I’ve had depression most of my life, and bouts of suicidal ideation since my teens. These struggles are so normal to me that sometimes I forget that not everyone is randomly sapped of their will to live for weeks at a time.
The worst of my depression always comes after experiencing autistic burnout. Autistic burnout is the (often sudden) crash of one’s functioning capabilities after a prolonged period of performing at an allistic (non-autistic) level. Like everything ASD-related, what this looks like varies from autistic to autistic, in part because we all interact with – and thus are taxed by – the allistic world differently.
During and while recovering from burnout, I’m not managing my daily needs, which has a negative impact on my mental health. By the time I’m in a place where I can cobble my schedule back together, my depression has crept in. It’s a deeply debilitating cycle that can sometimes take months to get out of.
And that’s where I’m at right now.
I quit my last traditional job five years ago. In the decade leading up to the decision to stop working, I would work full time for a year-long burst before having an especially bad burn out and quitting without notice. I’d spend months laying on the couch, listless and suicidal, wondering why I didn’t just stop the cycle of uselessness by dying.
Other disabled folks will definitely feel me on this: the toll that working took on me outweighed the financial benefit. It’s expensive to be poor, and it’s expensive to be work outside your functioning capabilities – which I did, for years.
I’m lucky to have a partner who – despite struggling with mental illness themself – is both willing and capable of supporting our household.
For the past few years, I’ve struggled with it. The guilt is hard to deal with because – as someone who grew up poor – I’ve always associated worth with productivity. Contributing. I’ve picked up projects here and there to feel like I’m making something – even if it’s not money – and thus “earning” the right to not kill myself with a retail job. (Capitalism tells some pretty convincing lies.) Comics reviewing, YouTube, nothing stuck until I started my sex blog in January 2018.
Sex blogging is fun, but as I ranted on Twitter back in April, this is definitely work. And it’s uniquely taxing on me as an autistic. It requires me to be sexual, which means regularly combatting survivor trauma and gender dysphoria (who would make shitty additions to any superhero’s rogues gallery.) It requires me to be social and thus articulate and approachable, two things I fake well (via Red Hood levels of masking) but drain myself performing. It requires me to be analytical about deeply personal things and to commit those observations to paper in a concise (me, concise?) and relatable way.
Autistic burnout is basically inevitable.
Though I’ve been blogging for over a year, I still haven’t figured out how best to manage blogging around my burnout and subsequent depression. How can I balance my pacing capabilities with the demands of content creation, site upkeep, social media, and growing my affiliate relationships? What can I reasonably expect of myself, and of my platform as managed by someone who is autistic, mentally ill, and learning? It’s a tightrope walk I’m still feeling out as I go.
Recently, this tightrope has been coupled with one external family crisis after another, and personal struggles outside of my autism and mental health. In April, I felt myself slipping; in May, I crashed to the ground.
And now… I’m just kinda laying here.
With a sink literally overflowing with dildos that I had every intention of scrubbing, but don’t have the energy or desire to deal with.
It’s almost comical.
A lot of sex bloggers are mentally ill, so I know I’m not alone in this struggle. This industry attracts uniquely compassionate creatives who sought out and appreciate the often life-changing benefits that sex toys offer. Often, we write about these things because they were integral to transforming our sex lives and/or our relationships with our bodies, and we want to pass that joy on to others.
I don’t yet know how best to manage my day to day functioning as a blogger. I don’t know if I can avoid autistic burnout and I know I can’t avoid my depression. I imagine it will take a long time to master this juggling act, and my act might not be as flashy and competent as I want.
But I know that this is what I want to do. And that, like anyone else learning to juggle, I just have to keep picking up the things I drop. Eventually, I’ll drop them less.
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