Fatigue and Neurodiversity

This blog is a response to a GREAT LinkedIn post by Kate Halpin on fatigue and neurodiversity.

I definitely related to everyone of the points made by Kate in the LinkedIn post regarding the many ways in which  neurodiverse traits can lead to a sense of constantly feeling exhausted. And it is the kind of exhaustion that  sleep won't fix. 

I have a couple of suggestions to add;

1.  There appears to be intersectionality between neurodivergence and depression/anxiety. Based on my experience, these conditions are extraordinarily exhausting. So, I would have included managing depression and anxiety as a bullet point leading to the sense of neurodiverse people feeling fatigued. 
2. Another suggestion is related to the challenges that autistic people can have in reading social cues. One of the reasons I worked 65-80 hours/week for 40-yrs was because of the social challenges that led to a myriad of social rejections (or what I perceived as rejections). Work made sense- working hard at work brought luck. Working to form relationships brought a lot of pain. Working 65-80 hours a week is exhausting (and also driven by some of the challenges with executive function like organization). I was fortunate, though, to find an extraordinary wife in my late 30s who continues to support me (and vice verse).

I am in my 60s now. I didn’t know I was on the autism spectrum until I was in my late 50s. For me, knowing that I was on the spectrum changed my life. It was exhausting feeling like I was metaphorically a messed up horse for 58 years. I felt set free upon discovering on assessment that I was actually a zebra.

The first 58 years of my life felt like paddling upstream in a raging current. Now I kind of just float through the waves.

A major strategy for how I now cope is accepting who I am and being comfortable in my skin. I am not shy to talk about being a person with autism and some of the traits I have. Fortunately, since I am late in my career, I have the freedom to just not deal with interactions that are exhausting, or worry that disclosing being on the autism spectrum could knock me off of a career trajectory.  I know that early- and mid- career academics may not feel this freedom.

I wish I had an answer to Kate's question about strategies for helping ease the exhaustion for neurodiverse people.. I don't.

In teaching at a university, the students I talk to, including neurodiverse students, mostly want to be seen and understood. I get notes and course evaluation comments from students who seem to feel that my candor about my own mental health challenges, and my autistic superpower of not knowing how to be anything but genuine, creates a safe space where they feel cared about academically and as people. And, I know that the flexibility I use in things like due dates is appreciated by students. I guess that is a strategy.

I try very hard (and I know I am not fully successful) to use the ideas that Columnist David Brooks wrote in an op-ed in the NY Times on May 26, 2022, "The fact is, moral behavior doesn’t start with having the right beliefs. Moral behavior starts with an act — the act of seeing the full humanity of other people. Moral behavior is not about having the right intellectual concepts in your head. It’s about seeing other people with the eyes of the heart, seeing them in their full experience, suffering with their full suffering, walking with them on their path. Morality starts with the quality of attention we cast upon another."

"Seeing the full humanity of other people.... and casting quality attention upon each other" seem like the best strategy for supporting anybody.

I am "pathologically genuine" and  an autistic empath who can't help but care about students as if they are members of my extended family. These are two of my superpowers associated with autism. But, they also are and were  two major sources of kryptonite, especially in my administrative career. ​