Autistic Burnout

No End In Sight

I want to give everyone a glimpse behind the curtain, so to speak, to share what Autistic burnout feels like.

I've been in Autistic burnout for a little over a year, honestly, maybe more. It's pretty hard to track with everything that's happened over the last 12 months.

A lot of Allistic (Non-Autistic) people move through burnout throughout life. It's an ebb and flow process, and typically, rest, restoration, time away, and some good supports in place tend to alleviate the pressure.

With Autistic burnout, alleviation doesn't really exist, at least not in a "typical sense." Sure, we can do things like sensory soothe, put boundaries in place, unmask when we feel safe enough to do so, but that doesn't mean that the Autistic burnout will just "go away."

Autistic burnout is pervasive, and a very common experience for Autistic people. This is when we are so far outside of our capacity and limitations, that all we can do is just FUCKING exist.

We live in a hectic, busy, capitalist society. Demands pile up, and they increase, and they don't stop.

For me, when I'm in Autistic burnout, each demand creates an increase in irritability, frustration, and because I am so far beyond my capacity and limitations in functioning, I start to experience an intensity and increase in meltdowns and shutdowns.

More often than not, I err towards shutdown and dissociation. It's always been been easier for me to move into this space, and to simply "exist."

However, when I'm deep in Autistic burnout, meltdowns become increasingly more common.

I am and have been experiencing meltdowns multiple times a day, which for me, is an indication that I am so far beyond my limits, that there is no coming back. At least not a way that creates any sort of immediate relief or alleviation.

Meltdowns for me mean that I am significantly more irritated, frustrated, and emotionally and sensory depleted and destroyed.

Little things become big. They become gigantic. They become unmovable objects

When I'm in this space, I hardly leave my house. I sit or lay in the darkness of my own home, unable to speak, function, or socialize.

My mental health deteriorates, and it does so rapidly. Deep, dark, depression, embraces me like a suffocating and unwanted hug.

I begin to struggle so fucking much with proprioception, that I constantly feel like I can't access my body, and that I am desperately trying to use intense pressure to "stuff" my soul and my entire being back inside of myself.

My go-to solutions and strategies no longer work. Special interests don't create joy or wonder. I become significantly more reclusive, unable to spend time with people who care about me.

The never ending and unrelenting hypervigilance that I so often experience on a daily basis, where I am tracking my sensory system and how it's impacted, becomes increasingly more sensitive, and unable to protect itself.

The solutions become.......Disappear. Put your entire fucking life on Do Not Disturb. Get off the grid.

The demands never stop. My ability to manage them is non-existent. I think this is why as someone with a PDA profile (Pervasive Demand for Autonomy AKA Pathological Demand Avoidance), I've fantasized about retiring since I was a child. It was never because I was "lazy, or didn't want to work." It was always because the demands of life, the nonstop sensory overwhelm, and the constant Autistic burnout, takes its fucking toll.

The flip side to all of this as an AuDHD human is that my ADHD parts struggle mightily to slow down, to feel intellectually under stimulated, and are unbelievably fearful of boredom. Boredom and restlessness often leads to major depression.

These two neurotypes AKA brain types are constantly at war. They are always colliding. Autism waves the white flag, desperately, and ADHD pushes the gas pedal down even fucking harder.

This is when I have to actually remove myself from things that I've committed to, which is always a challenge in feeling guilty. But, it's also an absolute necessity and potentially life saving.

This is not a "cry for help," as some of you may think or experience it.

I just need to get this out there, and share the truly torturous, hellacious existence that is my day-to-day and reality.