Exhaustion

Hi everyone. A few days ago, I listened to a podcast episode on autistic burnout. It’s the most recent episode of Beyond Chronic Burnout, a podcast for autistic women (and other marginalized genders, I hope) and their helping professionals. It discussed the Spicy Pepper burnout questionnaire, which apparently is a questionnaire to determine your level of burnout. I got overloaded trying to find the actual questionnaire amid all the ads etc. and it looks like the website it was published on, isn’t particularly screen reader friendly, so I wasn’t able to take the test. However, from the descriptions discussed on the podcast, I believe I’m in quite a significant burnout and have been for, well, years.

What is autistic burnout, you might ask? Autistic burnout is like regular burnout from being overworked, but it is really more like being overworked living life in a world not designed for autistics. As I have said for many, many years, just living in a neurotypical world is hard work for me.

I want to clarify that autistic burnout is often amplified by co-occuring conditions such as ADHD. In fact, writing this just reminds me of something I read several years ago that said that having fibromyalgia, which is often agravated by stress, is often correlated to ADHD. This is why I refer to neurospicy burnout.

The podcaster claimed that the first signs of burnout in autistics usually appear between the ages of four and six and many autistics experience their first actual burnout between the ages of six and ten. This was hugely validating. I, at age five, fell ill with what my parents claim was the flu, but it did lead them to get me into special ed quicker than originally intended. Age seven is always when my parents claim I changed from a cheerful, happy child to angry and depressed. This correlates with my having to start learning Braille, so according to my parents I then became aware of my declining vision. This is probably correct, but it doesn’t mean that my difficulty accepting my blindness was the only or main problem.

The first warning sign of autistic burnout, the podcaster says, is suicidal ideation. Oh my, can I relate! I honestly always thought that the first sign of burnout, whether neurospicy or work-related, was exhaustion. That with the fact that I react to overload with overactivity and irritability, always made me believe I’ve never had “real” burnout symptoms. Now I realize that I may not have fully collapsed (yet), but I do certainly experience burnout. And have for, well, my entire life since I was seven, I guess.