26/06/2024
A fellow Autist I bumped into on the weekend asked me if it was common for all her friends to turn out to be neurodiverse as well. I laughed and said yep, we can smell each other and we pack bond. So needless to say, a large portion of both my social and professional networks are neurodiverse.
And I gotta say, I don't know many Autistics who aren't at burnout point right now. And yes, that includes Yours Truly.
Autistic burnout isn't the same as regular burnout, where you just remove the factors that were causing the stress and things get better. Because when you're Autistic, EXISTING is the stress. We are expected to get up and present to the world like a neurotypical, in a world built by and for neurotypicals, day after day, to a level that no one needs to consider that this is having a long-term impact on our wellbeing. Everyday life is stressful by default, so to remove the stress causing the burn out, we have to remove all of the day-to-day requirements of living without negative consequences. And there aren't many people who can simply take six months off work to recuperate without some pretty significant social and financial consequences.
Autistic burnout also exacerbates all those uniquely neurodiverse experiences to the point they're constantly overwhelming. If you're usually a little light sensitive, now the sun feels like it's stabbing into your retinas every time you step outside. If you find clothing tags mildly little irritating, suddenly you can't even finish a sentence because the scratchiness feels like spiders on your skin. The occasional social awkwardness is amplified well beyond the occasional weirdness and suddenly everything you say is hurtful or overly harsh because you have zero capacity left to identify what should stay as inside thoughts or how to moderate your tone. And don't forget to have at least one meltdown a week, preferably at work or school, to make you look completely unhinged.
This is what differentiates Autistic burnout. Our kids still need us. We still have bills to pay. We still have to wake up every morning and do our best normie impression. And we have to do it in a world that is already overstimulating, overwhelming, and with a whole bunch of unspoken rules we don't understand. So we can't just take away the cause of stress. Living Autistic IS the stress. So it's no wonder so many of us are burnt out to the point of complete loss of capacity to human for prolonged periods of time. Autistic people are six times more likely to attempt su***de, and seven times more likely to complete su***de, when compared to the general population. It is sobering to think how much of that may be caused by the relentless stress of existing without any reasonable hope for reprieve.
Autistic people see problems, and therefore solutions, in unique ways. Our contribution to workplaces and communities is slowly starting to be valued for the ways we process information. What is NOT happening is the corresponding shift to make workplaces less overstimulating. With all the social movements towards understanding and accepting mental health and disability, there is a glaring lack of interest in discussing how best to redesign society to allow full and equitable social and economic participation for anyone who deviates from the norm. The silence is deafening.
If a large employer didn't have a physically accessible workplace, they would be violating state and federal discrimination laws. But buildings still routinely have flourescent lights and no one seems to question it. Failure to offer increased workplace briefings, workflow management support, reduced noise environments, break out spaces, and dimmable lights that don't flicker, are not considered disability specific barriers to workplace participation. But they are. And that's before we even get to how problematic it is to deem having a strong emotional reaction to overstimulation and overwhelm in the workplace to be "unprofessional".
These things compound on top of the already constant stress of simply living Autistic and lead to extremely amplified levels of emotional dysregulation, communication difficulties, executive dysfunction, and sensory processing differences; i.e. burnout. Just like everyone else, to recover, we need to remove the source of stress. But the source of stress is life itself. And around we go on the super loud, overly brightly lit merry-go-round that gives us motion sickness and a seat that hurts to sit on.
There are no Government payments for medium term illness in Australia. The best you can hope for is Jobseeker (under $800 per fortnight for singles) with a medical exemption from looking for work that you need to have the executive functioning to have refilled at least every three months. Even if disability payments were easier to access, they're still well below the poverty line and would not allow for the maintenance of the cost of even a modest dwelling in the private market. And that's presuming you're single. If you're partnered, and your partner is employed, chances are high that their income will completely disqualify you from anything. I don't know many families who wouldn't experience severe financial hardship if one of them suddenly was unable to earn an income.
Governments write and pass antidiscrimination laws while continuing to enact policies and build services that are inherently discriminatory. It has to stop. Our lives literally depend on it.
Common stressors that trigger autistic burnouts can include sensory overload, social demands, and changes in routine.
