“Functional (Autistic) Burnout” during pregnancy... Thank you, Taylor Heaton.
I just discovered the phrase "Functional Burnout" in autism coach Taylor’s video that perfectly describes my lived experience as a late-diagnosed mom and business woman. Learning it sooner would have helped me during my own autistic burnout during pregnancy.
I wish I’d had this information 17 years ago while I was pregnant with my first daughter.
At 37, completely unaware of being AuDHD, I was so at home with chronic exhaustion that I didn’t register pregnancy as much different than my normal state of being.
I didn’t consider it was time to nurture my nervous system.
It didn’t occur to me (and no one suggested) the season had come to explore what I and my body needed in order to thrive. And that there would never be a better time than that one, before I was also caring for a newborn.
I just kept doing what I’d always done. I endured. Tolerated. Kept going.
It wasn’t a kindness to myself. When birth and parenthood were added on top of everything else I managed to handle, it tipped me into postpartum depression. Or maybe it was autistic burnout. But I had a new baby so really it was more of the same: functioning through burnout and continuing the cycle with my new family that I now recognize goes back generations.
A new season
So here I am, literally days from my beautiful, sensitive, and highly aware daughter's 17th birthday. Now we know that wee newborn, as well as her deeply caring and deeply burned-out mommy, were neurodivergent then, and are still learning to care for our AuDHD nervous systems today. I'm learning about neurodivergent burnout in real time...and I'm grateful. Because I finally have a framework from which to nurture myself and begin to recognize what my body and I require. Because I can begin to model for both my daughters something different than masking, pushing, tolerating, and functioning through despite the cost. I can honor their need for rest, respite, and a kinder, truer type of resilience. I'm also grateful because the clients I work with are often in the same place I was back then. Pregnant and used to powering through. Judging themselves based on their productiviy, and running to stay on top of it all. They may know they are neurodivergent, or they may just feel their sensitivity, their empathy and experience it as "too much". And I understand. I get it from the inside out. And I also know and am learning more every day, about how to guide them toward a gentler possibilty in which they and their baby's nervous system can, finally, rest.
If any of this resonates, maybe go watch Taylor's video. You'll learn a lot and be guided toward her great resources: https://youtu.be/8S9eVNMRY0A?si=m-5m85Yd9qHaj9Qn
You may also find, like me, you're nodding along. And if you’d like a different experience in pregnancy, and to gift your baby a lighter future, one of exuberance not exhaustion, you can schedule a no-pressure consult with me by clicking the button below.
Click now to schedule your Possibilities in Pregnancy Consult today:
