This might sound counter-intuitive but - tell your therapist exactly this.

That you don’t feel heard (ideally, why that is), how you feel about her stance on medication, that you’re tired of therapy and don’t know how to benefit of it right now (maybe coupled with what beneficial would look like to you) and whatever else is in your head in regards to this session.

This may seem confrontational, but it really isn’t (or doesn’t have to be). It is providing crucial information to a professional about where your head is at in regards to the therapeutic process the both of you (ostensibly) want to start together. It will help her understand where you’re coming from and maybe her reaction will help you get a better feel for if you are indeed a good fit, or not.

I wish you good luck!

Hey, I’ve read your words, and I feel for you.

It seems like you’re caught in an impossible situation - having to work to keep insurance, and not being able to reduce workload without jeopardizing that, worsening the burnout either way. I’m sorry it’s so hard right now.

I would share my own burnout and recovery experience with you to maybe help, but the “getting better” I was able to achieve so far is entirely due to a looong paid medical leave (about 1 year), a 6-week low-intensity in-patient program and the space for transformation that gave me, and I don’t think I could’ve done it this way while continuing to work or support a family. I don’t say that to put salt in your wound, I just want to express that getting better is basically like getting another job - it requires ressources and time and energy. If you absolutely cannot take a break, then please be gentle with yourself if it takes you a lot longer than this to get better. Also, for full disclosure, while I’m now back to normal, my “normal” actually entails being chronically low-level depressed and not being able to consistently function in many ways considered normal for an adult (hence my being on this sub), so it would feel a bit phony to pretend to have the answer.

However, I have one recommendation that might be helpful. I’m not sure if you have the capacity for it, but I really benefitted from the book “Burnout” by Emily and Amelia Nagoski ([https://www.burnoutbook.net/](their website)). It’s not a cure-all and not ADHD-specific, but it is a great guide to explain how stress works and how to really cope with it, especially on a physical level. It’s great for perspective and concrete exercises, and a pretty good read.

I sincerely wish you some peace and room to breathe, somehow!

I have received the result of my ADHD diagnostics, and did not receive the diagnosis for various reasons. Those reasons are valid when viewed through the lense of a diagnostician and I understand why the decision is being made that way. But I still do have many of the symptoms and problems in every day life, which fit the bill (also according to the diagnostics, but that’s not enough), and the alternative explanation they offered is basically ineffable due to lack of research, and in practice this just means that I will not have access to med treatment, even though they might still be helpful. In truth, I think I’m mostly disappointed that I cannot benefit from the well-established treatment protocol for ADHD, and don’t know how hopeful I can now be to get a handle on my life at any point in the future.

I don’t stand alone in this, my therapist is still going to give me a cognitive-behavioural training designed to help with executive function deficits. And I have already learned, that I’m allowed to stay 'round here even without the label. :)

But together with some other stressful stuff happening, I’m not doing so well, I think.

Yes, she is! I personally am just so glad I could help at all and not have her watch go through that ordeal by herself… and to have managed to make a significant difference for her, she says. That doesn’t always happen when trying to help and support, and I am so happy that this time, it did :)

I feel fantastic right now - in the last week, I have hyper focussed for several days to help a dear friend prepare for a court date (the kind of task that has “important/interesting to me” and “urgent” written all over it), and due to our preparation, it went really well for her. And I am happy, relieved and quite proud of us - while also feeling completely trashed from overtaxing my physical ressources in the process.

Absolutely worth it, though. I will, however, now take a break of several days.

I wanted to let you know that your story resonated deeply with me. We had a similar family dynamic in parts (esp. the teaming up by apparent neurotypes), only nobody is officially diagnosed (I’m still waiting for results), which made it even harder to make sense of for a long time. So I feel for you!

During my university years especially, I also struggled heavily with keeping up with household stuff, which made me quite the unpopular flat mate… it’s a huge source of shame for me, and still affects me to this day (though I’d like to believe I’ve gotten better).

Thank you for sharing, even if it is uncomfortable, it made me feel less alone with these experiences - so please don’t feel like you have to apologize :)

Anyone else? Yes.

(Thanks for the reminder! :D)

This week as well as last week, I am still waiting for my diagnostic report to tell me if I have ADHD or not - the sessions were in September. The wait time has been announced, but I am still impatient, which is kinda fitting, I guess… While it is clear to me, my therapist and the diagnostician that I likely have some kind of neurodivergence, it’s not quite clear if ADHD is the ticket. Which also makes sense - if it was super-obvious, somebody would have noticed before my thirties, I hope. I guess I’ll know soon enough.

Either way, I still find the ADHD communities such as this one very, very relatable, so if it’s alright, I’ll just stay on even if I didn’t meet the diagnostic criteria. :)

I don’t want to scare you, but seriously, do NOT just try to push through the burnout by yourself “until life lets up” and leave it at that - I tried that, and all that happened was a break-down, and afterwards not being able to work, period, for several months. My life back then was not sustainable for my body, and it told me through burnout as a last measure to get me to stop living like that.

In recovery, I’ve also met people who went farther than me (often medication-assisted) and did themselves literal organ damage - one lady had a nearly complete shut-down of the adrenal glands, another had a series of mini-strokes due to elevated blood pressure… it gets bad.

You say there are only two weeks to go, and I wish you the best to get there in one piece. Do try exercising, avoiding screens for two hours before bed, listen to an audiobook to fall asleep, try lavender tea or something, use all the tips.

But please know that afterwards it will not necessarily be over, the exhaustion may stay or come back easily, and you really, really need to reach out to a professional, your GP or psychiatrist and look into treatment options, not just coping options.

Wish you all the best!

I think it’s not half as interesting as you think it might be…

I had a huge trash bag in my home office from a long ago deep clean of my flat, filled with all kinds of stuff. It was there so long it was basically furniture.

The sticking point was that because of local laws, I had to sort out the recyclable trash and dump it in the special dumpsters before getting rid of the rest. (Also, I knew that before gathering the trash all together like this, but it seemed easier at the time…)

Last week, due to external pressures, I finally managed to lug the bag to the dumpsters and do it. It only took 15 minutes, but it sucked exactly as much as I thought it would - just putting my arms in there searching for paper and recyclable plastics, not even knowing what was in there anymore… thankfully it didn’t smell, but when I accidentally grabbed a very old, unsuffiently packaged positive covid home testing kit, I called it a day, dumped the rest (neighbours be damned) and went home to scrub my hands clean…

0/10, would procrastinate again. :D

This happens to me with surprising regularity… HOWEVER - I recently managed to do a chore after 9 months of procrastination, and while it did only take 15 minutes, those minutes sucked so bad that, for a change, I felt really justified in putting it off as long as I did. So it can go either way, I guess!