Autistic Burnout: Symptoms, Causes & Recovery
Autistic burnout can leave you feeling completely defeated by the world and unable to function. This type of burnout isn’t ordinary tiredness that is resolved by a good night’s sleep. It builds up until the things you used to manage just fine can start to feel completely overwhelming.
Autistic burnout appears in different ways from one person to the next, so there’s no single way to recognize it. This is one reason why people with autistic burnout often don’t get the care they need.
This page will explore:
- What autistic burnout is.
- The signs and symptoms of autistic burnout.
- What causes autistic burnout.
- What recovery involves.
- Where to find professional help.
What Is Autistic Burnout?
Autistic burnout, sometimes called autism burnout, is when an autistic person becomes emotionally, mentally, and physically worn out as a result of the stresses caused by their environment or the people around them.
Studies have found that it can also be caused by “masking” autism symptoms. This is where people conceal their symptoms over many years to avoid stigma. This can be partially effective in the short term, but the cumulative effort can take a massive toll on health.[1]
Autism burnout usually happens when the buildup of demands exceeds the coping abilities of autistic people. This makes it very common around transition stages, like:
- Going from college into the world of work.
- Changing jobs.
- Switching schools.
- Moving.
This means autistic burnout can recur during particularly demanding periods of life.
Autistic burnout is more common in young adults, with symptoms that damage both their well-being and their capacity to socialize for months or years. It can cause them to neglect their hygiene, lose their sense of self and confidence, and withdraw so far inside themselves that they drift away from the people around them.
Some autistic people may not be physically affected by burnout (such as to the point of neglecting their hygiene), but others may become severely anxious or depressed and find it difficult to face the world for even a second.
Unfortunately, a lack of awareness of autistic burnout, especially among some medical professionals, means many autistic people never get the care they need.
What Are the Signs of Autistic Burnout
Just as autism presents differently in autistic people, autistic burnout also varies in its symptoms.
Here are the most common, separated into the three categories:
1. Physical Autistic Burnout Symptoms
Physical burnout symptoms can include:
- Feeling increased sensitivity to your environment, where even a small change causes you to panic or melt down.
- Sleeping more or less than usual.
- Intense fatigue that never goes away.
- Physical pain.
- Neglecting your body completely.
- Not maintaining your hygiene.
- Lower stamina, energy, and capacity.
- Inability to complete daily tasks.
- Increased general illness.
- Losing your motor coordination.
2. Emotional Symptoms
Autistic burnout may cause you to feel anxious all the time, even when doing routine tasks, like going for groceries, brushing your teeth, or making something to eat.
You may also be:
- More stressed.
- Irritated at every little thing, especially at the “demands” of the world around you.
- Unable to manage your emotions, and going from flat to hypersensitive in the same day.
- Unable to make decisions, even after thinking about them for a while.
- Unsociable, where you become standoffish toward anyone who tries to reach out or talk to you.
- Feeling disconnected from your body, like you’re watching yourself do something without any emotions.
- Suicidal, including suicidal ideation.[2]
- Wanting a break from life.
People with autistic burnout also have a lower tolerance, which can cause them to erupt at anything that doesn’t go their way, even if it seems minor to those around them.
If you are having thoughts of suicide or of not wanting to be here, please treat it as an emergency. Call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at any time, day or night, to talk to someone who can help.
You don’t have to be in immediate danger to reach out, and you don’t have to face these kinds of feelings on your own.
3. Cognitive Symptoms
Autistic burnout can be especially harmful to the cognitive health of people with autism. It can cause:
- Emotional shutdowns that make you want to stay alone.
- Disconnection from body signals, like hunger, sleep, or thirst.
- Loss of skills, like self-care.
- Loss of the ability to communicate in all mediums, especially speech.
- Poor attention span.
This is a non-exhaustive list of symptoms. If you’re autistic and feeling exhausted by everything that exists around you, you might have burned out.[3]
What Are the Causes of Autistic Burnout?
Autistic burnout doesn’t have one specific cause we can point to. It often builds from various factors that affect autistic people over time. Here are the most common:
- Lack of autism awareness: Autistic burnout isn’t a well-researched area, which causes a lack of knowledge about its traits and symptoms. This can lead to negative experiences with family, at work or school, and even when getting care.
- Discrimination: Autistic people recognize that they are different from others, so they may try to blend in to avoid stigma around their condition. This can lead to constant fear and anxiety about being discovered, and over time, this may wear them down until they burn out.
- Overwhelming sensory and cognitive demands: If you’re in a very demanding environment, such as working in a high-stress technical field, studying under pressure, or having high expectations of yourself, you might be at a higher risk of burnout.
- Masking symptoms: You might mask symptoms to save yourself from discrimination or to “fit in” at school, college, or work. Over time, maintaining the constant facade can become difficult and cause anxiety that may lead to burnout.[4]
- Stressful life events: If you’ve grown up in a difficult home or have had traumatic experiences such as medical injuries or emotional hurt, you’re more likely to experience autistic burnout.
- Co-occurring conditions: If you have depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, or mental health conditions that affect how you move through your day-to-day life, you’re more likely to develop burnout.
- Lack of social support: Many autistic people, when they struggle, credit their family or friends for recognizing the difficulties they were going through and helping them cope. No social support can mean you’re on your own when you’re overwhelmed, which can cause you to spiral into burnout quickly.
- Inability to identify overstimulation: If you can’t recognize when you’re being overstimulated, you may accidentally push yourself past your emotional, cognitive, or physical limit. Done often enough, this can cause burnout without you understanding what’s happening.
- Undiagnosed autism: You may have autism and not know it, such as having a history of not taking changes well or not being able to understand or behave like other people. This can also cause burnout.[5]
How Long Does Autism Burnout Last?
Autistic burnout can last anywhere from a few weeks to years, since severity is different in each person.
However, people with better support networks, experienced healthcare providers, access to accommodations, and the ability to reduce their stress will generally experience autism burnout for shorter periods of time.
Mission Connection is here to help you or your loved one take the next steps towards an improved mental well-being.
How to Recover From Autistic Burnout
As autism burnout can result from various factors, each needs to be addressed for recovery. Here is a good place to start.
1. Change Your Life Circumstances
It may sound obvious, but one of the best ways to recover from autistic burnout is to remove yourself from the place or situation causing the burnout in the first place.
This may mean moving to a new place, reducing your responsibilities where you can, not taking on new projects that stress you, or reducing social interactions.
2. Prioritize Rest Above All
The “it’s impossible to take a break” mindset means that many people feel like they just have to find a way to manage burnout. But autistic burnout is not a condition that you can put a bandage on. While you may not be able to remove all stress in your life, the more you can prioritize rest, the greater the benefits. This can include:
- Taking a break from work or education.
- Leaning into comfort activities, like reading a book, listening to your favorite songs, or watching your favorite shows.
- Not talking to anyone who causes you stress until you feel better.
- Having time to think and live with yourself, as who you are, instead of who people want to see you become.
- Finding a job without the commute, daily meetings, or expectations that cause you stress.
- Creating a capsule wardrobe to avoid decision paralysis every day.
These are just a few comfort activities, but everyone responds to different things. You can try whatever makes you feel comfortable and do it at your pace. Autistic burnout recovery is not a sprint, and you may need a little trial and error to see what works best for you.
3. Remove Sensory Stimuli
Autistic burnout can leave you feeling overwhelmed at the thought of performing daily tasks, like:
- Washing clothes.
- Cleaning your home.
- Cooking for yourself.
Trying to push through your resistance can make burnout worse. What you can do instead is break everything down into small steps. For example, if folding a laundry basket is too intimidating, you can just put away three items every time you walk into your room.
Similarly, if cooking food is too challenging and you feel anxious about deciding everyday meals, you could buy pre-cooked meals or cook multiple portions of the same meal that you can eat every day.
4. Develop a Routine
Without a routine, you never know what your day will look like. This uncertainty leaves many people with autism feeling incredibly anxious.
For instance, you might wake up and start worrying about breakfast, then lunch, then dinner. If you wake up late, you may worry about your lack of sleep and the hours you lost that could have been put to better use.
To stop depression and anxiety from being born out of near-daily conflict, you can put a routine in place where you know what to do every day. A routine takes hundreds of small daily decisions off your plate, and that saved effort can leave a little more in reserve for everything else.
This way, you reduce the effects of last-minute changes and conflicts on your mental and physical health.
5. Get Professional Help
If you’re in a really difficult place and find it hard to make changes that improve your burnout, you may benefit from professional help.
You can work with a mental health professional to improve your habits and restructure your environment or spend some time at a residential mental health treatment center. This will give you a place of your own, away from the stresses causing your burnout, so you can work with people who understand what you’re going through.
Get Your Drive Back With Mission Connection
If you’re autistic and burnout has left you exhausted, or no longer feeling like yourself, help is available. At Mission Connection, we help people with autistic burnout understand why they’re feeling the way they are, how to improve their symptoms, and how to get back their drive.
We offer several options for effective outpatient treatment, including in-person programs at our locations in California, Virginia, and Washington, virtual telehealth, and a hybrid program that combines in-person and virtual care. We create a structured care plan for every patient that consists of evidence-based treatment.
Mission Connection is Joint Commission-accredited. We also accept most major insurance providers, so that your recovery is not hindered due to financial issues. Reach out to us online or call us at 866-833-1822 to find out how we can support your long-term recovery.
