Life Interrupted: Part Two

Autistic Burnout and the Permission to Rest

In December, my life was interrupted when my mother unexpectedly had a stroke. Maybe all strokes are unexpected, but hers felt like the floor dropping out from under us. One day we were talking daily—sharing stories, coordinating kid pickups, planning Christmas—and the next I was rearranging my schedule so I could visit her or take care of the chores she suddenly couldn’t manage.

I’m profoundly grateful she’s alive. And I’m also profoundly sad. Watching someone you love struggle is its own kind of grief. Christmas wasn’t the same without her bustling energy. She had finished decorating her house—she always goes all-out—just before the stroke. Now those decorations are still up, months later, because she can’t take them down. Her husband is doing what he can, but there are tasks my mother would normally handle that simply… remain undone.

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The Desire to Help

Of course I want to help her. She’s my mother, and she has carried me through more seasons of my life than I can count. But wanting and managing are two different things.

I’m a neurodivergent mom raising three neurodivergent kids. My husband travels six to ten days days each month. We have medical appointments scattered across the week like confetti. I work more than half-time teaching, editing, and writing. I sit on the PTSA board at two different schools—during a year when everything feels on fire.

The result is predictable: I haven’t been able to help my mother as much as I’d hoped.

And the guilt of that—of not being the daughter I want to be—sits heavy.

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Is It Depression, Grief, or Burnout?

Lately, I’ve been struggling just to get through the day. Struggling with my dysregulated kids. Struggling with school refusal. Struggling to keep my head above the metaphorical water.

My appetite has vanished except for a handful of safe foods. Showering feels like a monumental task. Most days I’m not functioning—I’m surviving.

Maybe these symptoms point to the depression stage of grief. Maybe they point to general depression. But I also recognize the creeping numbness of autistic burnout. I’ve been here before.

Maybe this is the point where depression, grief, and burnout all collide and blur into each other.

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Permission to Rest

February brings mid-winter break for the kids’ schools, which means our yearly escape to Manson—a small town east of the mountains where we slow down, breathe, and do nothing particularly productive.

We swim. We ice skate. We play mini-golf. When there’s snow (not this year), I ski Mission Ridge. I also take time off from teaching—three full weeks this winter.

Some years I use this break to write, and I did sneak in some work on a future piece for Autism/AuDHD/ADHD Virtually’s March newsletter. But mostly, I’m letting myself rest. Truly rest. I’m hitting pause on obligations so I can be a human being again instead of a perpetual motion machine.

I know that everything waiting for me in Seattle will still be there when the week ends. The appointments. The to-dos. The school emails. The caregiving.

But for this one week, I’m focusing on my husband, my kids, and the quiet work of letting my nervous system exhale.

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If You’re Struggling Too

I know I’m not the only one carrying grief, neurodivergence, or burnout into this new year. If you’re reading this and feel cracked open by your own life, I want to offer something simple but radical:

You have permission to rest.

Permission to stop.
Permission to take a break.
Permission to put the world down for a moment and recharge your body and mind.

Life interrupts all of us. Sometimes the only way forward is to interrupt it back—with gentleness, with honesty, and with rest.