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ASPartOfMe
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13 Mar 2023, 1:19 pm

I was diagnosed as autistic at 34 – burnout as a teacher made me realise I’d masked the symptoms

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To the outside world, Pete Wharmby led a charmed life. He’d been a teacher for 10 years and was promoted to head of his department because of his passion for helping disenfranchised students. He also had a beautiful baby girl with his partner.

But the intense workload, long hours, endless paperwork and pressure of accountability took its toll. The truth is, it always had, but Pete had become adept at hiding his anxiety-induced meltdowns for decades.

Then, over a period of six months, his ability to juggle the needs of his high-pressure job with the challenges of parenthood “unravelled”. He suffered daily panic attacks, frequent migraines, and colleagues began to notice how much time he was taking off.

“I was always living in fear of an email from the headteacher asking for a chat,” he told i. “I was comically disorganised. I’d forget hugely important things. And then the email came. I’d forgotten to go to a training session.”

After Pete left the headteacher’s office, he broke down in tears and took a long period of sick leave. Suspecting that this was more than work-related stress or so-called ‘imposter syndrome‘, he went to his doctor. He was diagnosed as autistic aged 34.

Pete suffered what’s known as ‘autistic burnout’ and the diagnosis brought relief because finally, everything made sense.

“I was grateful for the diagnosis, because you can understand what has been happening to you your whole life,” he said. “Your brain scans over the past and reframes everything now you have this piece of information that had been missing. But that is quite an energy-intense process.”

Pete’s late diagnosis and the impact of lockdown fed into his decision to leave his job as an English teacher. He now works in a freelance capacity – writing books, tutoring online, and doing talks on autism in schools and workplaces.

Now 40, he has found it therapeutic to write about his experience in his new book Untypical: How the world isn’t built for autistic people and what we should all do about it.

Pete, from Wiltshire, writes in his book that “masking is something that almost all autistic people will learn to do at some point in their life”. He say it often begins in childhood, when youngsters realise their social skills “don’t seem to cut it”.

Pete, who has always found socialising very stressful, realised he had “unconsciously” been masking his autism since age five. School, with its loudness and brightness, was a sensory bombardment and the pressure to communicate was exhausting. He was frequently absent.

“I would try to blend into the background and to not stand out at all, to be a wallflower, in order to avoid conflict and being bullied. I became a ‘yes’ person,” he said.

“I had a very small circle of friends. I was lucky; a lot of kids are bullied and have no friends at all.”

Masking was a coping mechanism that Pete adopted – perhaps more consciously – later on in his professional life. “I’d wear a mask to chat with colleagues and even wear another mask even with my daughter. In front of pupils in the classroom I would put on a performance, wearing an extroverted mask,” he said.

The exhaustion he’d feel at the end of a lesson would leave him collapsed in his chair feeling utterly drained, often shaking with his head in his hands. Instead of chatting with colleagues in the staff room, he would seek refuge in his car. “The hardest was when I had back-to-back lessons and I had no time to decompress. Lesson observations were also tough.”

Being a new parent added an extra layer of stress. He writes in his book that “the dam burst” after the birth of his daughter due to the sudden huge change in routine, heightened responsibility of looking after a tiny human, and lack of downtime.

He wrote: “I had used video games and guitar playing in particular as emotional cleansers and rechargers, bringing me back up to an even keel when I was in danger of capsizing spectacularly, and having no time or space to do these things anymore hit me very hard indeed.”

Pete says that autistic people losing access to the hobbies and pursuits that allow them to decompress can be “life-threatening”. He urges parents and carers: “This is something worth considering when you threaten to ban an autistic person from playing their favourite video game because they embarrassed you with a meltdown in public.”

Pete is on a mission to highlight how the modern world isn’t equipped for autistic people. “I believe autistic burnout is a result of all the masking, which we shouldn’t have to do,” he says. “But with the way the world is set up we have to mask.”

Pete believes schools providing calm spaces and uncluttered classrooms can have a huge positive impact. Workplaces should also assess their policies, given that only 22 per cent of autistic people in the UK are in employment, according to recent Office for National Statistics figure.

“Right from the start of the recruitment process, the odds are stacked against us,” says Pete. “There’s the interview when you have to shake hands and make small talk. Then there’s buzzing light fittings, hot desking, management and targets to contend with.”

In his book, Pete also highlights the so-called ‘neurodivergent tax’.

He explains: “All the money you lose from being neurodivergent in some way, like subscriptions you forget to cancel, appointment fees for cancelling or being late, extra organisation costs to try to reduce executive dysfunction, replacements for lost stuff.”

An example: Pete only ever intended to take out a subscription to Empire magazine for three months. He moved house and couldn’t face the phone call to cancel it and finally stopped it five years later.

So how can neurotypical people be an ally?

“Remember that for some autistic people, it can be an invisible disability, especially when – like myself – you’re classed as low-support needs. I can be chatty and seem okay, so it can be confusing for some people,” Pete says.

“Autistic people need patience and non-judgemental compassion. When we find things difficult, give us a break.”


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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“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


And So It Goes
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23 Mar 2023, 12:56 pm

I always enjoy Pete's tweets on Twitter, and will definitely seek this book out :D


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"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be."

"And I've embraced the calamity, with a detachment and a passive disinterest."

"I hear voices...But I ignore them and just carry on killing."