Finally Got A Photo Of Rani's (left) Current Outfit Progress Together With Her Custom Made Wig And Horns

I think that bluesky is a bust for me...I guess that I will try to finally figure out Tumblr lol.

drdevonprice.substack.com

You Might Not Recover from Burnout. Ever.

What grows from the ashes of your old life?

The data does not support the assumption that all burned out people can “recover.” And when we fully appreciate what burnout signals in the body, and where it comes from on a social, economic, and psychological level, it should become clear to us that there’s nothing beneficial in returning to an unsustainable status quo. 

The term “burned out” is sometimes used to simply mean “stressed” or “tired,” and many organizations benefit from framing the condition in such light terms. Short-term, casual burnout (like you might get after one particularly stressful work deadline, or following final exams) has a positive prognosis: within three months of enjoying a reduced workload and increased time for rest and leisure, 80% of mildly burned-out workers are able to make a full return to their jobs. 

But there’s a lot of unanswered questions lurking behind this happy statistic. For instance, how many workers in this economy actually have the ability to take three months off work to focus on burnout recovery? What happens if a mildly burnt-out person does not get that rest, and has to keep toiling away as more deadlines pile up? And what is the point of returning to work if the job is going to remain as grueling and uncontrollable as it was when it first burned the worker out? 

Burnout that is not treated swiftly can become far more severe. Clinical psychologist and burnout expert Arno van Dam writes that when left unattended (or forcibly pushed through), mild burnout can metastasize into clinical burnout, which the International Classification of Diseases defines as feelings of energy depletion, increased mental distance, and a reduced sense of personal agency. Clinically burned-out people are not only tired, they also feel detached from other people and no longer in control of their lives, in other words.

Unfortunately, clinical burnout has quite a dismal trajectory. Multiple studies by van Dam and others have found that clinical burnout sufferers may require a year or more of rest following treatment before they can feel better, and that some of burnout’s lingering effects don’t go away easily, if at all. 

In one study conducted by Anita Eskildsen, for example, burnout sufferers continued to show memory and processing speed declines one year after burnout. Their cognitive processing skills improved slightly since seeking treatment, but the experience of having been burnt out had still left them operating significantly below their non-burned-out peers or their prior self, with no signs of bouncing back. 

It took two years for subjects in one of van Dam’s studies to return to “normal” levels of involvement and competence at work. following an incident of clinical burnout. However, even after a multi-year recovery period they still performed worse than the non-burned-out control group on a cognitive task designed to test their planning and preparation abilities. Though they no longer qualified as clinically burned out, former burnout sufferers still reported greater exhaustion, fatigue, depression, and distress than controls.

In his review of the scientific literature, van Dam reports that anywhere from 25% to 50% of clinical burnout sufferers do not make a full recovery even four years after their illness. Studies generally find that burnout sufferers make most of their mental and physical health gains in the first year after treatment, but continue to underperform on neuropsychological tests for many years afterward, compared to control subjects who were never burned out. 

People who have experienced burnout report worse memories, slower reaction times, less attentiveness, lower motivation, greater exhaustion, reduced work capability, and more negative health symptoms, long after their period of overwork has stopped. It’s as if burnout sufferers have fallen off their previous life trajectory, and cannot ever climb fully back up. 

And that’s just among the people who receive some kind of treatment for their burnout and have the opportunity to rest. I found one study that followed burned-out teachers for seven years and reported over 14% of them remained highly burnt-out the entire time. These teachers continued feeling depersonalized, emotionally drained, ineffective, dizzy, sick to their stomachs, and desperate to leave their jobs for the better part of a decade. But they kept working in spite of it (or more likely, from a lack of other options), lowering their odds of ever healing all the while. 

Van Dam observes that clinical burnout patients tend to suffer from an excess of perseverance, rather than the opposite: “Patients with clinical burnout…report that they ignored stress symptoms for several years,” he writes. “Living a stressful life was a normal condition for them. Some were not even aware of the stressfulness of their lives, until they collapsed.”

Instead of seeking help for workplace problems or reducing their workload, as most people do, clinical burnout sufferers typically push themselves through unpleasant circumstances and avoid asking for help. They’re also less likely to give up when placed under frustrating circumstances, instead throttling the gas in hopes that their problems can be fixed with extra effort. They become hyperactive, unable to rest or enjoy holidays, their bodies wired to treat work as the solution to every problem. It is only after living at this unrelenting pace for years that they tumble into severe burnout. 

Among both masked Autistics and overworked employees, the people most likely to reach catastrophic, body-breaking levels of burnout are the people most primed to ignore their own physical boundaries for as long as possible. Clinical burnout sufferers work far past the point that virtually anyone else would ask for help, take a break, or stop caring about their work.

And when viewed from this perspective, we can see burnout as the saving grace of the compulsive workaholic — and the path to liberation for the masked disabled person who has nearly killed themselves trying to pass as a diligent worker bee. 

I wrote about the latest data on burnout "recovery," and the similarities and differences between Autistic burnout and conventional clinical burnout. The full piece is free to read or have narrated to you in the Substack app at drdevonprice.substack.com

writing badly and cringily is actually an essential part of the writing process, both in terms of individual projects and in gaining voice and confidence as a writer in the long term. there is no way around the cringe. there's no way around the work.

It's very unproductive to sit around waiting for people to guess what you want from them just to then get upset when they don't guess it.

If you care a lot about your birthday being celebrated, let your friends know that it's happening a couple weeks in advance and make it clear that you would like to plan something fun with them.

If you want your friends to gush about your latest achievement, make sure to let them all know that you did this or that cool thing.

If someone's joke is hurting your feelings, you can and should go "hey, could you please not joke about my appearance? It's a bit hurtful and I'd rather you went at something else."

If you miss someone, don't be afraid to reach out and let them know you'd love to catch up with them when they have the time!

If you're upset about something, try to have a constructive conversation about it instead of holding a grudge in silence.

You will get so much further if you make a serious attempt to exchange hints and grudges with conversation and communication!

Posted with permission but Logan is sharing some of his wips for a plus size body he is working on for his dolls and I love it 💖 I have a very similar body type so it is nice to see it in a doll, too!

Just like his first doll body, Logan is working on a masculine version, as well — I know a lot of people out there have been wanting a plus sized boy body since there isn’t many out there, so that may be something to keep an eye out for!

I really love my dolls that are made by Logan and I’m excited to see where this project goes!

man I wish people understood how much it sucks ass to be neurodivergent and trying to find the middle ground where people like/tolerate you. like, I'm either "boring" (trying to wait my turn in conversations, holding space for other people, taking a back seat to let others get some spotlight) or "too much" (too loud/talking too much, getting excited to share, trying to participate in group conversations/activities). No one really talks about how much of being neurodivergent is just sort of trying to make yourself palatable.

I feel like so much of my life has been spent trying to find this effortless sort of middle ground everyone else seems to automatically already know, and I'm always swinging too far one way or the other. I'm lucky to have neurodivergent friends who grok me, but goddamn I wish that I could just like, exist without the constant background script in my brain that's like "you're being too loud. You're not talking enough. you're being self-centered. you're being boring. you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong." I feel like I'm back in high school trying to make friends but stuck as the eternal "weird kid"

it's just... lonely and sucks bad.

Muriel Kickstarter is a Go!

Losing my. Mind. But I hope it goes well.

The kits seem popular already so, if those sell out, I will add more!

I have some early bird specials on the kits so please take a look!

Kickstarter

Muriel: An Opossum Ball-Jointed Doll

A 3D printed opossum ball jointed doll with four color options, two face plates, and three sets of eyes--for all of your gremlin needs.

Mystic kids Gene (modded ears)

Happy new year everyone! May your 2025 be filled with love, success, and good friends!

1 Jan 2025 - 19:23

Ascendance