Autistic here as well, tremendous burnout and trauma from my last job. It took me a lot of writing / reconnecting with why I love technology in the first place,

Autistic here as well, tremendous burnout and trauma from my last job. It took me a lot of writing / reconnecting with why I love technology in the first place, and a 3 months sabbatical at the recurse center to… feel like I’m back. A big part in this is also the very privileged fact that I have total freedom and trust at my current work, which allows me to follow my holistic way of thinking and not having to do hierarchy and workplace cosplay. I do work from home, and it feels like I’m back in my days of freelancing. If I ended up in the same situation again, but say, without that job, I would tell my older self: - take a big break, and reconnect with your enthusiasm. The book “Unmasking Autism” has a lot of concrete ways to do that, since it can be hard for us. It also talks a lot about autistic burnout - go back to freelancing, or find a job where I have lots of freedom to follow my routine, and where I am valued for my thinking and communication style - reconnect with writing code for fun. Programming is legitimately the one activity that fully calms me and replenishes me. I stopped doing any side-programming for 10 years, and reviving that atrophied part of myself has been absolutely invigorating. - get monster ear protection. This has to be one of the revelations: noise stresses me out sooo much, and I have been repressing it for so long. I now have -35 dB + noise cancelling earplugs and can basically live in complete silence, in the noisiest environment. I can finally think things true the way I want to. (edit: formatting)