After The Brew: Burnt Out, Pain Tolerant & The Investigative Journey Into My Own Body

Darren comes clean in this episode of After The Brew — he is completely burnt out, and he's done pretending otherwise. Brain fog, work exhaustion, a lengthy investigation on his desk, and a body that has physical energy trapped somewhere it can't get out. He talks about converting whatever he has left into mental energy just to read, record, and write. He reflects on growing up with Darrell — speech classes, failed tests, teachers who couldn't reach them — and how nobody in the 90s thought to look deeper at ADHD, autism, or dyslexia. The late diagnosis problem is real, and masking made it worse. He talks about what Columbo and Miles Davis mean to him — two different portraits of the same truth: I know what I'm doing, let me do it. He gets into pain tolerance, working through migraines, toothaches, earaches, and a fractured foot — and wonders out loud if that's an autism trait. And then he lands on the thing driving everything right now: the investigative journalism series he's building around his own body — COVID, diabetes, weight gain, long-haul symptoms — a 12-part Substack series he's outlining piece by piece. He went 25 minutes instead of 11. He noticed. He kept going anyway.After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, burnout, brain fog, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, late diagnosis, masking, pain tolerance, Columbo, Miles Davis, Darrell Watts, speech classes, learning disabilities, COVID, long COVID, diabetes, weight gain, obesity, Mounjaro, independent journalism, Substack, 12 part series, physical energy, mental energy, sleep deprivation, CPAP, real talk, Black podcast, June 2026, investigative journalism, nobody called it long COVID,"I know what I'm doing, let me do it" -Darren Watts