Before my diagnosis (of autism), you could say that my life was just one massive ‘burnout’… I guess that comes with the territory of a ‘later in life’ diagnosis and not knowing why I felt this way all the damn time. not to mention this constant tiredness I had experienced on the daily. I thought everyone was tired all the time, if I’m honest. Adulting is hard work!

I guess the saying; ‘hindsight is a wonderful thing’ could be used here! I never really got that saying, but it really makes sense now! So, had I of ‘known what I know now’ (you know, being born with ASD and all that), I could’ve gave myself the kindness and protection that I gave to everyone else – especially those that didn’t deserve it! And with that, I would’ve avoided a lot of pain and heartache along the way also! There would’ve been less ‘pushing through’ all the things that made me feel uncomfortable, and more thought on if it was a good idea to be ‘partaking’ in the first place.

Going back to the point (went on a tangent again, soz), going through an ‘autistic burnout’ is rough! In my experience (remember that everyone can experience it differently), I get this overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and no matter how much I sleep, I feel extremely tired! The ability to eat anything out of my circle of ‘safe foods’ is non existent. And I genuinely feel like I can’t move any quicker than slow motion. Since my diagnosis, I’m trying to learn what my ‘triggers’ are, and how to manage/avoid them. The same cannot be said about the things that are out of my control though, or happen unexpectedly – this is what I struggle with the most! I hate not knowing the ‘what’s, when’s and why’s’. Being not in control scares me, because I’ve learned recently that not everyone is as honest and open as me, meaning that I tend to get hurt a lot. As I take what ‘they’ say at face value! – Why cant we all just say what we mean and mean what we say?

And there’s another thing I get challenged with and I’m not sure if I should mention this, but (I’m here to be honest & I know I’m not alone in this one)… When I’m in the burnout stage, toileting can sometimes be challenging. When I say challenging, I don’t mean that I full on piss myself, I just am so ‘numb’ to not only my feelings, but my body feels equally as numb. Meaning that I don’t get the ‘urge’ to go, until it’s too late. So sometimes accidents can happen on the way to the loo. I also find the same thing with hunger/eating. My stomach has to be screaming at me, and I must be on the verge of passing out before I eat something. It could look like laziness – but it’s really not, because in the moments of a burn out, I feel like I have weights attached to my body, restricting my movements. Getting up after I’ve sat down becomes almost impossible. And the worst bit is; I WANT to move. My heads yelling at me, “just mooooove!!” And it doesn’t feel like myself telling myself (if the makes sense?), its almost like theres a disconnect between my mind & body. I can sit for hours watching a blank TV, occasionally checking social media/doomscrolling, not really taking anything in! In this period of time, it can have a knock on effect with my speech! It’s like by the time the sentence gets formed in my head, and travels out my mouth, the words are all jumbled up! It’s quite scary if I’m honest! It’s hard to explain the concept of ‘nothing’, but for me, an autistic burnout results in this weird state I find myself in. And its very hard to feel ‘my normal’ again! Kind of like coming round from a general anaesthesia but, It can go on for days! Since my breakdown, all these things have changed for me. When I was masking, I seemed to have the ability to just carry on, no matter how tired I felt. I had a auto-piloted response, which got me through (I really do not know how I managed to!).

I’m going to end this post with a link to some information about ‘autistic burnouts’ which I found useful (from the ‘National Autistic Society’ website) , and you might to; https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/autistic-burnout#:~:text=Autistic%20burnout%20is%20a%20syndrome,and%20reduced%20tolerance%20to%20stimulus.

Thanks for reading! Until next time,

T