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New here and looking to hear from others who have experienced autistic burnout

coolbanana

Hi everyone,

I’m new to the community and wanted to introduce myself. I’m a 52-year-old man, and I’m trying to understand and recover from what I think may be autistic burnout.

I’d really like to hear from other autistic adults who have been through burnout themselves. I’m especially interested in what it felt like for you, how you recognised it, what helped, and what didn’t help.

I’m not looking for medical advice, just lived experience and peer support from people who understand. I’m finding it difficult to explain this to people who haven’t experienced it, so I thought this might be a good place to start.

If anyone is comfortable sharing, I’d be grateful to hear how burnout affected you and what helped you begin to recover.

Thanks for reading.

Parents

  • Hello, I'm also new to the community here! 

    Burnout for me has been mostly depressive episodes in my youngers years but it escalated and changed to panic attacks, anxiety and agoraphobia in later years. I'm still living with the residue of this at 48. 

    When I've been in complete and total burn out, I lose most of my ability to function and just go into a total freeze state. All self care grounds to a halt. Basic tasks become impossible such as getting dressed or washing. Mood becomes erratic and irritability increases massively.     

    I was lucky enough to have been given some support during my last acute burnout episode and I've spent the last 6 years recovering from it slowly. Good solid routines have helped. Having a support person come round regularly each week has helped. She is able to tackle real world things that overwhelm me. Prioritising my physical health with good sleep hygiene, diet and exercise has helped. All these aspects took years to evolve into the routines I have today.

    Learning to be compassionate and caring towards myself, especially when I have a negative critical dialogue in my head, has helped. Meditation has helped, although I couldn't do it at the start due to a lack of focus and no motivation. It's taking a number of years to get any degree of focus back when undertaking tasks. 

    I live alone and solitude helps a lot for me, especially when my central nervous system is activated. Peace and quiet is also very healing for me and I'm finally in an environment where I get enough quietness (mostly!). 

    I started off with one small thing to change so as not to overwhelm my already overwhelmed system and gradually built up from there. It has taken time but it all adds up. My last burnout was so brutal (I ended up in hospital for 4 months) that I've vowed never to allow myself to get in that state again. This motivates me with my routines for maintaining good health and wellbeing.

    I'm sorry you have experienced burnout. It really is a brutal awful experience that most people have no clue exists! I hope you can find a way out from it soon. 

Reply

  • Hello, I'm also new to the community here! 

    Burnout for me has been mostly depressive episodes in my youngers years but it escalated and changed to panic attacks, anxiety and agoraphobia in later years. I'm still living with the residue of this at 48. 

    When I've been in complete and total burn out, I lose most of my ability to function and just go into a total freeze state. All self care grounds to a halt. Basic tasks become impossible such as getting dressed or washing. Mood becomes erratic and irritability increases massively.     

    I was lucky enough to have been given some support during my last acute burnout episode and I've spent the last 6 years recovering from it slowly. Good solid routines have helped. Having a support person come round regularly each week has helped. She is able to tackle real world things that overwhelm me. Prioritising my physical health with good sleep hygiene, diet and exercise has helped. All these aspects took years to evolve into the routines I have today.

    Learning to be compassionate and caring towards myself, especially when I have a negative critical dialogue in my head, has helped. Meditation has helped, although I couldn't do it at the start due to a lack of focus and no motivation. It's taking a number of years to get any degree of focus back when undertaking tasks. 

    I live alone and solitude helps a lot for me, especially when my central nervous system is activated. Peace and quiet is also very healing for me and I'm finally in an environment where I get enough quietness (mostly!). 

    I started off with one small thing to change so as not to overwhelm my already overwhelmed system and gradually built up from there. It has taken time but it all adds up. My last burnout was so brutal (I ended up in hospital for 4 months) that I've vowed never to allow myself to get in that state again. This motivates me with my routines for maintaining good health and wellbeing.

    I'm sorry you have experienced burnout. It really is a brutal awful experience that most people have no clue exists! I hope you can find a way out from it soon. 

Children
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