Autistic Burnout In a Capitalist Hellscape
Living inside Autistic burnout after the mask comes off
I've been talking about my experiences with Autistic burnout for what feels like forever.
Honestly, I can't even pinpoint when this last period of burnout started. I know it was at least before Hurricane Helene here in WNC.
Over the last few years, post Autism discovery, I've learned and unlearned so much about myself.
There has been an enormous amount of deconstruction work that's needed to be done in order to better understand myself, my needs, and to unpack internalized ableism.
The thing that feels particularly demoralizing is that no matter how hard I work to restructure and reorganize my life, and no matter how hard I work to prioritize my ability to step away, set boundaries, and sensory soothe, nothing has changed.
In fact........it has gotten worse.
Being an AuDHD entrepreneur and business owner means that demands pile up, as do partnership and collaboration requests. The more my audience has grown, the more messages I receive. The more emails I delete. The more overwhelming things have become.
Before my Autism discovery, I was such a high masker that although I know I struggled mightily, I definitely did not struggle the way I do now, once the veil was lifted, so to speak.
Once I was no longer able to suppress my Autistic traits, I started to notice how impacted I was in all areas of my life. Being hypersensitive is fucking overwhelming. I constantly feel like I'm being shocked, like an exposed nerve ending.
I have become increasingly more reclusive as my burnout has intensified.
I have said no to more things that I can count, causing my ADHD massive distress, but clinging desperately to the belief that this would help me finally start to climb out from under this unbelievably heavy feeling.
Despite these drastic measures, we are still in this space……
I have closed my calendar down, have stopped doing partnerships, and have only said YES to things that I absolutely had to or wanted to. And still, this has not helped.
I decided to make some major pivots in my business, announcing that I'd no longer be hosting retreats anymore because of how much energy they've taken out of me. And still, this has not helped.
I rationally understand that I have pushed myself beyond my limits and capacity for years, and that it has compounded and caught up to me in a way that I never thought imaginable.
Depression has intensified mightily, as have my OCD struggles. The little bit of joy that I used to experience during monotropic flow and creativity have felt inaccessible for a long fucking time.
Despite closing my world down around me, I have still continued to struggle.
The hard thing to wrap my brain around is that it does not feel like there is a way out of it without fully shutting things down and stepping away from everything and anything for an extended period of time.
I am grateful to be privileged enough to say that I can step away for 60-90 days to take care of myself. I also know that owning 3 businesses means that the demands do not cease to exist, nor do the responsibilities.
It also scares the ever loving shit out of me to acknowledge that without a DRASTIC reset, the implications could be physically life threatening or worse.........
As Autistic burnout intensifies, mental and physical health struggles often are exacerbated simultaneously.
I get sick so often that it feels like my immune system will inevitably collapse.
I constantly fear what will happen if I end up in complete nervous system shutdown.
Living in a capitalist, hustle culture hellscape that rewards you for what you can produce further reinforces the idea that slowing down or stepping away are not possibilities.
But......
I am choosing to do so sooner than later. If I do not prioritize myself and my health, then everything will cease to exist, no matter how hard I've worked to keep all of the plates spinning. They will all come crashing down.
I have backed out of as many obligations and responsibilities as humanly possible, and will continue to do so to prioritize my health and to stay alive. I want to keep fighting. I want to keep existing. That I know to be true (especially for any of you reading this and worrying about that)
Fuck! This is honestly such a hard place to be. Physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
If you resonate with any of this, I just want you to know that I see you. Your life matters. And that I fucking get it.
The other piece to this with what I experience and you might relate to… trying so hard to heal from burnout and doing everything right creates another pressure on ourselves… taking the pressure off to heal and embracing that I live with a disability means healing isn’t my aim anymore. I too am a “recovering therapist “ and I think we are just so deeply marinated in the world of “get better get better get better “ that this becomes part of the problem too.
This is painfully familiar. And what keeps screaming for me as I read it is that you didn’t fail to heal. The environment failed to stop demanding.
There’s a brutal lie baked into the culture that says if we just set better boundaries, pivot smarter, optimize harder, we’ll recover. But when the water itself is toxic, rearranging your swim strokes doesn’t save you.
What you’re describing isn’t a personal shortcoming or a lack of resilience. It’s the predictable outcome of living with an exposed nervous system inside a society that rewards extraction, visibility, and constant availability, then calls it “success.”
I’m really glad you’re choosing yourself anyway. That choice is not weakness or quitting. It’s refusal. It’s staying alive in a world that keeps asking people like us to disappear quietly.
Thank you for naming this so clearly. It matters more than you know.