Burnout?

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in case the term 'burnout' is unfamiliar, it essentially means that you repressed your autistic traits for so long that your energy kind of gets sucked out of you and your traits become way less controllable until you're back in balance.

freshman year of high school i spent trying to hide my embarassing traits in order to fit in and be cooler. one thing led to another and i ended up leaving that high school for a couple reasons. i went to a different high school (around the time i joined wrongplanet actually) where i had almost no friends, and the burnout began. my sensory issues and general irritability heightened, and i became very engulfed in my special interests as sort of a replacement for social interaction. all of my symptoms became exaggerated after so long of forcing down who i was, luckily i am a lot more balanced now and i can channel my aspie self to the benefit of me and other people around me while still allowing myself to just be me.

Anyways, i have no idea how common this experience is, has anyone else had a similar situation? i dont hear much about burnout so im not sure how many people had it, i'd really like to know!

It's what led me to pursue a dx, so yeah I'm familiar.

I honestly had no idea what burnout was in relation to autism until yesterday, when I looked it up because of another post. Which made me realize I've basically been going through a recurring cycle of burnout and recovery every 3-6 months for most of my life.
Interesting stuff.

I get this all the time, especially with things that are especially demanding for me, like working. With that, it typically happens every three months.
The worst one though was after university, when my internship fell apart because of autism and other things. I had literally put EVERYTHING into that job, everything I had was on the line. Then three months into the job, everything just crashed. Just-another-burnout lead to a severe breakdown, and I was barely verbal for almost a year, didn't leave the house at all unless to get supplies for my special interest, and did NOTHING but pursue my special interest and sleep. I don't know if adult autistic regression is a thing, but after that my autism symptoms have been much worse than they were before - I think I had learned to compensate a bit for some of the more obvious ones, but after that, I can't seem to ever come back up to that level again.