Note: For those of you who are not members of my church. I have been serving in a volunteer position called the Stake Presidency which oversees several other congregations in the city. It comes with a significant investment of time and energy. I have been serving for 7.5 years until this weekend.

On Sunday I was released from my calling as I’ve been having some pretty significant health challenges. I mentioned that I didn’t want to explain it in my final address but I didn’t want to take the opportunity to educate on something a lot of people don’t know about.

Currently my health is not doing well at all. After teaching one class or going to one church meeting my body and brain start to shut down. I have bad headaches, nausea, chills, and aches all over my body. I do really well working at home as long as I don’t need to interact with people. 

I’ve been exhausted for as long as I can remember. Since everyone always talks about exhaustion as a normal part of life (especially teachers). I just thought that what I was experiencing was normal. Over the years I found it harder and harder to keep up with all of my exhausted friends and wondered why I was having a hard time dealing with my exhaustion and just being able to do what everyone else does. 

About three years ago I started an antidepressant and I felt really good for the first time in a long time. It was right after COVID and teaching was more terrible than ever. I believe I was experiencing depression at that time in my life which is why I felt so much better on it. I’m still glad for the help it provided. 

During this time I thought I had solved the puzzle and was not exhausted for a short period of time. I started doing all the things I wanted to do beyond the minimum of surviving. This last year I decided I would Teach a parenting class at church, teach one at school (never got to it), Teach a Professional development class, start a podcast. I thought it was manageable as it was really just 1 or 2 extra hours in a week of teaching. That plus working mainly through the summer on home projects (where I was usually recovering) led to a period of having the worst exhaustion I’ve ever had. I started noticing some patterns that helped me understand. I was most exhausted after teaching or socializing. We realized my kids had some things going on in the family with 1 probably two kids that are autistic and at least one that is ADHD. Doing some research on this showed that this often is passed on genetically through the father. 

After wondering for a long time I started looking deeper into my own brain and after doing some respected online screening tests found here:

https://embrace-autism.com/raads-r/ 

https://embrace-autism.com/cat-q/ 

I came to the realization that I am both autistic and AuDHD. I had not realized before because I had some coping skills that I had started since I was very young to hide it. This is called masking: I made a video about masking autism here: https://youtu.be/nCRIM7LVlYs (link below also)

Masking your autism and ADHD can make you appear "normal" but it also makes some very normal things much much harder to do. Socializing and Teaching become much harder than your average person or “neurotypical” as your brain doesn’t do it naturally. I wrote a flow chart here of what my brain has to do just to have a basic conversation with someone: https://www.jeffbrownsclassroom.com/neurodivergents/conversation-flowchart  

Masking autism usually leads to autistic burnout which is characterized by extreme exhaustion: 

Here is a website that talks about it

https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/autistic-burnout-recovery 

I was unable to keep up with everything because my brain was working much much harder to do basic tasks and hide my autism (even from me) at the same time. 

Masking autistics often have no idea that they have autism until much later in life when they can no longer keep up. Unfortunately it leads to much higher rates of suicide and depression as well. 

BYU school of education recently had an article about female autism which talks about these issues here:

https://education.byu.edu/news/facing-female-autism

Females tend to mask at much higher rates than males and are often undiagnosed because of it. They also don’t fit the stereotypical views of autism that a lot of people have.

Autism doesn’t look like you think it does. There are many of us all over who are struggling to live a basic life in a world that was made for neurotypicals. 

I’m in burnout now that is so bad that when I am socializing, teaching, or doing things for my calling in the Stake Presidency for more than an hour my brain starts to hurt, I feel physically sick which includes nausea and pain throughout my whole body. The previous Sunday I pushed to try and finish up stuff from my calling and worked for around 10 hours socializing and talking with people while I was doing my tasks. I almost literally collapsed after and was still feeling physically ill for a couple of days after. (all the while teaching and compounding the problem).  

I talked with my Admin team where I teach at Rampart about what I was experiencing. They have been nothing but amazing and supportive. I decided I needed to go to part time next year or more accurately 2/ 3 time. I will teach two ninety minute classes a day instead of three. 

As far as my calling goes:

I was planning on trying to make it to the end of our time as we’ve been doing it for a while now. I thought I could just push through the constant illness I was feeling. About a month ago while I was doing some other things I had a strong feeling come over my whole body that I believe was the Holy Ghost telling me to talk to President Carroll about whether I should be released or not. I didn’t know if I needed to be released just that we should talk about it. I talked about it with both President Carroll and President Thomas. They have both been very supportive and kind as I have been sharing with them my challenges. I couldn’t have asked for a better presidency to work with and to help me with my struggles. President Carroll prayed about it and later told me about two experiences he had where he received revelation that it was time for me to be released. 

Years ago I told the Lord that I would do whatever he asked and that includes accepting callings that come from the Lord and this also means accepting when it’s time to be released. It is now time for me to be released.

My offering to the Lord had been accepted. I literally gave everything I have to it. I have gone through a lot of emotions including temptations to feel inadequate and not enough because I couldn’t keep up. Through all of that I keep feeling peace through the Lord that what I gave is exactly what the Lord asked for and it’s time for me to recover. I don’t know what I have for the future but I feel that whatever it is I need to learn how to live with my autism and ADHD in a way that is healthy. I’m dedicating the next little while to figuring out what that is. I have hope for the future that I can live a life that is happier and more healthy now that I know the root cause of everything. 

If you want to learn more about Autism and AuDHD I have made other videos and resources on my website here. 

https://www.jeffbrownsclassroom.com/neurodivergents