Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm writing this on behalf of my partner, who is awaiting their autism diagnosis next year. He realised he's autistic after doing research for a character (he's a writer) and suddenly found something that explained his entire life (and his lifelong suffering). He is now, about a year and a half after realising he's autistic, suffering from a really intense burnout. It started in January, when university became too much. He'd gotten behind on courses due to getting sick and general overwhelm, and then completely burnt out and couldn't do anything anymore. Since then, doing anything at all has been too much. Days in which he'd push himself to do the dishes would end up in him feeling dizzy and drained and months later, he'd struggling to find his old self back. He can't do the things that are important to him, like finding the energy to write. He's often struggled to write, due to depression, but he's always managed to push through it, but not with this burn out.
I read that many people experience autistic burnout after having masked their autism their entire life (he's 30) and this would make sense for him, especially as he went back to uni during the same period after having not been in such a setting for 10 years.
I have barely been about to find research on autistic burnout, how it works, what it actually is, what to do to help recovery from this kind of a burnout... and he doesn't have a therapist/coach for his autism now as he'd still awaiting diagnosis, so we don't know who to ask or where to go to learn more about this to help him, as this is causing so much suffering it might well burn him out all over again!
Does anyone have experience with autistic burnout? If so, please share your experiences! And if anyone knows of any articles, books, blogs, anything really, that could teach us more about it, that would be amazing.
Thanks so much! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Hi. I don't know for sure but I think I suffered autistic burnout through a job that I was out of my depth in, I loved the job for the first few years as it involved things I was good at and I enjoyed it, but then I got moved and it got more challenging. My role involved more social interaction, which was painful and also I was promoted a few times and ended up with a lot more challenging work. I also was ending a difficult relationship so that didn't help. I started to feel like my brain was foggy, and hard to focus. I started to have to drag myself in to work, and then one lunchtime just ground to halt and went home ill. Anxiety was probably involved as well, and I may have been masking as well which can be draining.
Seeking a diagnosis is good, but its unlikely he will get help for the burnout. Its something you have to live with and can go on for years. Mindfulness helps me, because I get stuck in thought-loops which are draining. There may be past trauma involved as well, so therapy might be a good idea - if possible with an autistic therapist, but that's not always practical.
Your experience of work sounds so like what is happening to me at the moment