Upside Down for a while

Notes from New Zealand

If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed I’m a little quieter than usual and that’s because I’m on the other side of the world, upside down, in New Zealand.

I’m here for a month visiting my Mum (who has lived here for the past 12 years) and I’m using this time as my own little reset & writing retreat.

Since my ADHD diagnosis back in October 2022 and discovering I’m autistic (not to mention the pandemic) my mental and physical health has been all over the place. Quite honestly, I’ve been very burnt out.

Being the type of person I am (because of my AuDHD) I am a research master. I love learning about a new topic, the ins and outs of it and collecting this new wisdom like a magpie with shiny objects. I love dredging up articles, listening to podcasts and reading about the lived experience of others. I love talking about what I’ve learnt day and night to anyone who will listen (hello Special Interest). So needless to say, the past few years since realising I am neurodivergent have been jam packed with knowledge seeking and burying myself in facts, figures and anecdotes.

I love this about my brain AND it’s exhausting.

Always needing to know more drains me mentally, physically and emotionally. I only realised this recently. This constant onslaught of external input paired with the fact that autistic brains generate 42% more information at rest (compared to a neurotypical brain) left me completely overloaded and frazzled everyday.

I read a book earlier this year about chronic fatigue and the author spoke about ‘energy leaks’. I found the concept of this really fascinating and began to assess where in my life I had these ‘energy leaks’.

My main leaks were:

• Social media

• Constant researching & learning

• Constant sensory input (music, information, words, news etc.)

None of these things are inherently bad, however, the way I was interacting with them (obsessively) was unhealthy and unwittingly wiping my energy. As well as completely absorbing myself into these things everyday (sometimes for hours on end with no breaks), I also neglected active rest.

What is active rest?