Internalized capitalism is the absorbed idea that a person’s worth depends on their productivity, achievements, and economic usefulness. The external demand “you need to work more” gradually turns into an internal belief:
If I don’t work much, there’s something wrong with me.
This concept comes from social criticism, and it helps describe <u>a life in which rest has to be earned, hobbies have to be monetized (otherwise what good are they?), and feeling unwell is not considered a valid reason </u>to stop.
The desire to grow and earn well is not a problem in itself. It becomes a problem when, without achievements, you stop feeling that you deserve respect, care, and the right to take up space.
How does this show up? 📋
Check yourself against these signs:
- a day without a noticeable result feels wasted;
- while resting, you think about work or try to do something useful at the same time;
- fatigue feels undeserved if only a few tasks were completed;
- illness and overload are perceived as not good enough a reason to lower expectations;
- your most productive day becomes the norm you have to repeat constantly;
- a hobby quickly turns into studying, a project, a blog, or a source of income;
- asking for help feels shameful because an adult “should manage on their own”;
- other people’s productivity causes anxiety and the urge to urgently start something new;
- your attitude toward yourself noticeably worsens on days when you get little done.
In four studies with a total sample of 1,310 people, participants who considered leisure a waste of time enjoyed it less. These studies clearly show why free time does not automatically guarantee recovery. <u>Tonietto et al., 2021</u>
Why is this especially hard for neurodivergent people?
For a person with ADHD or autism, the cult of productivity is layered on top of many years of not understanding their own difficulties:
—> “You’re smart, so why can’t you pull yourself together?”
—> “You’ve already done this before, so you should be able to do it faster and better!”.
—> “Everyone is tired, but somehow other people manage.”
With ADHD, it is easy to take as the norm an evening before a deadline, when a report that had been postponed for several days is suddenly finished in a few hours. What gets ignored is the missed meals, late sleep, and exhaustion the next day. The conclusion becomes: if you managed it once, you should work like that all the time.
With autism, much of the workload does not even make it onto the list of completed tasks. A person monitors facial expressions, chooses the right moment to respond, endures noise, deciphers ambiguous requests, and suppresses natural ways of self-regulating. In the evening, it is hard for them to choose food, even though formally there were only a few meetings during the day.
Research on autistic masking describes constant behavior monitoring and exhaustion after social interaction. From the outside, a person may look organized and well-adjusted, while the cost of that well-being remains invisible. <u>Hull et al., 2017</u>
It creates a strange kind of accounting: the energy has been spent, but the expense cannot be acknowledged.
When productivity becomes masking 🎭
A neurodivergent person may work in the evenings so that no one notices their problems with concentration, arrive far too early out of fear of being late, recheck every email, and take on extra tasks so they will not be seen as unreliable.
From the outside, this looks like high responsibility. Inside, a different rule is at work:
For people to tolerate my oddities, I have to be especially smart, convenient, or productive.
That is why headphones feel like an indulgence, written instructions like a sign of incompetence, and a break after socializing like weakness.
“The Metamorphosis”: as long as I am useful, I am needed
This conditional worth is shown with remarkable precision in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Gregor Samsa supports his family and pays off its debts. Even after discovering that he has turned into a huge insect, he first thinks about the missed train, his boss, and the need to go to work. His own catastrophe is perceived first and foremost as a professional failure.
When Gregor loses the ability to work, his family gradually begins to see him as a burden. Kafka’s novella is much broader than a critique of capitalism, but it vividly shows a world in which the right to care depends on the function one performs. As long as a person is useful, they are allowed to take up space. When their ability to work disappears, their human worth is also called into question.
How burnout develops 🔄
The logic of the cycle is quite simple:
1. You demand more of yourself than you can regularly sustain.
2. You postpone rest and support while you are still able to keep going.
3. You start concentrating worse, forget things more often, and react more strongly to noise or changes.
4. You explain this as laziness and tighten control.
5. The load increases, and recovery is postponed again.
In a study by Dora Raymaker and colleagues, autistic participants described burnout in terms of prolonged exhaustion, reduced access to familiar skills, and worsened tolerance of stimuli. Among the causes, they named accumulated load, demands that exceeded their capacities, and lack of support. <u>Raymaker et al., 2020</u>
Internalized capitalism maintains this cycle because the ability to hold out just a little longer is perceived as a sufficient reason to continue.
When rest also turns into work
Within this paradigm, rest is supposed to provide recovery for later increases in productivity and to be as full and effective as possible, otherwise it feels as if life is passing you by and you are forever failing to get everything from it.
And on top of that, you have to sleep properly, go for walks on schedule, meditate without skipping, and be fully restored by Monday. If your energy has not increased, it feels like you are also resting the wrong way.
Many of my clients say one phrase: “I’m not tired enough to rest.” Or: “Rest has to be earned, I still haven’t finished all my tasks.”
But rest is just as much a necessity as sleep, food, and air. It is not a reward for good behavior and achievements.
What can you do about this?
- Take into account the full cost of the result:
Commuting, social interaction, sensory irritants, switching between tasks, and recovery time. If after work you regularly do not have enough energy left to eat and handle basic household tasks, a completed plan does not yet mean that the routine suits you.
- Take your work rhythms into account.
One day of hyperfocus does not show that you can do that all the time. A sustainable work norm has to reflect a pace that does not end in regular exhaustion.
- Use support
Headphones, written agreements, breaks between meetings, a flexible schedule, and help with everyday life do not have to be saved for the moment when you are already completely unable to cope.
- Leave some activities just for pleasure 🎮
You can play games without developing your thinking through them. Draw not for exhibitions, but for yourself. Read detective novels or fiction, not professional literature. Enjoy a hobby without turning it into a new source of income.
The most important thing about such activities is the absence of evaluation, responsibility, and competition.
The American dream with no you left in it
Internalized capitalism rests on a promise:
if you work hard enough, keep developing, and never stop, one day you will reach the point where you can finally live peacefully.
But that point keeps moving farther away. One project ends and the next immediately appears. Income grows, and along with it, your demands on yourself grow. Important tasks never end.
In the pursuit of the American dream, you may fail to notice how your own life has turned into a hell that you yourself diligently administer.
Work is needed for future freedom. Rest is so that you can work better later. Hobbies are for developing skills or earning additional income. Even the body becomes equipment that has to be serviced on time so that it does not interfere with completing tasks.
The calendar is filled with deadlines, learning, exercise, and scheduled recovery. The only thing missing is you alive in it: curiosity, a slow morning, a pointless passion, the desire to change your mind, lie down, or do something simply because you felt like it.
For a neurodivergent person, this trap is especially dangerous.
A huge share of energy is already spent on masking, sensory load, switching, and compensating for executive difficulties. If every remaining resource is directed toward meeting the norm, life narrows down to work and recovery before the next stretch of work.
In this sense, Gregor’s transformation begins before his body changes. He is already living as a function, enduring work he hates, and postponing himself until later. The fantastical transformation only makes this logic visible.
It is important to periodically ask yourself: is there a place for me in my life when I am producing nothing? For interests that do not have to be monetized. For rest that does not have to increase efficiency. For relationships in which I do not have to constantly be convenient and useful.
Ambition, money, and interesting work may remain an important part of life. But if, for their sake, you systematically cut out everything alive, one day you may discover that the American dream has already been built, only there is no one left to live in it.