Understanding autistic burnout

Autistic burnout is the consequence of a mind fighting too hard, for too long. Most people if they give too much for too long will reach burnout and struggle to keep going. It’s like that but an amplified autism version. What is autism without being a life in the extremes, autistic burnout is no different.

Autistic life is day to day fights others aren’t consciously aware of. It’s a day building up to sending that email and sleepless nights over pressing an intercom button. It’s distressful touches and lights too bright. It’s sensory overload and meltdowns. We fight to stay okay and not lose control in a world that’s just too much to bear.

This is going to take its toll. There is only so long you can fight that hard before you hit a brick wall and can give no more. That is autistic burnout.

I think mine was caused by dealing with all things pandemic. I fought hard, really hard, to stay okay with everything. And for months I won that fight.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about being unable to eat. I now see that was autistic burnout at breaking point. I should have seen the signs. I should have seen the nights slept fully dressed, the meals not eaten, the emails not answered, the social media messages ignored.

When autistic burnout hits it’s like a mind running in safety mode on a computer. You survive, you get through – but there’s no mental energy for much else. It’s a strange hollow feeling of going one day to the next with little motivation. It can also trigger (or worsen) mental health battles.

As my autistic burnout took over July more plates started to fall around me. I hadn’t sent sensory packs in weeks. My emails piled up and my stomach screamed for food. But my attention couldn’t be on those things as by this point, I knew I had pushed my mind too far. The only way to recover is to remove the pressure and create a safe space for my mind to restore itself.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been much more aware of self-care, and when I say self-care, I mean that in an autistic way. That means keeping things extremely sensory friendly, special interests and a routine. I needed to let my mind know it was okay.

Autistic burnout will be different for every autistic person and it’s really hard to explain. It is something that builds for a while and can last a long time, needing time to recover from. I was lucky that mine lasted about a month and I’m now coming out the other side of it ready to get back to everything.  

The fact that autistic burnout is even ‘a thing’ shows that autistic people are constantly pushed too far and too hard for far too long. In this case it was triggered by a global pandemic – nobody’s fault. But often autistic burnout is caused by society putting far too much pressure on us and having far too little understanding.

Society breaks our minds so far that it just stops functioning and pleads for a break.  

Please support autistic people in their daily fights to prevent this. It’s not always the big things. It’s not always going to be a global pandemic. It’s going to be the bashing of sensory overloads, change, communication, masking, subjectivity, etc etc. It builds until we can’t take it and can barely function.

Support us before it gets there. Understand if we do get there. Give us space, time and above all patience.

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