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Comment by richardjam73 | Hacker News Reader

I now wonder if I have had this but never knew because I didn't know I was Autistic. I had a job and was given a different position but I just stopped working after a while and was fired. Everything I tried to do afterwards just felt like a struggle.

I had assumed it was all just anxiety and depression but no treatment seemed to work.

Ten years later I get prescribed Ketamine for depression and things start to change. After reading some articles that talked about myths around autism I realised that I had been dismissing it as a possibility. Now that I have started talking about it with family, psychologist and psychiatrist it all starts to make sense.

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Describes me too, I am a diagnosed Autistic.

It was a reasonable amount of corporate work combined with way too many intense interests. I wanted to pursue them all alone despite having the work shared by community members being typical (OSS)

Its like the feeling of wanting to embrace burnout just because the things you pursue are that fulfilling and make you that much happier, and that was despite me knowing I would not find happiness as a corpo and deliberately working less hours whenever I could.

Now there is a constant film of tiredness, I sleep 10 hours a day and wake up exhausted, for a while I was worried I was doing permanent damage to my brain with how terrible my short-term memory was.

At least its reassuring the condition has a name, I always assumed autistic burnout was just the same as regular burnout, well I stand corrected.

I also tried ketamine but didn't react well to it so the doc didn't let me sign up for more sessions.

Can relate to that, I wondered a sec if I didn't write that comment myself. Didn't go the medication route, however.

I slept for 8h30/9h per night. A better routine (earlier wake up time, 8 hours of sleep max, some intense physical exercice - weight lifting in my case) put me back on track after about 7/8 months.

But I tend to go back to my bad habits by taking too much workload on my sole shoulders...

consider getting tested for sleep apnea too. If you already are, make sure your masks are sealing properly etc.

I had huge problems with chronic fatigue before I got treated and it helped for a bit and then I realized I didn't have the mask tight enough (trying not to damage the seals) and tightening them down helped again.

I used to be in that "I need 10-12 hours a night" camp and now I am pretty OK on 8-9. I dream every night now, I obviously wasn't hitting REM sleep before.

The other thing is exercise does help regulate it as well. Even if I am otherwise active, I need to do some cardio at least a couple times a week, just cleaning the house or working outside doesn't do it. Again perhaps something related to heavy breathing and lung capacity.

When I am not doing as well I find myself having to take a nap in the afternoon etc and while I don't mind that as a thing, it is a sign or even a contributing factor to an overall pattern of fatigue.

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