Nov 124 min read

Long term Autistic Burnout

There are different types of Autistic Burnout that you may experience depending on your circumstances. There is a daily type of burnout which can be caused by lack of capacity for sensory and social input. If you experience frequent sensory and social burnouts over a long time (weeks and months) and you don't have enough time to rest, recover and recharge your mind and body, then it could lead to a more severe autistic burnout. Severe and Long Term Autistic Burnout can happen when the demands of life exceed the capacity in an Autistic person's mind and body over a prolonged period of time. It can take weeks, months, or years to heal, you may need advice from a mental health specialist if you are feeling very depressed or experiencing other mental health difficulties. Please let someone know that you trust so they can get the best advice to help you through this. Lots of people experience the following difficulties in the lead up to or during a severe Autistic burnout. These are all very common experiences; you may find that some are making your life really hard at the moment. Let a trusted person know which ones affect you the most, it may be some, lots, or all of them. Once you can identify the difficulties it becomes easier to know how to make thing better and get some support. Difficulties you may experience in autistic burnout (remember these difficulties may change from moment to moment and day to day, that can be hard for others to sometimes understand, remember your feelings and experiences are valid) Everyday tasks - You may find it harder to do everyday things that you used to find easy (e.g., washing, dressing, organising your school bag, tidying your room and preparing snacks). Memory -You may be more forgetful and have difficulty remembering things people have told you, this can be really frustrating! Decisions – It may be harder to choose what to eat, watch on TV or play with. Not being able to make choices can be stressful and make people anxious. Sensory - You may find sensory things such as different sounds / sights / smells / tastes / textures around you and the need for different movements either increased (hyper-sensory) or decreased (hypo-sensory) due to how sensitive your body is and how it responds. Anxiety – You may feel a lot more anxious than usual. This can also make you experience more headaches, tummy aches or other physical symptoms. Exhaustion - You may feel constantly exhausted, or you may feel a bit like you have too much energy and feel restless and agitated, everyone responds in their own way in burnout. Sleep and diet - Your sleep and diet may be affected, you may find that you are eating / sleeping more or less than usual. Emotions - You may be more emotional, more anxious, more tearful or angry but not really able to understand why. This can be made much more difficult if you have Alexithymia (difficulty understanding emotions) or interoception difficulties (if you find it hard to understand your internal body sensations). Socialising - Burnout is exhausting and makes socialising harder. You may find you don't want to see your friends as much or your friendship groups may change. You will probably want to stay at home much more in your own space where you feel safe and are able to relax so you can try and enjoy the things that make you happy. Communicating - It takes energy to communicate in the way people expect you to. You may find talking much more difficult and writing may feel more demanding too. This may mean you spend more time by yourself and don't talk very much or you may bottle it up and get angry and shout. If you normally use other forms of communication such as signing or AAC then that may be much harder to communicate with too. Special interests - Being autistic means your mind is likely to be naturally monotropic. If you are experiencing burnout, it will be much harder to juggle lots of different tasks and interests. You may find that you need to work harder to focus on one thing at a time, you may feel like you want to spend all your time with your special interests to help manage or you may lose interest in everything you once enjoyed as you feel too depressed and tired. It is important to remember that even though experiencing autistic burnout is REALLY hard you can and will get through this. There are lots of things you can do to make things easier so you can start to feel better. Some great websites and resources include: The Autistic Advocate