Autistic Burnout Is Not Depression. It’s a Life-Threatening Energy Crisis. I spent 6 years recovering from Autistic burnout. Here is what I learned.
#AskingAutistics: Have you ever experienced Autistic burnout? If so, what was it like for you? Were you ever able to recover from it, and if so, how long did it take you to recover?
Autistic burnout is a topic that I know intimately, for multiple reasons.
As an Autistic person who was not identified as such for most of my life, due to not knowing about my Autistic mind and the accompanying needs associated with my Autistic brain and nervous system, I spent most of my life cycling in and out of Autistic burnout.
It was also Autistic burnout that, eventually, led to me finally being diagnosed as Autistic a few months before my 30th birthday.
Being burned out was, for many years, my normal.
What is Autistic burnout?
Autistic burnout is a state of total mental and physical exhaustion that can happen when Autistic people are repeatedly pushed past our limits too often and for too long.
When we are burned out, we can experience what is sometimes called “Autistic regression,” where we lose skills we normally have, or they can become much more difficult for us (like communicating, self-care tasks such as cooking meals, hair and body care like bathing, or other basic daily tasks we’re normally able to do when at our best).
Once in burnout, we are in survival mode, and it can feel like our brains have completely or partially shut down (like a phone in low-power mode, with limited features).
Because of this drain, we may end up doing the bare minimum for survival.
We may stop socializing or having the energy to engage in the activities we normally would have enjoyed (the activities that give our life meaning and actually help recharge us in normal situations).
I also found that, when I was burned out, I was much more sensitive to sensory stimuli, and it was much easier for me to be tipped into overloaded states (sensory overload, shutdowns, and meltdowns), compared to when I was not in active burnout.
What causes Autistic burnout?
For many of us, the main cause of Autistic burnout is living with a constant, heavy load of stress, because the world and its systems often ignore or clash with the needs of Autistic people, combined with pressure to assimilate into that world (that doesn’t support our needs).
These mismatches include masking (hiding Autistic traits to stay safe and do our best to blend in with the non-autistic people around us, because the world can be cruel and dangerous for us if we don’t), dealing with sensory overload (our brains being flooded and then shutting down or shorting out because of overwhelming sensory stimuli such as bright lights, loud noises, smells, etc. or a lack of those sensory stimuli if we’re under-stimulated).
Many of us are also facing frequent social confusion, rejection, and isolation. All of this takes a toll.
Change can be especially hard on Autistic people.
Big life changes, like moving or losing a job or loved one, can also trigger burnout, because these big changes often come with new expectations and can disrupt the routines and structures we depend on to moderate and maintain our energy levels.
Basically, burnout happens when our daily lives demand more energy than our brains and bodies have to give, and we don’t get enough time to properly recover.
Any human can become burned out, but Autistic burnout is differentbecause of the triggers and the fact that the very world we live in, and its structures, by design, are not meeting our needs and are putting extra pressure on us. This means many of us have our lives set up like a precariously balanced house of cards, and any one change can send the whole thing crashing down (on ground that is shaking, making it hard for us to build ourselves back up).
Many Autistic people experience burnout from an early age.
Looking back, knowing what I know now, the first time I experienced this type of burnout was likely in elementary school (possibly even sooner).
From that point on, I spent my life burning out, being burned out, recovering from burnout, or teetering on the edge of burnout, with occasional periods of good health between these cycles.
For most of my life, my burnout was a mystery illness, one that often manifested outwardly in stomach distress that was disruptive enough that it made performing as society demanded I function nearly impossible.
Internally, and unrecognized by the adults around me (largely due to my inability to accurately describe what I was going through), the burnout manifested as exhaustion, trouble sleeping, dizziness, vertigo, headaches, a racing heart, and loss of skills.
I know now, because I understand my sensory processing differences and sensory overload, that a big part of what played into burnout in my case was fatigue from being in a chronic state of hyper-vigilance due to not having my sensory needs met.
The world around me was wearing me down.
Classrooms, grocery stores, public spaces, and eventually, when I grew up, the office I worked in, were impacting me in ways they didn’t affect my peers.
If I had been a character in a video game, it would have been as if I was walking through a room of toxic gas that was slowly but steadily depleting my health bar, and only finding enough items to recharge it to a level that barely kept me alive each day.
Simply existing in spaces not designed for my sensory needs burned away my energy, and being in environments hostile to my senses left me always on edge, because the spaces themselves felt like an assault.
For most of my life I had been playing a game that had been designed for someone else. Learning I was Autistic helped me to realize that I had to change the rules. Escaping burnout wasn’t about finding more willpower – it was about doing something that felt financially terrifying.
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This post was written with the assistance of Focused Space (a sponsor of the Neurodivergent Rebel blog).
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