I want to write a post about Autistic Burnout. I’m not sure I really like using labels such as autism because no two autistic beings are the same and having the same diagnoses doesn’t mean you’re going to get on with somebody. But Autistic Burnout is still a thing which more people need to be aware of.

According to AASPIRE, “autistic burnout is a state of physical and mental fatigue, heightened stress, and diminished capacity to manage life skills, sensory input, and/or social interactions, which comes from years of being severely overtaxed by the strain of trying to live up to demands that are out of sync with our needs.”

Kieran has written a great article about autistic burn out on theautisticadvocate.com

Autistic Burnout can last weeks, months, or even years. What pushes us into extreme burnout, as Kieran discusses, is usually the day to day overwhelm combined with an event or trauma. Or, the weight of life building to a point where the autistic person has to cease to function. Kieran likens Autistic Burnout to a computer going into safe mode:

“If you’ve ever had a problem with a computer and it’s had to go into safe mode – that would describe what happens to the brain – it runs on limited function, not all services are available – it’s access to the Internet (my Rolodex, as I described in The inside of Autism: The world inside my head) denied and unable to connect. No little white bars to indicate how strong or weak the signal is, because it’s just not there.”

When we reach Autistic Burnout, masking often goes out the window and our autism becomes a lot more obvious to other people. Kieran lists some of the signs and symptoms of Autistic Burnout:

  • A growing lethargy
  • An increase in irritability
  • An increase in anxiety
  • An increase in over-sensitivity to sensory information
  • A dramatic decrease in sensitivity to sensory information
  • Heightened Auditory processing disorder
  • A decrease in verbal language
  • A decrease in text language
  • An increase in Shutdowns and heightened withdrawn state
  • An increase in the frequency and severity of Meltdowns
  • A diminished ability for the person to self-regulate their emotional state
  • The slowing down of the thought processes
  • Brain fog
  • Memory loss 
  • A decrease in your ability to effectively communicate what you want 
  • A decrease in motivation
  • An inability to generate momentum of body and of action
  • An increase of rigidity, narrowing of thinking
  • A feeling like your vision is tighter or narrower
  • Extreme forgetfulness
  • Extreme overwhelm
  • A massive increase in guilt
  • An increase in Executive Dysfunction
  • An increase in Demand Avoidance

My burnout has reached a point where I have spent almost half a year mute. I have been writing everything down and getting a robot on my phone to speak for me, when I even have the energy for this. The event that pulled the trigger was when I was discriminated against (again) while in hospital last year. The hospital refused to give me proper care due to my diagnoses of autism and BPD (which I’m not sure I even agree with) and then told me I couldn’t stay in PARC, a mental health respite facility, if I wouldn’t speak.

Right now the universe seems to be tidying up my contacts list for me. People are exiting my life, and I am exiting their’s. I no longer have any patience for demanding people, and will not hesitate to click the block button. I am in the process of editing my memoir and, interestingly, I’m up to a part where I talk about all this. Years ago I wrote about struggling to maintain relationships. In the memoir I talk about how sometimes I could only reply to one message a month.

“A few people started guilting me into responding, telling me I was a bad friend. One man, who I had met on YouTube, told me I was torturing his heart by not replying.

‘It’s hard enough that I have to wait days, weeks, or even months to hear from you!’ he wrote to me. ‘The people who actually care about you deserve better than that because you are and always will be a part of our world and there really are people who love you or will love you one day so love us too! We badly need it!’

Another woman I’d met kept wanting to speak on the phone. She then told me I was ‘self-absorbed’, that I ‘don’t want to get better’, and that I wasn’t ‘pushing myself enough’. She told me no one would want to be friends with me when I didn’t want to change my life. I decided I’d rather be alone than have friends like this so I ended these relationships.

I have strangers messaging me on Instagram, and then following up their messages with “Are you there?”, “Hello?” etc. when I don’t reply. They have now been blocked, and my privacy settings have been changed.

It’s a little different when it comes from a friend, and especially somebody who is supposedly autistic as well so should understand things like Autistic Burnout. There is a sense of betrayal, a sense of being turned on that reinforces my verbal shutdown and withdrawal from the world. I feel like no body can be trusted, not even supposed friends.

I do not feel right since drinking so much alcohol on Sat night. I’m getting these “pulses” all over my body, like a vein has just combusted. I am suffering, struggling immensely to live in my own body. I’m scared that I may have to live with this for the rest of my life, and quite frankly do not have time for someone carrying on because I haven’t replied to their message, because our communication is too slow, or because I’ve disappeared on them.