In the final episode of our “Breaking the Burnout Cycle” three-part series, host Cate Osborn and Dr. Shauna Pollard explore what comes after burnout. They discuss how burnout can affect your relationships, the importance of communicating your needs clearly, and how to reflect on past experiences to avoid repeating patterns. Cate and Dr. Shauna also shares practical tips for tuning in to yourself, setting boundaries, and creating a plan for moving forward with greater awareness, balance, and resilience.
In the final episode of our “Breaking the Burnout Cycle” three-part series, host Cate Osborn and Dr. Shauna Pollard explore what comes after burnout. They discuss how burnout can affect your relationships, the importance of communicating your needs clearly, and how to reflect on past experiences to avoid repeating patterns.
Cate and Dr. Shauna also shares practical tips for tuning in to yourself, setting boundaries, and creating a plan for moving forward with greater awareness, balance, and resilience.
For more on this topic:
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:44) We have more emotions to regulate while in burnout
(05:26) How can burnout impact relationships?
(14:32) Setting boundaries
(17:52) How can we show up for our partners when we’re burned out?
(23:11) Feeling “too much” for needing to have our needs met
(24:44) What do we do if we don’t have a support system?
(28:01) Outro and credits
For a transcript and more resources, visit Sorry, I Missed This on Understood.org. You can also email us at sorryimissedthis@understood.org.
(00:00) Intro
Cate Osborn: Hi everybody, I'm Cate Osborn and welcome back to "Sorry I Missed This," the show where we talk all things ADHD and its impact on sex, intimacy, relationships, communication, and more. Today we're talking about rest, episode two in our "Breaking the Burnout Cycle" series with Dr. Shauna Pollard, a psychologist, researcher, ADHD mentor, and advocate. And the reason why we're talking about rest is to learn how to break free of burnout. You have to learn how to rest, and what real restorative rest actually looks like. In this episode, you'll learn how to break down rest into small practical steps that will start you on your journey to breaking the burnout cycle.
I don't know about you, dear listener, but for me, the end of the burnout cycle is often the most difficult, right? Because you've fought your way through the burnout, you get all the way to the end, the clouds part and the sun starts to shine and you look behind you and all you see are like the scattered destructive remains of all of the stuff that has been impacted by burnout: your relationships, your work, your pile of laundry, whatever it may be, right?
And so sometimes it feels like that can be the most difficult part to navigate through is the "how do I move forward from here? What do I do next?" And Dr. Shauna and I sat down to discuss all of it: how burnout impacts executive function, how burnout impacts relationships, and what to do moving forward. So this is a particularly poignant episode for me and I will not lie to you, I definitely learned things from my own podcast this week.
So I hope you do too. And just as a reminder, if you haven't listened to the first two, you might want to go back and listen just to get some of that valuable context around burnout and the burnout cycle. But without further ado, welcome to this third episode of "Breaking the Burnout Cycle" with Dr. Shauna Pollard. Let's go ahead and start the show.
(01:44) We have more emotions to regulate while in burnout
Cate: So today I'm interested in exploring the idea of once we know that we're in burnout, once we kind of have an idea about what we may need to do to take steps to mitigate the damage that burnout is causing in our lives, how do we integrate this? How do we talk about burnout? How do we ask for what we need? How do we make sure that as we take steps to stop the burnout cycle, that we are getting what we need? That was 17 questions in one, ready, set, go.
Dr. Shauna Pollard: I think that is a very important area to address. And I think the key is first figuring out what you need, because it's going to be hard to communicate to people if you don't know what you need. And if you don't know and you still need to communicate, any way that you know how to communicate, "I need space, I need to slow down, I need to stop, I need a timeout," that might be a good place to start. So if your communication skills aren't where you'd like them to be, you might think about various ways to say, "I need a break, I need to step back, I need time off, I need to pause for a moment and figure out what I need."
Cate: One of the things that I hear, especially if we think about like the first couple conversations that we had, is that there's such a cost to managing our executive functioning. And so even emotional regulation takes an amount of energy, even being in a place where we aren't being reactive or we are able to take a pause, that is also directly tied into burnout because when we are burned out, our emotional dysregulation may also be popping off, right?
Dr. Shauna: Absolutely. We might have more emotions to regulate. So I often will give people like a feelings wheel, and when people are super stressed, then they're circling way more feelings than when they are doing well. So instead of three negative emotions, you might have 14.
Cate: I'm okay, I'm super curious about that. How do they compound like that? How does that work?
Dr. Shauna: It's almost like a, when it rains, it pours. And so when people are stressed, they're more likely to get sick or things that they had under control are going to spiral out of control. Then you have multiple issues going on at the same time and they all might cause slightly different emotions. So you might have variants of anger, variants of sadness, variants of just kind of checking out and not caring. You now may have more things to be emotional about because you're not feeling good.
And at the same time, as you're pointing out, your capacity for regulating those emotions is also impaired because emotion regulation is an executive function.
Cate: And I have to imagine that some of the common ADHD considerations, things like rejection sensitivity and maybe even people pleasing are going to show up in that as well, right?
Dr. Shauna: Of course. Yeah, it's going to be different flavors. So you do have some folks who are more people-pleasers. And so what they will find is their literal capacity to please people is not the same as it is when they're not burnt out. And then you also have some people who are not people-pleasers, who may be on the opposite side of the spectrum, and then they may become more of a non-people-pleaser as they go inward to kind of cope with the distress sometimes, or as they express that outward to people through like angry outbursts or just kind of frustration about how terrible things are for them.
(05:26) How can burnout impact relationships?
Cate: One of the things that I'm really curious about is how burnout can affect relationships and impact relationships. That's a really broad question, but why don't we start there and see where we go?
Dr. Shauna: Yeah, it's going to have a huge impact on relationships. I can think of a couple of ways immediately because when you're in a romantic relationship, it doesn't impact just you, it impacts your partner as well, especially if it's someone that lives with you. Like the person may not realize that you're burnt out, and so they might think that you not showing up the way that you usually do is reflective of a loss of interest or something that they may have done. So a partner may be taking personal blame.
It could be the other way around where a partner may be angry or mad at you because they feel that you should be doing more and they've noticed a slowing down. You could have a little bit of both at the same time, right? If you're a parent, it might impact your parenting and impact your child-rearing as they experience the burnt-out version of you. Some kids are particularly sensitive and they might, you know, they might be concerned about you and say, "Mommy, are you okay?" or "Daddy, you know, what's going on? You look sad or you look down," right?
Obviously, it's going to impact your relationships at work. Also, when people are burnt out, depending on what's going on, they may not feel good. They may be a little more crabbier than usual, a little more irritable. And so you might be a little bit more snappy, you might be a little more short with people. What I've seen is people don't have as much empathy and tolerance as they normally have when they have full energy or full capacity. They can be a good listener, they can be kind and considerate. When they're burnt out, all of their resources are going towards trying to survive, trying to get through the day.
And then it can create this cycle where it impacts the relationship with yourself because if you notice these things, if you're aware enough to notice, "Man, I'm being really like, you know, kind of mean to everybody, or I just don't have a lot of patience. What's wrong with me?" Then it can create this feedback loop where you feel bad about feeling bad and about showing up. And then some people might withdraw from other people in an effort not to let their irritability spill over. Maybe people stop answering phone calls, or they're not showing up for things like they normally would. So it can really impact relationships in a variety of ways.
Cate: One of the things that I know I sometimes struggle with is that when I am actively in burnout, I do struggle more with executive dysfunction and that can look like forgetfulness. That can look on the surface like laziness or disinterest and that can impact relationships greatly. So how do we navigate through a partner who might see our burnout as laziness or disinterest or "you don't like me anymore?" Like what do we, what do we do in those scenarios?
Dr. Shauna: I think it can be a challenge because I think on one level, assuming a partner that has the capacity to show up for you, is to educate them and to say like, "I don't know if you know, you know, I have ADHD and these are some of the challenges that come with executive function. My symptoms are going to be variable. But there will be certain things where you vary in your functionality. There are times when you can do it well and there are times when you're terrible." And that can be confusing for people because they're like, "Well, you did it well yesterday or you did it well last week."
Cate: That's the worst.
Dr. Shauna: And to the point that you made earlier, when your executive function is low, it's actually going to be harder for you to set boundaries when you're burnt out or when you feel bad, unfortunately. So I think the issue is like when you're in a really severe state--and I often will show clients this bucket I made where I talk about all of the things that impact your executive function. Some of them are temporary, some of them are more long-standing, and the more things you have in your bucket, the more impairment you're going to have and the less functional you might be, or you might have to get more support or rely on more tools.
And so just really educating your partner about what is ADHD? What does executive function look like? What does it look like in real time in relationships? That's one. Now, that might be hard to do if you're burnt out. But, you know, I'm sure you can find a great YouTube video or something to have them watch. And then the other person has to be able to hear, able and willing to hear that and say, "I get it. I see you." and like, "how can I support you?"
But if that has gone on for so long, they may be angry about it. They may have taken your actions personally. And then you have two issues that you have to resolve, like the resentment and the anger. It's still like even after that, like, how do you cope in a relationship where the two of you are really different? And I think the key to relationships is really like, once you learn who the person is, are you willing to grow with them, support them, and give them the grace when they go through difficult times and challenges?
And some folks aren't. Some folks don't have that capacity. Some people are like, "I need you to be organized. I need you to clean your room. I need you to show up and I don't have a lot of patience for someone who doesn't do that. And if I knew you were like that, I would have never gotten with you." Which is always hard to sit with.
Cate: It's really interesting that you specifically named resentment, because I can also see resentment building on both sides, right? The resentment from the partner who is seeing laziness, who is seeing disinterest, who is seeing disconnect. But then also resentment from the person who is struggling with burnout and you are asking me for so much. You're asking me for more than I'm able to give and resentment is going to very easily start building up on both sides. So are there preventative measures that we can take? How do we engage in repair if we find ourselves in those habits? Like what happens then?
Dr. Shauna: I love that you said the word repair, right? Like relationships are going to have rupture, but it's how you repair them that really helps to figure out if you can go the distance. So I think the key is starting to map your own anger and your own emotions. And it kind of comes back to that thread all along the way of like mindfulness, tuning into your emotions, starting to see yourself as the resentment builds.
One of the supervisors I had a long time ago would talk about like a knapsack, where like it's filled with rocks and then you put that last rock in and it's too heavy and you drop it. But if you can notice the rocks building up ahead of time, there can be a point where you're like, "I think this is getting too heavy. I need to take some of the rocks out." And so with the resentment, it is starting to notice it at an early level and having a conversation with the person before you're ready to like explode. Like, "Hey, I feel like you're not hearing me. I feel like you're not supporting me. I really need this," or like, "I just don't have it to give."
(14:32) Setting boundaries
Cate: Gosh, that can be so challenging, especially if you are a person who struggles with things like alexithymia or even just like emotional dysregulation, because you might not even notice that you are getting to that point of resentment until you hit the tipping point. And so it can be even more challenging if you are a person with ADHD, or autism, or both. If you got the combo platter.
Dr. Shauna: That's where you're hitting on challenges, like people don't know, can't always tune into their emotions, can't always name them. And once they name them, they can't always communicate them. If there's anxiety about conflict, people's natural tendency might be to avoid it. And that's why sometimes things just go awry. That's why it's called a disorder, because it's like these come part and parcel with it and make it really hard to execute on things.
Cate: And conflict can be so scary and it can be so challenging to navigate through, especially if you've never had positive conflict resolution modeled to you. And so now you're in burnout, you're trying to navigate all this resentment, you're trying to fix your relationship, but you're also trying to do it kind of without a guide, and that can just be so overwhelming.
Dr. Shauna: And you're hitting to the heart of why it's challenging and why burnout can create such devastation. In some ways, I'm talking about it from a prevention model, like these are things you can do to reduce it. But sometimes it just happens all at once. People don't know what's going on. They don't even know what's going on with them. They don't even know they're in burnout. Sometimes people look back after marriages end, divorces end, relationships end and it's like, "Oh my gosh, like I could have handled that better." But you didn't know what you didn't know. And so sometimes it's just navigating the fallout and trying to allow it to be a learning opportunity for the future.
We're all learning. We're all learning all of this stuff. We're not born with a road map to understanding neurodivergence and neurodivergent relationships. And sometimes that's why, you know, it takes multiple attempts to get it right because sometimes you don't realize what went wrong until it has happened. And sometimes you can't go back and repair it with that same person. Sometimes the repair is learning from it and learning about yourself and how you want to show up differently.
(17:52) How can we show up for our partners when we’re burned out?
Cate: What happens when maybe some of the burnout is because we don't have a partner who is supporting us, or the partner's not showing up? I know immediately it's a really big question, but I also know that there are so many women with ADHD who have been taught that our needs are too much, that we're asking for too much, we're taking up too much space, and we learn these patterns of fearing articulation of what we need to get through the day. And so, what do we do about that? What do we do if we have a partner who's not showing up? That's a giant question, but you know, take it away.
Dr. Shauna: Yeah, so that's a great question and a really relevant question. So I usually just work with individuals. Occasionally, like an individual will bring in a partner, but I work with people who are coupled too. And so I think that's a growth edge. I think this is the sort of thing that forces you to grow personally, whether you're ready to grow or not. If you have a partner that is not supportive, now is that time where you have to learn some skills to set boundaries, to ask for your needs to be met, just start to tune into that, and to just be able to validate it is okay for me to have these needs.
And I think you can ask folks around you like, is this a reasonable ask? until you're able to like own it for yourself.
Cate: I know for me, sometimes holding boundaries or setting boundaries can already be difficult. Are boundaries something that can also be affected by burnout? Like we see our boundaries eroding or we see our boundaries like, you know, how tell me about boundaries.
Dr. Shauna: Setting boundaries is hard. Everybody tells you to do it. It's just like, "Oh, just set a boundary and poof, magic, like everything will be better." But the reality is boundary work is hard work because it requires multiple things. It requires you to know what you need, and you may not know that. It may take you some trial and error to figure that out. It requires you to communicate that to the other person, which can be difficult. It can provoke a lot of anxiety. It requires you to have something that ADHDers often struggle with, which is staying with a task, a sustained attention, if we're talking about executive function skills.
So because it's not enough to ask for the boundary, you actually have to ask for it sometimes repeatedly. You have to enforce it. You have to decide what you're going to do if the other person does not respect the boundary. You sometimes have to remind people of the boundary when they forget, whether it's conscious or unconscious forgetting. And then sometimes you might get what is called "pushback." And so when someone is used to a boundary or used to not having a boundary, they're going to be upset with you because there's a new sheriff in town, this is not what they have been normed on, right?
So you will experience pushback and that's going to make you feel guilty, that's going to make you like, "Am I doing the right thing?" So boundary work is very hard work. So if you're advanced and you've been doing it for a while but you just need to apply to this issue, that may be easier. But if you're brand new to setting boundaries or if you're trying to set boundaries with a person for whom you have had a very long-standing pattern of engagement, it's going to be very difficult. Start where you can, and as you keep practicing, your muscles will get stronger.
(23:11) Feeling “too much” for needing to have our needs met
Cate: It's so funny like you're talking about all the things you have to do to have boundaries. I'm just like, I'm already tired.
Dr. Shauna: Yeah. It's just--I'm already burned out. Yeah.
Cate: Oh my God, it's just another thing. And that speaks to exactly what we were talking about before. You know, what happens when we feel like our needs are too much. It sounds like a lot of what we've talked about is the internal world and what's going on in there. We talk a lot about support systems. We talked a lot about asking for help. But I also know that socially, economically, based on the way that our country prevents and provides access to certain populations, what do we do if we don't have a support system? What do we do if we are a person who, to borrow a friend of the podcast, K.C. Davis's phrasing, you know, what if, what do we do if we are drowning and we don't have anybody? How do we get help? Where can we get help? What resources are available? Do you have any recommendations?
(24:44) What do we do if we don’t have a support system?
Dr. Shauna: Well, I do have, I think it's at this point a nine-page executive functioning resource list. I think it's somewhere on my LinkedIn, but otherwise it's not anywhere published because I keep editing it. But it has a lot of resources. And I'm a fan of if you don't have anyone in your life, you have the internet and you have access to a library. Go get a book, go read. If you don't have access to a library, go to a bookstore and find one book. There's at least one book about neurodivergence somewhere, right?
Cate: "ADHD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life" by Cate Osborn. There you go. And it's now, yeah, it comes out in March.
Dr. Shauna: Okay. I was like, I feel like I've heard it, but maybe not. Okay. But yeah, I mean, if you're listening to us, you're listening to us through a podcast, right? And so what I used to do when I was struggling was just search a topic I wanted to learn about in Apple Podcast and Spotify, and then just listen to every podcast on that topic. So you may not have human resources, but you can start with resources that humans have created: podcasts, books, YouTube, and check the sources. I'm a fan of books first and then maybe weaving in some TikTok learning.
There's so much you can learn from books, especially about yourself. And then you can do things like journal, spend time alone. Just start to observe your thoughts. You can go to a mindfulness class, or again, there's tons of podcasts with mindfulness practices on them. So I think as long as you're a learner and you're willing to learn, the universe is willing to teach you anything that you want to know. And then once you kind of have an inkling or once you do have some resources, then grab any human you can, a primary care provider, a specialist that you're working with for any health issue, or a therapist, and then keep learning, keep growing. You don't have to have a support system that involves people in real time. But people have written so many books, have created so much content on podcasts, have so many web pages on the internet about these sorts of things. So start Googling. If you have the internet and you have access to a store, then that gives you a good place to start.
Cate: Yeah. And I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the "MissUnderstood" community over on Facebook. Just some great people over there giving feedback, sharing feedback. It's really nice. It's growing. And so, dear listener, if it's something you're interested in, I encourage you to check it out.
Dr. Shauna Pollard, you have been so incredible. You have shared three episodes worth of wisdom with us. Thank you so much for this. Thank you so much for being here. This has been so incredible and I'm so grateful. And we will talk to you again soon.
(28:01) Outro and credits
Cate Osborn: Bye everybody. Bye.
Thank you for listening! Anything mentioned in the episode will be linked in the show notes, with more resources. Have a question, comment, burning story you'd like to share? Email us at SorryImissedthis@understood.org.
This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.
Cate: "Sorry, I Missed This" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli and Margie DeSantis.
Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jessie DiMartino. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Production support provided by Andrew Rector.
Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson.
And I'm your host, Cate Osborn. Thank you SO much for listening!