A Comprehensive Breakdown
Autism, Collapse, and Quiet Rebuilding
Over a year ago, I put a match to my 25-year creative career. I walked out without a word to those I’d been shoulder to shoulder with for over a decade. It wasn’t burnout in the usual sense: It wasn’t long hours or stress, it wasn’t a lack of support, substance abuse was out of the picture, it wasn’t even planned. It was a reckoning.
The psychological collapse defies description. It felt like madness. At the peak of my career, I just stopped with no prospects and no income. What followed was a total unravelling of identity. I began to question the very thing I’d spent a lifetime trying to build: myself.
In the aftermath, I convinced myself that hiding from public scrutiny was humility. I now see it was fear of judgment. And no one fears that more than the consummate self-examining hermit. But hiding my voice is serving no one. Insight may live in quiet withdrawal, but it shouldn’t become retreat. Someone, somewhere, might need to read this to find their own way through.
The Less Than Gracious Fall
I’d been climbing psychological rope ladders for as long as I can remember. But my search to understand others made me invisible to myself. As perfectionism sharpened into self-criticism, my analytical mind began to wear away my identity. Why does no one get it? I must be a terrible communicator. Why am I underappreciated? Surely they can see their own limitations? I got stuck in a loop of self-loathing and righteous indignation. The kind that festers when your sense of justice outweighs your resilience.
My withdrawal into the world of intellectually dense podcasts fuelled the moral fury within. I spent all day bombarding myself with concepts that made me feel more and more ignorant, and in turn, more frustrated by the ignorance of those around me. Why is everyone playing this self-congratulatory success game while ignoring their flaws?
I mistook pessimism for pragmatism. The petty injustices of office life began to fester. It wasn’t one seismic event, but a multitude of grazes that became a weeping wound.
When a director finally blew off some steam, the tally of confrontation, insomnia and resentment was enough to make the next few moves a lesson in humility for us both.
I walked out mid-afternoon. Dazed. Couldn’t speak. Paced around the house with what looked like catastrophic grief, pleading with a doctor to fit me in their schedule. My nervous system was short-circuiting.
What followed felt like the edge of a psychotic break I feared I might not come back from. That’s how heavy it was. That’s how completely I lost emotional regulation.
The Aimless Void
All questions. No answers. Nihilism set in with nostalgia for the times before, when youth was full of hope. I cried every day for a month. Living abroad, I tried to protect my family by delaying contact. From attempts to feign normality surged deep waves of despair. Friends were confused. Family was shocked.
I questioned everything. My partner. My home. My lifestyle. My past. Could I just erase myself and start again?
And underneath it all boiled the pressure: this isn’t normal. You can’t just stop working. Pull yourself together.
The Diagnosis
Therapy was simply an hour a week spent crying in front of someone, grateful for the chance to speak freely without offending anyone between snot bubbles.
What did start to rise to the surface was a way of thinking that diverged from the norm. Could it be that this lifelong sense of feeling out of place, and the effort to fit the standard model, was so exhausting that it was more than just introversion and conscientiousness?
And so began the tell-tale deep dive into the world of late-diagnosed adult autism. What better special interest. Me-search.
The Reframe
Reinterpreting your life through a new lens creates tension. We all get older and see our past with more clarity. But to discover you’ve completely misunderstood the story of your own life? That shakes your foundations.
Oddly, I don’t remember much of it. Turns out that’s a symptom: selective amnesia. My brain was too busy trying to decode the neurotypical world with masking to process anything in real time.
Like forgetting someone’s name because you’re focusing on mirroring their posture and tone. It’s like running the whole thing through a real-time simulator. There’s no room left for experience. Everything is computation, and it’s exhausting.
My feature had become a bug, and I needed nature’s defragging.
The Mountains
I’ve always known my truest self resides in the mountains. Unseen, without judgment, completely alone.
After years of back problems post-surgery that had already shifted my lifestyle and identity, I knew the risks were above average. I took them anyway. Part of me was ready to walk in and never come out. Part of me was ready to accept defeat if I had to cut things short.
So I walked.
Over 600 kilometres through the French Alps, from Nice to Lake Geneva. One foot in front of the other. The only goals were to keep moving and reconnect with the wild.
There were no revelations. No finding myself. Just presence. Nature reminded me of my insignificance and provided peace.
I wild camped each night, surprising the animals going about their own survival. I didn’t return with answers. But I returned.
Still, I wasn’t ready for normal life. For me, that kind of courage feels completely different. I was still turning my back on the world, keeping myself quietly busy.
Diversion
With my executive functioning still at an ebb, not dealing with the need for an income became a game of therapeutic distractions. After all, what’s the point in playing the corporate game if life itself is feeling untenable?
Better to fill the days with creative accomplishments, curiosities and small therapeutic pursuits.
Even when depressed, I’m not good at sitting still. The uncontrollable urge to be doing something with my mind and body is often unglamorous: cleaning, cooking, DIY, gardening. The chores working people resentfully fill their weekends with.
That said, I still kick myself for not accomplishing more with a year of free time. But I couldn’t shortcut the process.
I built bird boxes and outdoor furniture with reclaimed wood. I painted with oils, fished, feathered my nest, and mulled over my predicament with plateauing progress.
Arrival
Where did it lead? Right here. Even with anonymity at the fore, I find deep resistance in sharing. But if I don’t, it may all be for nothing.
Who knows where it’s going.
I’ve dabbled in freelance but won’t bring myself to market like one would expect. My relationship survived, and a few close folk suggest I’m a better version of myself.
I’m not who I was. I’m not who I want to be. But I’m still moving.
Still no map. But the fog has thinned.
