Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
50’s diagnosis in the acceptance phase.
I’ve been reading about ASD burnout where it can be so bad it ends in selective mutism. I’m a relatively successful businessman and scared of this, my family would suffer as all the information is literally inside my head. I could/am put/putting systems in place (and currently in the process of this).
The downside of my ASD is I’m also incredibly high functioning and I’m not convinced anyone else would have the capacity to take over and cope even with systems in place.
This is the scary part - I know I’m burning out and maybe have a few years left (weird I know this) before I crash and burn and will need to retire/part retire.
How real is the risk of non returnable ASD burnout? The thought of hitting that at retirement (more like ASD enforced retirement) secretly fills me with joy and sadness. The joys would be the peace I’ve never had, the downside is not caring about my loved ones and significant others and I know I’d be selfish to protect myself - it actually brings me to tears when I think about this. us it a real risk or just non aspies research shite? Tia x
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.