I went to bed at 10.30, slept like a log and woke up before my alarm. I did enjoy the slow morning but had to force myself to do the morning routine. I felt like half my brain was still asleep the whole day. It’s a very familiar feeling, like gravity is stronger and I’m super stupid. I make more mistakes and am confused and have a hard time communicating.
At one point I was talking with a friend online and was thinking, „Is there such a thing as half a shutdown?“ As in meltdown/shutdown. Like a meltdown is basically the same as an overtired overstimulated toddler in a grocery store going completely ballistic. A shutdown feels similar in that you don’t have control anymore but instead of flying off the handle you just – shut down. A switch gets flipped and you can’t talk, retreat into yourself and feel like frozen.
So I went researching. And the thing I was looking for was – autistic burnout. Duh.
I mean, getting enough sleep will definitely help but it won’t be enough to get me out of this. I guess I’ll think a bit more about this. I will also not take on more students before summer break.
I talked with my husband and did the dishes and was interrupted because my mother-in-law had the plumber over and this time he did have to turn the main water off. The summer tops that I had ordered arrived, I tried them on and none of them fit properly, so those will go back. I had two kinds, the one kind was way too thin and too small and looked like undershirts and the second kind had armholes that were too deep and a racerback that showed my bra straps and also looked like undershirts.
I guess I’ll make do with the two summer tops I have been wearing the past few years. One of them fits properly, the second one is too tight but works okay with a skirt.
I did bodyweight training and while I had been thinking about making the exercises harder I then realized that part of the reason why I had been feeling so heavy the past few days was that my muscles were still sore from my last workout. Taking painkillers is screwing with my sense of whether a workout was too hard or if I can push my foot strengthening a bit or should rest them again.
See, I was washing the dishes, walking through the kitchen barefoot so my foot muscles would build up and for the past few weeks I have been doing this until I feel on the edge of pain and then I wear my orthotics again. And only yesterday did it occur to me that pain is not a reliable indicator if you take painkillers. So I need to be more careful.
Anyways, my husband made fish, potatoes, peas and carrots after coming back home from his many errands:
That lovely burnt spot on the fish is the result of my husband leaving the kitchen and thinking I would be next to the stove to keep an eye on the frying pan while I was in the bathroom.
After dinner I did the dishes right away (yeah, me!), took a short break, taught all the students and proofread a short story that I want to use as a reader magnet in between. Then I played the piano a bit which made me very happy and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich that also made me very happy:
My energy at this point was basically non-existent so I watched some K-pop dance, started writing this post, did Duolingo, did the dishes again, watched some C-drama and went to bed.
Today will be errand and supermarket day. I really need to make a list. I need to take a shower and cut my toe nails before I see the technician for a new pair of orthotics, buy yogurt in one supermarket, ride my bike over to the other supermarket, get some photos printed, return the tops that don’t fit and do the weekly grocery shopping all in the space of – checks notes – two hours. Should be doable but will be hard.
And then collapse. But only after work, of course.
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