# Preface Date: April 4, 2026 This is the first part of this blogging experiment that I am late. And I'm doing this for myself, so there's really no reason to beat myself up over it. Because that would be incredibly easy to do. And why am I at least two (probably 3) weeks late? Well, burnout of course. # Part 1: Burnout It was the week before Spring Break, and I found myself having a nervous breakdown. It was over a topic I had chosen for an essay. I'm still getting used to essays, and they are difficult. The topic? I had to pick an event, and then find two articles that have different viewpoints and discuss that. I had picked a very difficult event and just couldn't do that. And I shut down. I didn't realize why that happened, though. It was about a week later that a friend of mine suggested that this could be Autistic Burnout. There seems to be a [bit of research on it](https://www.simplypsychology.org/autistic-burnout.html), but there isn't all that much on it quite yet. My aim has been to really pay attention to what could be causing it. Though I'm not diagnosed as autistic, so I need to keep a lot of this with a grain of salt. That being said: what am I doing about this? # Part 2: Rest & Recuperation I am doing the following things, which I will expand upon below: taking my time on everything, small individual games, turning down social interactions to level out energy, and exercise. Taking my time. There's rest, yes, but I'm still teaching my brain and body about all the different kinds of rest that I need. I don't always remember them. However, if I wake up and I'm still exhausted, I'll remind myself that maybe I need to figure out what other kind of rest I've accidentally neglected. Small, individual games. I've picked up Sudoku, chess, and Joker Solitaire. And I have fun with them, yes, but the main point has been to slow down and clear my mind. Am I getting frustrated with a paper? Solitaire. Am I stuck on Project Castro again? Let's do an easy Sudoku puzzle. I'm taking a similar approach to comfort foods. I'll gravitate towards one type of game for a while. I don't focus on winning or losing. Just keeping my mind occupied. Turn things down. I often come across as a bit of an extrovert. But honestly, I have ambivert tendencies. And I tend to get a bit of energy from certain friends. They rejuvenate me. But lately I've started realizing how much energy I'd devoted to social things. And how much energy that was taking from me. Plus, I've been getting grumpy at certain things, only to wonder why it bothered me to that degree later on. I need more down time. And to keep myself better occupied. There's always a homework assignment I can work towards; an essay I can edit, or a quiz I can study for. Exercise. I've been trying to find a way to lose weight and get exercise that doesn't feel like it's killing me. This may sound like hyperbole, but I have rhinitis and my lungs do not recover whenever I exercise. This isn't something I can "push through" as the dude-bros have told me in the past. That method is to get an e-bike. I wanted to wait until I got accepted into a German grad school, but I think now is as good a time as any. # Conclusion There is one other reason I intend on getting an e-bike. To avoid these political canvasers that have swarmed the Bay Area. They use all kinds of tactics and are an invasion of privacy. Once you bring your address into the mix, that's when you breach privacy to me. I don't know who hires these folks, but they are everywhere on my community college campus and on BART. I will be in contact with two of them a day sometimes. Which may not sound like a lot. But certain kinds of repetition make me go mad. And getting bombarded with "are you a registered voter" several times a day means what they say start echoing in my head. I'm tired. And depressed. And I'm just trying to change things around to be better. And I think the things I listed above will help. For anyone interested in my March numbers, I rounded out at **6,310**. Which so far is the lowest number this year. It amazes me that I can still write this many words even when going through a Tough Time™️. I'm still in recovery, and the only big project I hope to focus on right now is Project Castro. So we'll see what I can create in April. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week!