What is Autistic Burnout?IN BRIEF
Autistic burnout, despite sharing the same name, isn’t related to work. It happens when sensory, social, or adaptation-related challenges exceed an autistic person’s capacity. This exhaustion can cause significant distress. Rest is essential, not only to recover from burnout but also to prevent it. This rest means limiting the effort of adapting to things like noise, lights, interactions, and unexpected changes, not simply sleeping or doing nothing.
Autistic Burnout
Autistic burnout shows up as a feeling of distress and exhaustion, a drop in energy and abilities, and a lower tolerance for sensations like noise, textures, or light. Social interactions also become much harder to manage. It’s a bit like every challenge linked to autism becomes amplified at the same time, to the point where it’s impossible to manage them all. The person ends up overwhelmed and often unable to function. This carries a real risk, since an autistic person in autistic burnout may struggle to keep up with their day-to-day life, and this state can even lead to hospitalization, loss of autonomy, isolation, and eventually suicide.
Important
Autistic burnout is not occupational burnout.
How Autistic Burnout Happens
It’s well known that autistic people may need accommodations to carry out everyday activities, take care of themselves, and take on responsibilities within their family and community. But it’s sometimes forgotten that autistic people adapt in their everyday lives in order to function “normally” around their family, their friends, at school, at work, and in public places. Making eye contact, making small talk, or using the incredibly loud hand dryers in public washrooms are examples of situations that can take a lot of energy for autistic people. As long as it’s possible, autistic people will keep doing these things that seem so small to neurotypical people but are so draining for them. It’s a way of accommodating neurotypical people.
If an autistic person has to do more of these difficult things than they have energy for, they risk exhaustion. That’s what autistic burnout is. During burnout, the autistic person may seem to have “regressed,” to no longer be able to do “the little everyday things,” to be “clumsy,” or to have “stopped trying.” But none of these descriptions are accurate. In reality, the person has simply exceeded their capacity. Their body can no longer manage these activities without the accommodations it needs for their well-being.
What to Do About It
The body and mind need time to recover. Every person and every situation is different, and there’s no universal answer to how long that takes. An autistic person’s body can take anywhere from four hours to a week to recover. After that time, the autistic person will feel less overwhelmed by their senses and will regain their usual abilities. For rest to be effective, the person needs to rest somewhere comfortable and safe for them. They should be able to avoid sensory overload and keep to their routine.
Important: If a person has endured a situation beyond their capacity for a very long time, their burnout may also last longer and be more severe, meaning the person may stop functioning altogether.
Note
Autistic burnout is rarely caused by one big thing. In fact, it’s often the result of many small things adding up.
It’s important to understand where the burnout is coming from, to avoid further exhaustion. Once the cause has been identified, it becomes possible to find solutions. Seeking help from a social worker, a specialized educator, or people in the autistic community can be essential, both for identifying the cause of the burnout and for finding clues and possible solutions to recover from it.
We went through a family situation that upended all of our activities, our schedule, our mental state, and our interactions with loved ones. This situation changed the personalities of the people around me, since they also had to face it. Faced with this, I lost my bearings for several months, which led to a complete breakdown in how I functioned. I needed help from two professionals to get through it, a psychoeducator and a social worker. They helped me set clear goals, which allowed me to build new bearings over time and take concrete steps toward getting my life back
Burnout After an Unusual Event
Autistic burnout can happen after a major change in routine that lasts anywhere from a single day to a few weeks. For example, it’s common for autistic people to become exhausted during the holidays, while traveling, during a vacation, after going to a concert, on their birthday, and so on. Even when these events matter a great deal to the autistic person, they can still trigger autistic burnout. It’s important to plan for rest time so the body can recover from these activities.
Long-Term Autistic Burnout
Some autistic people find themselves always tired, constantly clumsy, and unable to use 100% of their intelligence and abilities. In these situations, it’s possible to develop low self-esteem and to wonder why you can’t do as much as everyone else. When thoughts like these come up, it’s important to remember that we don’t all have the same abilities. It’s okay not to do things exactly the way everyone else does. What’s more, life isn’t a competition; it isn’t desirable or even possible to measure who “does more” than whom.
That said, fatigue, clumsiness, and the feeling of not being able to use 100% of your abilities are symptoms of autistic burnout. If in doubt, it’s possible to put in place the same solutions used to recover from burnout. Taking time off if possible, and thinking about which everyday “little things” take up a lot of energy, can help you get back to 100% of your abilities. There’s no age limit for putting accommodations in place to make everyday life easier.
When I worked at the National Assembly of Québec, my main office was inside a century-old house, and there were only ever two to four people working there at the same time. I could do a large number of full-time tasks (even more) without getting tired, for a whole year, as long as no one asked me to leave that house. A house is comfortable: no fluorescent lights, no loud air exchanger or air conditioner noise, no movement.
Occupational Burnout
Autistic people can also experience occupational burnout, more commonly just called burnout. Burnout doesn’t only happen at work: it can also happen to students, volunteers, and activists. It can happen to anyone. The symptoms of occupational burnout are similar to those of autistic burnout: physical, mental, and emotional fatigue, and a loss of creativity and motivation for your tasks. If a few days of rest and added accommodations aren’t enough to make the symptoms go away, it’s important to talk to a doctor or a psychologist to get help. Autistic people can experience burnout too. In 2021, an estimated 37% of Canadians were at risk of burnout in the previous year. It’s normal to need rest!
References
“Autistic Burnout: An Exploratory Conceptual Analysis” (2019) by Dora M. Raymaker et al. – Defines autistic burnout as a process of emotional exhaustion and cognitive dysfunction resulting from chronic strain linked to efforts at social conformity and adapting to social expectations.
“The Costs of Camouflaging Autism” (2019) by Will Mandy et al. – Psychological costs of camouflaging autism, and consequences such as emotional exhaustion, deteriorating social relationships, and an increase in repetitive behaviors.
“A Conceptual Framework for Autistic Burnout” (2021) by Dora M. Raymaker et al. – A conceptual framework for autistic burnout, including dimensions such as sensory overload, social expectations, and the difficulty of maintaining adaptive self-determination. The researchers emphasize the importance of understanding autistic burnout in order to support autistic people’s development and well-being.
