Transcription
If you're autistic and you've been feeling exhausted, numb, and unable to cope with life demands that you previously managed just fine, then this might be autistic burnout. Perhaps you tried resting for a few days and you still felt just as exhausted. If this is you and has been the case for several months, then it's very likely you're experiencing autistic burnout.
Autistic burnout is an experience that many autistic people have had. Previously, autistic burnout was only really something that was spoken about in autistic communities. But the Royal College of Psychiatry have been defining autistic burnout in their literature and it is being talked about more by mental health professionals and being established as kind of like a more accepted, understood and legitimate thing.
Autistic burnout is often the result of someone who is autistic and is having to cope with environments, demands, masking, all of which are taking them above their capacity and they are not receiving adequate support in order to do these things. And eventually what happens is the nervous system after coping for so long just kind of shuts down. It just kind of says, "I can't do this anymore." because your nervous system is kind of trying to protect you from the stress that you've been experiencing for such a long time.
The result, you're going to see increased sensory sensitivities, reduced executive functioning skills, reduced ability to emotionally regulate. You might see some loss of skills and extreme fatigue that just doesn't get better after a few days rest. Losing skills can be one of the things that's really scary about experiencing autistic burnout because you might previously have been able to have say managed a family, go to work, cook, socialize, organize, and keep in control of your life. And suddenly, it's not a case of only that you're too tired to do these things. It's that you literally have lost the ability to do some of these things. Losing these skills can be really frightening because you might feel like, am I ever going to be able to do these things again? Like, is this me now? Am I just kind of in this situation where I can't function? And that's really overwhelming.
Those executive functioning skills, often described as the brain's organization center, can be an area that we've already got some challenges. But this might just increase even more to the point where you're like becoming more forgetful, experiencing more brain fog, struggling to focus on your task. And one of those executive functioning skills, the ability to regulate your emotions, having extra challenges in that area might be difficult. Not only because experiencing it is difficult, but also because being perceived as someone who can't control their emotions can impact on our relationships in terms of the way that people might then perceive you and then like the way that you might perceive yourself. So I would urge you if you are to be compassionate with yourself that this isn't something that you're doing wrong is a completely normal experience for an autistic person in this situation.
You might find that your sensory sensitivities become more intense. So, if you were previously noise sensitive, but you could cope in a noisy environment if it wasn't too long, you might find that you now absolutely can't be there. And for some people, this might be the first time that you become aware of those sensory sensitivities. Perhaps you've been masking so hard and for so long that you're just used to pushing through. And now that those sensory sensitivities have increased and you can't push through, you suddenly realize you've got them.
You might have tried resting. This isn't on its own likely to work because even with rest, you might still be in the same environments coping with the same demands, doing the same amount of masking in your day-to-day life. So, you're not going to recover because the nervous system has shut down because it can't cope with that anymore. This isn't just tired. This is system shutdown. And as such, it needs more attention and more specific support.
So, what's actually likely to help with autistic burnout will vary from person to person because my needs are different to your needs. We're all individual people. But as a general rule, one of the first areas to look at is how can you reduce demands? Now, I get it. If you've got kids, you've got a job. It's not always easy to just say, "Right, I'll just reduce my demands." I'd recommend taking a really good look at your life and making sure that you are taking anything out that isn't absolutely essential. and be ruthless. If it's not necessary for your survival at this time, put it to one side. Don't aim for perfection. You can't take every demand out of your life. I mean, maybe you can and you've got that kind of support, which is brilliant, and if so, do so. But if you can't, don't feel like you're failing at recovering from burnout. Just take everything that you can out and create as low a demand schedule as you possibly can for yourself.
And then we look at environments. What environments are triggering your sensory sensitivities? What environments are putting a load on your nervous system? and we're gonna say nope to these environments. Again, all of this advice is with a pinch off where possible. But it's okay when you're recovering from burnout to say no to the social event, no to the party, no to the barbecue.
And then we get to the masking aspect of burnout. High masking increases your risk of autistic burnout. But unmasking is an incredibly complex, nuanced topic, and it's not always possible for everyone. Essentially, unmasking is a privilege. So, I'm not going to advise you to just unmask. What I'm going to say is start the journey of exploring masking, the impact of masking on your central nervous system, and perhaps where you can reduce some of that impact within the context of your life and where it's safe to do so. I have made other content about masking and unmasking. So, if you want to explore that further, I'd recommend you go and look at that.
I want to end this video by talking about the burnout cycle. Maybe you've experienced this. You've had an autistic burnout. You thought you recovered. you went back into your life, sometime later, another burnout, and so on and so forth until perhaps you hit the burnout of all burnouts, at which point you have to acknowledge that something needs to change. Don't worry, this is a very typical cycle. But ultimately, what's happening is you've perhaps thought you were recovered, but not been fully recovered. And then you've gone back into your life with the same demands that caused your nervous system to say nope to begin with. And so it's going to keep repeating. So the bigger picture challenge is how to design a life that doesn't lead to these burnout cycles. And that life needs to be within your capacity, whatever that looks like for you. So something to think about is the bigger picture of autistic burnout and what it's telling you. I hope you found this video useful. I'll see you next time.