Is non- recoverable ASD burnout a real thing/risk

I had a massive burnout in 2020, and have only just recovered. In late 2019 i self discovered my ASD. Went to my GP who refered me for assment (still waiting!). That was February, then Covid happened. In April my dad died of Covid leaving me to do all the arangements and deal with the care needs of my mum. Thankfully I was on furlough otherwise I probably would have never come back. It all just totally broke me, too much change and too much responsibility, I can just about look after myself. I can remember around October 2020 I want back to work and had a as$h0le moan at me in a car park for parking too close and I totally lost it once out of sight. I felt the whole world was just being nasty to me, nobody cared. Only my wife was there for me , but even they we had big money problems. It was a very slow progress but an ease back into work in 2021 helped alot. Earlier this year I was made redundant. Got a job straight away but hated it and found the strength to quit after 8 weeks. That was a big thing for me and did my confidence a massive boost. 

I think if I had been working at the time I would have not come back. However I also have something massive driving me that tell me how I must be 'normal'. Theat just wont quit. I lost my mum in November and that was a massive release becuase I was nolonger responsable for anybody but me. I was am now back to where I was in 2019 except I am stronger. I am also working towards semi retirement, it is good to have a target and i can't wait.

Thank you  

Golly....quite a journey you describe!  Never say never though.  I commend your decisiveness in regard to your self-preservation, but also recommend that you maintain plasticity of purpose?!

Welcome to this place.  I hope you find connection and comfort here.

I have been in an autistic burnout for the past 6 years. I was diagnosed with autism 5 years ago and adhd a year ago. 

I had my first autistic burnout at 18 months old and was hospitalised in an isolation room for 3 weeks with no treatment of any kind, then after 3 weeks of isolation I ‘mysteriously recovered’, and looking back on my life, that was the first of many burnouts throughout my life. Although I became excellent at masking and getting through life.

However, over the last 16 years, the burnouts became more frequent, lasted longer and the come back period seemed to get harder. And in the last 6 years, I lost the ability to function to any reasonable degree at all. I lost my memory to the degree I forgot how to eat and lost my ability to communicate other than to put on a mask when faced with people (this was feeble but automatic after years of practice and because I rarely saw anybody, it kept my family from asking too many questions that I couldn’t answer and was just enough to enable me to keep on hiding until I figured out what was happening to me. I thought I would never recover, even with lots of support from autism plus and other places, until a few weeks ago. 

A few weeks ago, my 34 year old son broke up with his partner and came to stay with me for a while, and this turned out to be the thing that finally turned my life around.

I usually live by myself and when my son came to stay, I was unable to hide from the fact and was face to face with the fact, that I could never recover from this burnout and become anything like the person I have been for the past 55 years. I realised the game was over and there was nothing I could do about that. For whatever reason, there was no one at fault or to blame here, it was too late in the day for that, because it was over.

I haven’t seen any of my family over Christmas; my son hasn’t spoke to me since he walked out of my house in a rage at me over a week ago, I spoke to my mum on Christmas Eve and that’s it. I phoned to tell her to have a nice Christmas and to not worry about me, even though they have excluded me from their Christmas, because I’m done with their non-acceptance of me/autism, and I’m turning things around and so I told her to enjoy her Christmas because I was going to enjoy mine.

And I did. I lost my whole family in one go, but I gained my life, and I honestly had the best Christmas I’ve ever had in my life. Of course I am still working through the sorrow and the loss of the illusion that was my life, but already things are looking up and I’ll be starting this coming year off from a good place instead of one of recovering from the hell of Christmas, that I endured every year because I thought that because I was with my family, things were ok, but I failed to see the damage their response to me had on me, and as such I failed to see how much I allowed people to abuse me over the years. It all makes sense now.

But really, what I have lost is my attachment to the myth of ‘the family’, which means that instead of always putting the needs of my family first, I can now begin to put my needs first, because I also lost the ability to allow myself to go un-noticed and I lost the ability to pass my needs off as me being awkward or whatever, so others feel more comfortable, and instead I’m recognising and acknowledging my needs and setting myself up/setting my environment and routines up in a way that supports me, and I’m growing a network of friends or people that accept me and my differences and work with me, so I can offer my unique gifts to the world and be a member of society like everybody else, albeit in my way, that will look different to the way that a non autistic person’s life looks.

So I think recovery from burn out’s,  all depends on each person’s personal circumstances, which I think is often marked by how much support a person has from family and friends, and for me, my autistic and adhd needs were never fully recognised or met so a toxic pattern was set up that I was unable to break, until I finally burned out to the degree I couldn’t recover, and my only choice then was to die or begin to live as me, because after all, what have I now got to loose after loosing not only my former idea of who I was and my former life/lifestyle, work etc, but also my whole family. I was living to an invisible imbedded rule of always putting my family and others first, that I had to be forced into total breakdown before I could begin to see that I was worthy of having my needs met as well, regardless of how different they might be to others and regardless of who else can or can’t accept them, because I realised, if I don’t recognise and accept my needs, nobody else will and we all have fundamental needs that have to be met for us to thrive. So my burnout was non-returnable in one sense, but in another, it returned to me my real, unmasked self and a chance to live a full life, which doesn’t include trying to fit in and live and look like a neurotypical person, which was taking more from me than I ever really realised and that’s when it culminated in a non-returnable burnout, which has been heart wrenching beyond belief at times, but getting through to the other side, has all but wiped away all  that heartache, and enables me to finally live according to truth and authenticity, which is priceless to a person that values truth above societal norms.

Hi, I don’t know if burnouts can be permanent, it tends to be the brain just protecting itself. To put it in my trade terms , I work on cars, if a sensor or any part of the engine fails it goes into limp home mode, the engine will have basic function and work at a much reduced capacity until the fault is repaired. I am 55 and went into a burnout not long after a realised I’m autistic. A year later I am starting to come out of it. I lost interest in everything and was just stuck in limp home mode, I’m self employed but luckily my wife works full time. What I have done is to not take on so much work and I have stopped people just turning up at my workshop, trying to communicate with people when they randomly arrived was too much. I restore classic cars mainly so I lock the gates now and work alone. Trying to process a whole life through the eyes of an autistic person was too much, my brain shutdown to give it time to process everything and repair itself. I now have the family house for sale and we  plan to start a new  life in Cornwall with no mortgage and less stress. My advice is to take on less. I know it’s easy to say but you can see what is going to happen otherwise.

My personal opinion is that the brain/mind is plastic, even the autistic version, and that very little is irrecoverable from, given time. Also some types of work-related stress are more damaging than others. For 24 years I was a full-time research scientist; producing results, coping with the inevitable failures, writing grant proposals etc. is stressful. I could have coped with that stress until I was 65 or older, quite easily. However, the grant money finally failed to be renewed - not that our performance or output dipped at all - so I moved sideways into managing scientific facilities in a research institute. The stress of providing services for many people and dealing with other people's problems was a type of stress that I found much more erosive of my mental wellbeing. As a result, when offered early retirement at 59, I took it without a second thought.

Don't keep going until you go B O O M !

You are in a good position because you know what you are and always have been.  I did not, so tried to "power through.". Bad mistake...HUGE.

And to answer your question.....Catastrophic burnout IS defo a real thing.

Wishing you a peaceful and reflective day.

x

PS....And for the avoidance of doubt, my reference to "burnout" above should have been more accurately described as "autistic burnout.". Thanks to Debbie for the prompt on that.  It's real.  I lost at least half a decade and many, many zeros as a result!

Thank you. I do tend to accept anecdotal evidence over research when looking for a pov of an actual aspie. Research seems to concentrate on NT’s learning about ‘handling us’ rather than helping us. 
And I’m glad you’re in a better place, I hope I can balance my aspie burnout with my workaholic issues. 

PS , I also found certain tools and techniques invaluable

1 Transcendental Meditation

2 NLP

both superb for calming the Autistic brain

If it helps? I was in a similar situation and retired at 60 (now 66) mainly because the world was catching up with my autism and as much as it was a huge decision it was, in hindsight, a good decision. I have done some selective work since then (mergers and acquisitions) on my terms. I have now more or less stopped work completely and concentrate on my charity work, which I love. 
My finely tuned ability to mask was eventually debilitating! completely exhausting. With the brilliant support of my family and one friend I am now in a much better place. 
Was I heading to ASD burnout? most likely, do I still have demons and challenges? you betcha I do? am I happy? Indeed I am and still trying to find that elusive perfect balance. Best wishes to you on your quest and kindest regards.