Autistic Burnout
29 Jul 2023, 11:18 pm
_________________
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
Canadian Freedom Lover
Raven
Joined: 16 Dec 2022
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Posts: 110
Location: Vancouver Canada
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,494
Location: Long Island, New York
08 Feb 2024, 9:42 am
Getting Fired Cured My Autistic Burnout
Quote:
On a random Friday in October of last year, I got fired from my first corporate job. When I hopped into the virtual meeting, I knew it was all over and I was angry at myself for ever believing otherwise. It was truly my dream job, but it was also the reason I was so drained all the time. After working there for two and a half years, I knew I was burnt out — but I didn't realize the magnitude of it until I was forced to stop.
"I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation."
While I was there, I got my work done and I was excellent at it. I was beloved by many across the company. I even took on extra work on the side because I adored what I was doing. Behind the scenes, though, I was struggling. I struggled to wake up in the morning. I struggled to focus, and when I finally could, I would hyper-focus and forget to eat or go to the bathroom. I struggled to eat three times a day. I would be way too exhausted and anxious to go make something for myself in the kitchen — there were just too many steps, sometimes even microwaving felt overwhelming. Then, at night, I struggled to fall asleep. It was an endless cycle.
I struggled to maintain my relationships, and I felt like I was always screwing up my communication and saying the wrong thing. I would have flare-ups of my chronic pain, and I would go through periods where I didn't leave my apartment and rarely left my room. I would throw up if something too stressful happened. I'd get the urge to cry in the office randomly, and would need to step away to work by myself somewhere quietly. I had a panic attack because the texture of my clothes was wrong. I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation: I was experiencing autistic burnout.
As Danielle Aubin, LCSW, an autistic social worker and TikTok creator, explains, autistic burnout is "almost like a medical emergency. It's when someone loses the capacity to participate in society in ways that would sustain them, whether that be employment, family obligations, or hygiene." Aubin continues: "They essentially used to be able to have some level of employment — maybe a very high level of employment. They've been really successful their whole life, and then all of the sudden something happens, or it's like the straw that broke the camel's back, and like they can't even brush their teeth."
Early last year, I started getting TikToks about autism, and the more I read about it and the more I listened to the perspectives of marginalized autistic people, the more I realized this was me. There was an explanation for my entire life. In 2020, I had taken an ADHD/autism assessment, and the therapist said the only reason she didn't think I had autism was because I made eye contact and was too socialized. Everyone who knows me, though, knows that I have always very much struggled with making eye contact.
I still haven't gotten an official diagnosis. But last year, before I was fired, I took all the research and gave myself a self-diagnosis to make sense of my own mind and how I view the world. It wasn't because I wanted a label, but because I yearned for an explanation so I could figure out the correct coping skills. Finally feeling like I had an explanation was comforting but overwhelmingly sad at the same time. You become aware of just how much of a struggle everything is — you can no longer disassociate through it.
Apparently, my experience isn't uncommon. "I work with a lot of late-diagnosed people. So, they've spent their whole lives up until adulthood, sometimes older adulthood, without knowing they're autistic," Aubin says. "That means they were potentially pushing themselves really hard to look a certain way or perform a certain way, even though it was detrimental and overwhelmed them."
Another aspect that complicates this is the PDA profile, which I suspect I also have. PDA, also known as pathological demand avoidance or persistent drive for autonomy, is a behavior that some people on the autism spectrum exhibit. "It's a behavioral profile that basically is like a nervous-system disability where your autonomy or equality is threatened in your environment, you have a nervous-system threat response. It can seem very extreme, and it overrides other survival instincts. So you prioritize autonomy over the need for food or water, for example," explains Kathleen Duncan, LMFT, a PDA autistic TikTok creator and therapist who specializes in working with other autistic adults.
Because I've only been learning about myself recently, I have a lot of internalized ableism to work through. It's difficult to take myself seriously and advocate for myself when all I hear are all the invalidating things adults in my life have said to me — whether it's calling me dramatic and lazy or insisting I'm faking my symptoms. But I wish I had recognized it all sooner and been kinder to myself.
Back in October, I didn't want to lose my job. I knew it wasn't working for me, but I was too scared to quit. I also didn't want to get fired; I grew up watching my mom get fired and struggle to find jobs in Puerto Rico. I didn't want to do that. I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to me.
But having a framework to think about how I experience the world has been crucial in the time since I got fired. Initially, I thought taking time off would heal the burnout and that by the time I got back to work, I would go back to how I used to be, like when I first started my job. As I've learned, that simply isn't the case for most autistic folks.
"If you're burnt out and not autistic, it's more than likely you will recover. It's just that you need to go rest, and it will fill back up. But with autistic people and burnout, it doesn't just fill back up. It could potentially take years to recover from that, and some people don't necessarily recover back to the way they were before," Aubin says.
No matter how much I've tried to convince myself to try harder, to care more, to be just like I used to be, it hasn't worked. In the eyes of capitalism and corporations, it's only acceptable to struggle with chronic pain or with your mental health if it eventually goes away and you go back to "normal." Now I know that there is no way I would've healed where I was working.
It's not perfect, and I'm still looking for a full-time job (if only for health insurance), but I feel like I can finally breathe without feeling like I'm doing something wrong or misreading some sort of unspoken corporate rule. I wake up without feeling like I've missed an important meeting. I'm able to go to my kitchen and make myself a simple meal without dying of anxiety. I enjoy the freedom and lack of demand from freelancing. I don't hate myself for feeling too tired to work and forcing myself to do it anyway. Instead, I accommodate myself. I go with my own flow of work.
I don't want to say I'm grateful for getting fired, but I do believe it happened for a reason — and I'm glad I have finally realized what that reason was.
"I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation."
While I was there, I got my work done and I was excellent at it. I was beloved by many across the company. I even took on extra work on the side because I adored what I was doing. Behind the scenes, though, I was struggling. I struggled to wake up in the morning. I struggled to focus, and when I finally could, I would hyper-focus and forget to eat or go to the bathroom. I struggled to eat three times a day. I would be way too exhausted and anxious to go make something for myself in the kitchen — there were just too many steps, sometimes even microwaving felt overwhelming. Then, at night, I struggled to fall asleep. It was an endless cycle.
I struggled to maintain my relationships, and I felt like I was always screwing up my communication and saying the wrong thing. I would have flare-ups of my chronic pain, and I would go through periods where I didn't leave my apartment and rarely left my room. I would throw up if something too stressful happened. I'd get the urge to cry in the office randomly, and would need to step away to work by myself somewhere quietly. I had a panic attack because the texture of my clothes was wrong. I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation: I was experiencing autistic burnout.
As Danielle Aubin, LCSW, an autistic social worker and TikTok creator, explains, autistic burnout is "almost like a medical emergency. It's when someone loses the capacity to participate in society in ways that would sustain them, whether that be employment, family obligations, or hygiene." Aubin continues: "They essentially used to be able to have some level of employment — maybe a very high level of employment. They've been really successful their whole life, and then all of the sudden something happens, or it's like the straw that broke the camel's back, and like they can't even brush their teeth."
Early last year, I started getting TikToks about autism, and the more I read about it and the more I listened to the perspectives of marginalized autistic people, the more I realized this was me. There was an explanation for my entire life. In 2020, I had taken an ADHD/autism assessment, and the therapist said the only reason she didn't think I had autism was because I made eye contact and was too socialized. Everyone who knows me, though, knows that I have always very much struggled with making eye contact.
I still haven't gotten an official diagnosis. But last year, before I was fired, I took all the research and gave myself a self-diagnosis to make sense of my own mind and how I view the world. It wasn't because I wanted a label, but because I yearned for an explanation so I could figure out the correct coping skills. Finally feeling like I had an explanation was comforting but overwhelmingly sad at the same time. You become aware of just how much of a struggle everything is — you can no longer disassociate through it.
Apparently, my experience isn't uncommon. "I work with a lot of late-diagnosed people. So, they've spent their whole lives up until adulthood, sometimes older adulthood, without knowing they're autistic," Aubin says. "That means they were potentially pushing themselves really hard to look a certain way or perform a certain way, even though it was detrimental and overwhelmed them."
Another aspect that complicates this is the PDA profile, which I suspect I also have. PDA, also known as pathological demand avoidance or persistent drive for autonomy, is a behavior that some people on the autism spectrum exhibit. "It's a behavioral profile that basically is like a nervous-system disability where your autonomy or equality is threatened in your environment, you have a nervous-system threat response. It can seem very extreme, and it overrides other survival instincts. So you prioritize autonomy over the need for food or water, for example," explains Kathleen Duncan, LMFT, a PDA autistic TikTok creator and therapist who specializes in working with other autistic adults.
Because I've only been learning about myself recently, I have a lot of internalized ableism to work through. It's difficult to take myself seriously and advocate for myself when all I hear are all the invalidating things adults in my life have said to me — whether it's calling me dramatic and lazy or insisting I'm faking my symptoms. But I wish I had recognized it all sooner and been kinder to myself.
Back in October, I didn't want to lose my job. I knew it wasn't working for me, but I was too scared to quit. I also didn't want to get fired; I grew up watching my mom get fired and struggle to find jobs in Puerto Rico. I didn't want to do that. I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to me.
But having a framework to think about how I experience the world has been crucial in the time since I got fired. Initially, I thought taking time off would heal the burnout and that by the time I got back to work, I would go back to how I used to be, like when I first started my job. As I've learned, that simply isn't the case for most autistic folks.
"If you're burnt out and not autistic, it's more than likely you will recover. It's just that you need to go rest, and it will fill back up. But with autistic people and burnout, it doesn't just fill back up. It could potentially take years to recover from that, and some people don't necessarily recover back to the way they were before," Aubin says.
No matter how much I've tried to convince myself to try harder, to care more, to be just like I used to be, it hasn't worked. In the eyes of capitalism and corporations, it's only acceptable to struggle with chronic pain or with your mental health if it eventually goes away and you go back to "normal." Now I know that there is no way I would've healed where I was working.
It's not perfect, and I'm still looking for a full-time job (if only for health insurance), but I feel like I can finally breathe without feeling like I'm doing something wrong or misreading some sort of unspoken corporate rule. I wake up without feeling like I've missed an important meeting. I'm able to go to my kitchen and make myself a simple meal without dying of anxiety. I enjoy the freedom and lack of demand from freelancing. I don't hate myself for feeling too tired to work and forcing myself to do it anyway. Instead, I accommodate myself. I go with my own flow of work.
I don't want to say I'm grateful for getting fired, but I do believe it happened for a reason — and I'm glad I have finally realized what that reason was.
_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Canadian Freedom Lover
Raven
Joined: 16 Dec 2022
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Posts: 110
Location: Vancouver Canada
09 Feb 2024, 12:44 am
ASPartOfMe wrote:
Getting Fired Cured My Autistic Burnout
Quote:
On a random Friday in October of last year, I got fired from my first corporate job. When I hopped into the virtual meeting, I knew it was all over and I was angry at myself for ever believing otherwise. It was truly my dream job, but it was also the reason I was so drained all the time. After working there for two and a half years, I knew I was burnt out — but I didn't realize the magnitude of it until I was forced to stop.
"I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation."
While I was there, I got my work done and I was excellent at it. I was beloved by many across the company. I even took on extra work on the side because I adored what I was doing. Behind the scenes, though, I was struggling. I struggled to wake up in the morning. I struggled to focus, and when I finally could, I would hyper-focus and forget to eat or go to the bathroom. I struggled to eat three times a day. I would be way too exhausted and anxious to go make something for myself in the kitchen — there were just too many steps, sometimes even microwaving felt overwhelming. Then, at night, I struggled to fall asleep. It was an endless cycle.
I struggled to maintain my relationships, and I felt like I was always screwing up my communication and saying the wrong thing. I would have flare-ups of my chronic pain, and I would go through periods where I didn't leave my apartment and rarely left my room. I would throw up if something too stressful happened. I'd get the urge to cry in the office randomly, and would need to step away to work by myself somewhere quietly. I had a panic attack because the texture of my clothes was wrong. I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation: I was experiencing autistic burnout.
As Danielle Aubin, LCSW, an autistic social worker and TikTok creator, explains, autistic burnout is "almost like a medical emergency. It's when someone loses the capacity to participate in society in ways that would sustain them, whether that be employment, family obligations, or hygiene." Aubin continues: "They essentially used to be able to have some level of employment — maybe a very high level of employment. They've been really successful their whole life, and then all of the sudden something happens, or it's like the straw that broke the camel's back, and like they can't even brush their teeth."
Early last year, I started getting TikToks about autism, and the more I read about it and the more I listened to the perspectives of marginalized autistic people, the more I realized this was me. There was an explanation for my entire life. In 2020, I had taken an ADHD/autism assessment, and the therapist said the only reason she didn't think I had autism was because I made eye contact and was too socialized. Everyone who knows me, though, knows that I have always very much struggled with making eye contact.
I still haven't gotten an official diagnosis. But last year, before I was fired, I took all the research and gave myself a self-diagnosis to make sense of my own mind and how I view the world. It wasn't because I wanted a label, but because I yearned for an explanation so I could figure out the correct coping skills. Finally feeling like I had an explanation was comforting but overwhelmingly sad at the same time. You become aware of just how much of a struggle everything is — you can no longer disassociate through it.
Apparently, my experience isn't uncommon. "I work with a lot of late-diagnosed people. So, they've spent their whole lives up until adulthood, sometimes older adulthood, without knowing they're autistic," Aubin says. "That means they were potentially pushing themselves really hard to look a certain way or perform a certain way, even though it was detrimental and overwhelmed them."
Another aspect that complicates this is the PDA profile, which I suspect I also have. PDA, also known as pathological demand avoidance or persistent drive for autonomy, is a behavior that some people on the autism spectrum exhibit. "It's a behavioral profile that basically is like a nervous-system disability where your autonomy or equality is threatened in your environment, you have a nervous-system threat response. It can seem very extreme, and it overrides other survival instincts. So you prioritize autonomy over the need for food or water, for example," explains Kathleen Duncan, LMFT, a PDA autistic TikTok creator and therapist who specializes in working with other autistic adults.
Because I've only been learning about myself recently, I have a lot of internalized ableism to work through. It's difficult to take myself seriously and advocate for myself when all I hear are all the invalidating things adults in my life have said to me — whether it's calling me dramatic and lazy or insisting I'm faking my symptoms. But I wish I had recognized it all sooner and been kinder to myself.
Back in October, I didn't want to lose my job. I knew it wasn't working for me, but I was too scared to quit. I also didn't want to get fired; I grew up watching my mom get fired and struggle to find jobs in Puerto Rico. I didn't want to do that. I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to me.
But having a framework to think about how I experience the world has been crucial in the time since I got fired. Initially, I thought taking time off would heal the burnout and that by the time I got back to work, I would go back to how I used to be, like when I first started my job. As I've learned, that simply isn't the case for most autistic folks.
"If you're burnt out and not autistic, it's more than likely you will recover. It's just that you need to go rest, and it will fill back up. But with autistic people and burnout, it doesn't just fill back up. It could potentially take years to recover from that, and some people don't necessarily recover back to the way they were before," Aubin says.
No matter how much I've tried to convince myself to try harder, to care more, to be just like I used to be, it hasn't worked. In the eyes of capitalism and corporations, it's only acceptable to struggle with chronic pain or with your mental health if it eventually goes away and you go back to "normal." Now I know that there is no way I would've healed where I was working.
It's not perfect, and I'm still looking for a full-time job (if only for health insurance), but I feel like I can finally breathe without feeling like I'm doing something wrong or misreading some sort of unspoken corporate rule. I wake up without feeling like I've missed an important meeting. I'm able to go to my kitchen and make myself a simple meal without dying of anxiety. I enjoy the freedom and lack of demand from freelancing. I don't hate myself for feeling too tired to work and forcing myself to do it anyway. Instead, I accommodate myself. I go with my own flow of work.
I don't want to say I'm grateful for getting fired, but I do believe it happened for a reason — and I'm glad I have finally realized what that reason was.
"I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation."
While I was there, I got my work done and I was excellent at it. I was beloved by many across the company. I even took on extra work on the side because I adored what I was doing. Behind the scenes, though, I was struggling. I struggled to wake up in the morning. I struggled to focus, and when I finally could, I would hyper-focus and forget to eat or go to the bathroom. I struggled to eat three times a day. I would be way too exhausted and anxious to go make something for myself in the kitchen — there were just too many steps, sometimes even microwaving felt overwhelming. Then, at night, I struggled to fall asleep. It was an endless cycle.
I struggled to maintain my relationships, and I felt like I was always screwing up my communication and saying the wrong thing. I would have flare-ups of my chronic pain, and I would go through periods where I didn't leave my apartment and rarely left my room. I would throw up if something too stressful happened. I'd get the urge to cry in the office randomly, and would need to step away to work by myself somewhere quietly. I had a panic attack because the texture of my clothes was wrong. I didn't realize until much later that all of this had a very clear explanation: I was experiencing autistic burnout.
As Danielle Aubin, LCSW, an autistic social worker and TikTok creator, explains, autistic burnout is "almost like a medical emergency. It's when someone loses the capacity to participate in society in ways that would sustain them, whether that be employment, family obligations, or hygiene." Aubin continues: "They essentially used to be able to have some level of employment — maybe a very high level of employment. They've been really successful their whole life, and then all of the sudden something happens, or it's like the straw that broke the camel's back, and like they can't even brush their teeth."
Early last year, I started getting TikToks about autism, and the more I read about it and the more I listened to the perspectives of marginalized autistic people, the more I realized this was me. There was an explanation for my entire life. In 2020, I had taken an ADHD/autism assessment, and the therapist said the only reason she didn't think I had autism was because I made eye contact and was too socialized. Everyone who knows me, though, knows that I have always very much struggled with making eye contact.
I still haven't gotten an official diagnosis. But last year, before I was fired, I took all the research and gave myself a self-diagnosis to make sense of my own mind and how I view the world. It wasn't because I wanted a label, but because I yearned for an explanation so I could figure out the correct coping skills. Finally feeling like I had an explanation was comforting but overwhelmingly sad at the same time. You become aware of just how much of a struggle everything is — you can no longer disassociate through it.
Apparently, my experience isn't uncommon. "I work with a lot of late-diagnosed people. So, they've spent their whole lives up until adulthood, sometimes older adulthood, without knowing they're autistic," Aubin says. "That means they were potentially pushing themselves really hard to look a certain way or perform a certain way, even though it was detrimental and overwhelmed them."
Another aspect that complicates this is the PDA profile, which I suspect I also have. PDA, also known as pathological demand avoidance or persistent drive for autonomy, is a behavior that some people on the autism spectrum exhibit. "It's a behavioral profile that basically is like a nervous-system disability where your autonomy or equality is threatened in your environment, you have a nervous-system threat response. It can seem very extreme, and it overrides other survival instincts. So you prioritize autonomy over the need for food or water, for example," explains Kathleen Duncan, LMFT, a PDA autistic TikTok creator and therapist who specializes in working with other autistic adults.
Because I've only been learning about myself recently, I have a lot of internalized ableism to work through. It's difficult to take myself seriously and advocate for myself when all I hear are all the invalidating things adults in my life have said to me — whether it's calling me dramatic and lazy or insisting I'm faking my symptoms. But I wish I had recognized it all sooner and been kinder to myself.
Back in October, I didn't want to lose my job. I knew it wasn't working for me, but I was too scared to quit. I also didn't want to get fired; I grew up watching my mom get fired and struggle to find jobs in Puerto Rico. I didn't want to do that. I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to me.
But having a framework to think about how I experience the world has been crucial in the time since I got fired. Initially, I thought taking time off would heal the burnout and that by the time I got back to work, I would go back to how I used to be, like when I first started my job. As I've learned, that simply isn't the case for most autistic folks.
"If you're burnt out and not autistic, it's more than likely you will recover. It's just that you need to go rest, and it will fill back up. But with autistic people and burnout, it doesn't just fill back up. It could potentially take years to recover from that, and some people don't necessarily recover back to the way they were before," Aubin says.
No matter how much I've tried to convince myself to try harder, to care more, to be just like I used to be, it hasn't worked. In the eyes of capitalism and corporations, it's only acceptable to struggle with chronic pain or with your mental health if it eventually goes away and you go back to "normal." Now I know that there is no way I would've healed where I was working.
It's not perfect, and I'm still looking for a full-time job (if only for health insurance), but I feel like I can finally breathe without feeling like I'm doing something wrong or misreading some sort of unspoken corporate rule. I wake up without feeling like I've missed an important meeting. I'm able to go to my kitchen and make myself a simple meal without dying of anxiety. I enjoy the freedom and lack of demand from freelancing. I don't hate myself for feeling too tired to work and forcing myself to do it anyway. Instead, I accommodate myself. I go with my own flow of work.
I don't want to say I'm grateful for getting fired, but I do believe it happened for a reason — and I'm glad I have finally realized what that reason was.
Wow, this parallels the last year of my life. I was fired last year from my landscaping job illegally for symptoms related to autistic burnout. Although the only difference in my story I had a diagnosis and notified my employer of it a long time ago.
09 Feb 2024, 4:11 am
Something I can add through experience is that apart from taking ages to recover (Been four years since the last one and I am still recovering) is that if one recovers, double the recovery time before starting to push oneself in a work situation, as from the point when one regains what one has lost, one needs double the time at least for the recovery to get a hope of staying...
Remember that each time I tried going back to work after recovering from a burnout (And this was part time low hours work I "Thought" I could tackle and I knew the job back to front as I had done it many times before), I would end up hitting another burnout worse than the time before and the last time seriously scared me when in the midst of the last burnout I had forgotton how to walk, and did not know how to get help (What does one say in such a situation? I was sort of powerless to even think how to say words that made sense!). I had to teach myself how to walk there and then all over again by watching how other people I could see in the distance walked. It scared me into knowing I needed to ask for help and by co-incidence, the day after my last day in work (Part time temporary job) happened to be an autism drop in open day so I got myself down there as I was already on the list to be assessed.
Burnout js serious. Looking back, I have had quite a lot of burnouts but I didn't know what they were. I would (When sensing the burnout patterns) quickly hand in my notice as I didn't want to get fired, and the next few weeks of working was torture because almost guaranteed ones employer would double up the hours assuming they were doing me a favour. (Couldn't say no or explain. Would make something up to explain for leaving as didn't know the truth. Didn't know this burnout had a name. Didn't know I was on the spectrum!)
_________________
.
| Similar Topics | |
|---|---|
| Is it Autistic Burnout? |
09 Apr 2024, 12:29 pm |
| Autistic burnout discussion thread |
05 Apr 2024, 10:42 am |
| Life burnout at 31 |
13 Feb 2024, 10:06 am |
| Burnout Or Breakdown? |
26 Feb 2024, 8:20 am |
