I'm Back Six Weeks Later, With More Thoughts on Recovery (Introduction)

It's been six weeks since I posted my original essay in five parts, which described my experience of catatonia and burnout. In those six weeks, I've made substantial progress in my recovery, and I've also learned a lot about the condition of catatonia. I decided to keep posting in order to make a record of what I've learned. 

Here's a bit of a prelude to the posts I'm about to write, with a little bit of an apology. As much as I wish I could put together elegant, well-organized, essayistic posts, I'm finding that it's not possible for me at the moment. I'm learning so much, and still processing so much, that the information is coming to me in a rush, and I may be posting it in a kind of rush as well. My ultimate ambition is to go through these posts and revise them into some better-organized essays and articles. I'd like to put together a concise, helpful collection of self-help and advice for people dealing with the experience of severe burnout and catatonia. But I'm not at the stage of being able to create that kind of collection. In the meantime, I thought I'd share what I can.

Here are the topics that I might cover in the posts that follow:

* Ideas, advice, and habits that have really helped me a lot to recover--either from books I've read or from personal advice that I've received (or seen others receive online).

* Ways that I'm still experimenting with recovery, or stumbling toward recovery, or struggling with recovery. Here, I'll also be posting ideas and resources that I've found really helpful/promising, but that I haven't fully explored. Essentially, I'll be including some brainstorms and experiments. 

* Useful or profound responses/experiences about catatonia, which I've encountered on reddit or other online fora. I want to make sure that I don't lose access to the wonderful insights of other people, so I'll be recording/linking to them here.

* The limitations of a lot of the online information currently available about autistic catatonia, and how to fix it. As part of that project, I'm hoping to revise the Wikipedia page on autistic catatonia, which currently contains a lot of out-of-date or limited information. I think that an in-depth, up-to-date, research-based Wikipedia article on autistic catatonia could really help people. One of my medium to long-term goals is to produce that Wikipedia page, through research, writing, and revising. However, it will take some time and thinking, and I might be slow to do it, and in the meantime I I might blog about that process here. I'll use that process to blog about a) common limitations and misconceptions about autistic catatonia, and b) all of the  wonderful recent research that I've found, which is not on the Wikipedia page.

I continue to hope that some of this writing will help people in practical ways--but even if not, I want to send a lot of positive wishes and thoughts of solidarity to anyone else dealing with severe burnout or catatonia. There are a lot of us out there! We are all in this together. You are not alone. 



 

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