve started asking myself more often,“What’s actually necessary today?”If the answer is “very little,” that’s OK. Productivity doesn’t equal worth. Sometimes surviving is the achievement.

🌼 3. Building in quiet, even when I feel ‘fine’

This has been a big one. I used to only rest when I was already burnt out, and by then, it was too late. Now, I try to give myself moments of pause every day, even if I think I don’t need them. Just ten minutes of nothing. Closing my eyes. Turning down the volume of the world. No phone. No expectation.

It’s not about luxury, it’s about maintenance.

🌾 4. Taking off the mask, when I safely can

If you know, you know. Masking is part of life for many of us, a way to move through the world without friction. But it’s exhausting.I’m learning that unmasking in safe spaces, even just at home or alone, is powerful. Letting myself stim, move, flap, zone out, not make eye contact, not be “on,” it’s like breathing out after holding it in all day.

I try to make room for those moments now. I protect them fiercely.

🌙 5. Reminding myself I don’t owe everything to everyone

This is still hard. Especially when you care deeply about others and want to show up. But I’ve come to realise that sometimes, choosing myself means I can show up better, later, and for longer.

So I cancel plans. I say no. I stop explaining. And I remind myself, gently, Burnout doesn’t make me broken.It just means I’ve been doing too much, for too long, in a world that asks a lot from brains like mine.

If any of this sounds familiar, maybe you’re close to that edge too. Maybe you're already there.

So here’s your permission slip, from one neurodivergent soul to another:

✨ You don’t have to hit the wall before you rest.

✨ You don’t need a crisis to justify care.

✨ You’re allowed to pause, right now.

Take what you need. Leave what doesn’t fit. And if today just means getting through... that’s enough.

🌿 With warmth, from the bramble path.

Comments

Why it can be hard to open up in counselling

I’ve been having counselling for a few months now and it’s only recently that I feel like I’ve started to scratch beneath the surface. When I first started, I thought once I was there I’d just talk. I assumed the hard part would be making the appointment and showing up. After that, I imagined everything I’d been carrying around would somehow just come out. It didn’t work like that. I talked, obviously. I can talk for England when I need to. I can explain things really well. Analyse them. Pick them apart from every possible angle. For a long time I came away from sessions thinking they’d been useful because I’d said a lot.

But saying a lot and actually opening up aren’t the same thing. Since late last year there’s been a lot going on around my daughter. Not between us, but things she’s been dealing with that needed support and that naturally took up a huge amount of emotional energy and headspace. A lot of my counselling sessions became about that. Processing what was happening, trying to make sense of it, working through the worry that comes with supporting someone you love when they’re struggling. And that was exactly what I needed at the time.

Then somewhere amongst all of that I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, which was another thing to get my head around.I think when life is throwing enough immediate stuff at you, counselling becomes about surviving what’s right in front of you. You deal with the loudest thing first.That’s what I was doing. What I didn’t realise was that while I was talking about very real and difficult things, I was still staying in the safer places emotionally.I was talking about what was happening rather than what any of it was really stirring up underneath.

Only recently, now things have started to settle a bit, have I noticed myself touching on things that feel less rehearsed. Things I haven’t already thought through and packaged neatly before saying them out loud. It’s an odd feeling because I genuinely thought I was being open before. I think I had this idea that opening up was a choice. That if you wanted counselling to work, you just had to decide to be honest and get on with it.I don’t think that’s true anymore.I think sometimes your brain takes its own sweet time deciding it’s safe. Trust builds gradually, often without you noticing.

For me, I think part of that has been the relationship with my counsellor developing over time. And oddly, finding out she also lives with a similar chronic condition shifted something as well. Not because our experiences are the same, or because it suddenly made everything easier to say, but because there was something reassuring in knowing she understands what it’s like when your own body starts becoming something you have to factor into everything.There’s less explaining needed. I’m only really realising now that those months of what felt like surface conversation weren’t wasted. I used to think I was somehow doing counselling wrong because I wasn’t diving straight into the deep stuff.

Now I think those sessions were probably the reason I can start going there now. Sometimes it takes months of just turning up and talking before the real things begin to surface.I suspect that’s far more normal than people admit.

Until next time, take care.

Helen.