The World: We haven’t seen much of that Andy Brokaw person in a while… Wonder what’s up with them.

Andy’s Brain Demons: We know! We know!

Andy: You don’t get sole credit, Brain Demons. You have to share it with my body and also with brain things that AREN’T demons.

Andy’s Brain Demons: You mean your AuDHD? Yeah, the ADHD plus Austism combo isn’t one of us. But we’re working together really well these days!

Andy: Believe me, I’ve noticed the synergy.

Andy’s Brain Demons: Is there any way we could make today harder for you?

Andy: No. I’m pretty set with anxiety from writing this, self-doubt, low level malaise, dread of just being too weird and cringe for people…

Andy’s Brain Demons: Cool. Let us know if that changes!

Andy: I will not. I need to stop engaging with you and tell people what’s been going on with me.

Andy’s AuDHD: I’ve been going on with you, haven’t I? I’m really sorry…

Andy: It’s okay. The problem isn’t you. It’s me having to live in a world set up for neurotypical people and everyone, including me, being all ableist about it. As I saw a video say recently, “It’s not the ’tism. It’s the ‘ism.”

Andy’s AuDHD: Still… I didn’t have to trigger a complete system-wide burnout.

Andy: You didn’t do that on purpose. The winter was hard for both of us. There were a lot of big changes, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of pressures, a lot of masking, a lot of exertion, a lot of ableism from myself and others, a lot of hormonal life stage shifts… Just a lot. And not enough support because I didn’t recognize what we were going through enough to ask for everything we needed.

Internet: If the people reading this aren’t familiar with Autistic Burnout, they should read about it. There are some lovely resources by Dr Neff on her website. But basically, it’s a type of burnout that affects everything about an Autistic person and makes life a hundred times harder to live. You may note that Andy has ADHD as well as being on the Autistic Spectrum. If you correctly guessed that makes it all way more complicated, go get yourself a cookie!

Andy’s Brain Demons: You’ve also been on the depressive side of your bipolar disorder!

Andy: Yeah, I have. That’s feeling largely better, though. And isn’t the reason I’m doing things like leaving my local pub in tears before the person I wanted to meet there even arrived because I didn’t recognize the music and a group of people were talking too close to my table. That’s entirely from being too exhausted to suppress my Autistic overwhelm freakouts and just being super sensitive to overwhelm from stimuli in the first place.

Andy’s Shoulder: Do I get any credit?

Andy: The fact that you’ve been hurting since December has certainly not helped. It’s resulted in constant sensation and a lot of having to drive places to interact with people. That second one is hard for me under normal circumstances, but during this burnout it’s presented an obstacle to rest and resetting.

Andy’s Shoulder: Sorry. I’d have healed by now if I could.

Andy: Yeah, the Physical Therapy people think it’s odd you haven’t. We now have imaging scheduled to see if there’s a particular reason. But setting up that and the related consolation required phones calls. They took less than ten minutes total, but wrecked an entire day. (And that’s one of the things I mean when I say the world is ableist in ways that cause me problems. Required phone calls aren’t just extremely hard for me; many Autistic people struggle just as bad or worse with them. But if you’re able to speak and hear, accommodations are hard to find and not something I’ve seen people discussing. And people say stuff like, “No one likes calling strangers,” which downplays my experience through a neurotypical lens and leaves me feeling like a broken freak.)

Winter’s First Verse: Sympathies. I really appreciate that you’ve still been taking time to work on me through all this. though.

Andy: Thank you. It’s been challenging at times. And you’re not coming out this summer like I hoped…

Winter’s: I’m also not the novella you thought I was going to be… And you still think you’ll get me to readers in 2026.

Andy: I do.

The World: You’re taking care of yourself too though. Yesno?

Andy: Yes. I’ve been doing a lot of workbooks, extra therapy sessions, and journaling to get to the root of what happened, how to recover from it, and how to keep it from happening again. It’s not something that instantly resolves itself once you’ve articulated the problem though. Some of my stressors have lessened with the end of ski season, but others are still very much present and I’m trying to find healthier means of handling them.

The World: Anything we can do to help?

Andy: It would be just swell if triggering events would stop happening. (Glares at Draft2Digital, which pulled some Grade A asshole sewage this week to upset the entire rotting indie writer community and create a bunch of work Andy will need to do in the next few weeks.)

The World: Wait. Who are Draft2Digital? And what did they do?

Andy: Draft2Digital is the company that have been distributing all the non-Kindle digital books I’ve ever published. They informed me I’m worthless due to lack of popularity and will now be charging more than I make from them for the privilege of being distributed by them. So… Yeah. Have to unpublish all non-Kindle digital books for all of Hedgie Press and upload them to… I don’t know where yet. It’s a bad blow.

Andy’s Demons: We think it’s yummy!

Andy: Yeah, I know you know. The validation that other people also think I’m a useless pile of garbage is like hand-feeding you ambrosia.

The World: We doubt they issued a statement saying, “Andy Brokaw sucks!” What did they actually say?

Andy: They’re implementing a fee that’s close to what I expect to make from them this year unless I get Winter’s First Verse out earlier than now expected for all accounts making less money than a threshold I don’t meet. You can see the statement on their blog. It’s supposedly to protect the world from AI slop scammers, but I don’t see how it’s going to do much for that, just how it’s causing a lot of problems for almost my entire writing social circle. A LOT of the scammers are doing better than we are from the volume of trash they’re throwing out.

The World: That’s rough. But you shouldn’t take it personally.

Andy’s Brain Demons: As if we’d ever let them get away with not taking it personally!

Andy: What they said… But, anyway… Enough moaning. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m still around. I have a lot of things planned for the next few months, but for right now I’m trying to go slow and not exhaust myself any further. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.