‘are you brilliant or burning out?’ ‘yes.’ #neurodivergent #burnout #...

And done. Okay, cool. I have finished all of my tasks that my supervisor assumed a normal human would be able to get through for the day. I guess I will go ask for some more. Da-da-da-da-da-da, hold it right there. What? Why? Why do you think you usually get through so many more tasks in a week than everybody else? Because nobody else works as hard as me and everyone else is a slacker. Because I assign myself to my productivity and I'm used to putting others' needs before my own, so I see anybody with a work-life balance as somebody who's slacking off when they're probably just making the healthy choices that I wish I could make for myself. I don't know what's going to happen if you ask for more tasks. I'm going to establish expectations that I'm always going to be as productive as I am in my manning states, that when I get into my depressed state, I'm never going to be able to take a break and I'm always going to be on the edge of burnout and I'm not going to know what to do. And? And because I'm low-key afraid of my own mind when it's idle, so I try to exhaust myself so I won't have enough energy to hurt myself. Do you have anything else you can use this time for? Any way to spend this energy maybe more productively? Yeah, I have all these technical and creative pursuits that I've been putting on the back burner because I don't respect my own interests and cares enough to give my time to them in the same way that I do everybody else's. Do you think working on those might not only improve your skills, but also your ability to respect yourself and your creativity? Perhaps. So are we going to ask for more tasks? Nope. What are we going to do instead? Take a lunch break for the first time in six months. And? Work an eight-hour workday for the first time in a year and a half. And? Make some art when I get home. That's my baby. Good talk.