Published on 12, July, 2020
This may seem like an obvious question. But is there a link between being tired/exhausted and traits being my prevalent? As an example, I often have auditory processing problems but I can normally get my head around what people are saying with little effort. I'm also normally ok with eye contact when talking to people. I do Brazilian jiu jitsu, and recently moved to a new gym where the sparring is a lot more intense than I've been used to. As a result, I regularly find myself exhausted, and I've noticed that after a round of sparring, I really struggle to understand what my training partner is saying to me. I also noticed today when talking to the coach that I was really struggling with eye contact. I'm not sure if there is a question here, or if this is just a "hey I noticed this thing", but I suppose the question would be, does anyone else experience this?
I'm not sure if there is any official correlation between being tired/exhausted and autistic traits becoming more prevalent, but in my experience I think there is almost definitely a link.
In my case I started to suffer from extreme fatigue in 2021 following my 1st COVID vaccination. Back then I had no idea that I am autistic (diagnosed last year). I think that prior to 2021 I had the energy that enabled me to mask quite successfully, but once the fatigue set in I struggled to cope / continue to mask. Around that time I had additional stress whilst trying to get answers from the NHS and Mental Health services.
So, I think that you are correct to link tiredness to increased traits, but I'd also add in the stress / fight or flight mechanism. I'd imagine that sparring isn't only physically tiring, but also mentally exhausting due to the focus needed.