Autistic Burnout--what was it like?

[Poppy98]

I keep seeing this term. Has anyone here experienced it? What was it like?

 

[Outdated]

https://www.autismforums.com/threads/autistic-burnout.41208/

I just realised the page I linked to is in the Members Only area, here's a copy of my first post in that thread:

Autistic Burnout.

I didn’t know what it was at the time, I had suspicions that I was autistic but I knew very little about it. It was another 20 years before I got around to getting a diagnosis and learning more about myself.

I was a highly productive and well paid printer, I was the Production Manager of the company. I had a high metabolic rate and I was extremely active, I only needed 5 or 6 hours sleep a night. I was incredibly social as well, I worked 70 hours a week, I spent another 20 hours a week in the pub, I had 2 nights a week where I played video games with friends, I was teaching myself programming languages, C, C++, Ruby and Python, and I had a girlfriend. I was a busy man.

That all changed in 2001, almost overnight, for no reason that I can understand. My metabolism slowed down dramatically and I couldn’t drink full strength beer any more. I put on weight, I became depressed. I started having fits where I pass out and drop like a felled tree, often breaking bones in the process. My whole world collapsed.

This was one of the very few times that I went to see a doctor, most of them are pretty useless but this one was truly pathetic. He tested my blood pressure and told me there was nothing wrong with me, and he told me that he wasn’t giving me a sick note. I told him that I didn’t want a sick note, I just wanted to know why I was passing out, he told me that it didn’t happen and I was lying.

I thanked him for wasting my time and started to walk out, he chased me out and told me I still wasn’t going to get a sick note. I rounded on him, “I never asked for a sick note and I don’t want a sick note. Even if you gave me a sick note I’m the Production Manager, I’m the man people hand their sick notes to. I wanted a doctor, not a useless old pisstank that should be deregistered!”.

His front office girl had been trying not to laugh but that last comment was too much for her, she obviously had a similar opinion of him. Over the next 20 years I saw several other doctors who also demonstrated that complete lack of ability, I wonder how many of them go for a holiday in Indonesia to buy the PHDs.

I decided that I obviously had to work things out for myself. I decided to try and tackle my depression first, I needed to revert back to a slower pace of life where I could find my balance again, I moved back up north to Darwin.

That didn’t work. I had plenty of fun times but my depression kept getting worse. In 2008 I had had enough and I gave up. When most of us are feeling down we have idle daydreams of escaping to a desert island, an idyllic tropical paradise. I started considering this idea seriously and I used google maps to study areas that likely had year round fresh water. I settled on the east arm of the Adelaide River.

I had 2 backpacks. One with some minimalist camping and hunting gear that I put on my back, another with my favourite SLR camera and lenses that I put on my front. I left my front door open and told my neighbours to help themselves to everything I owned before the landlady claimed it, and I walked away.

I spent 18 months in Adelaide River, sometimes staying in the bush and sometimes staying with some people in the township. I took a lot of wildlife pictures and I put together a picture CD, I used to sit in the local roadhouse when the tourist busses came through and flogged picture CDs to tourists. $20, cash only.

During this time I had had a mate that owned a 20 acre property at Dundee, yes, as in Crocodile Dundee. He had been asking me for a while to move to Dundee and be a caretaker on his property, after a rough week with heat stroke, scorpion stings and severe dehydration put me in hospital I decided to go and live at Dundee.

I had no electricity or water, I had to get water from a natural spring about a kilometre away, that was a bit scary because that was where all the wild pigs hung out too. No electricity means no refridgeration, I had to have fresh meat every second day, you can’t dry meat in the tropics, it just rots. I hunted wallabies because of their size, once they’re gutted and boned you only have a couple of kilos of meat.

Someone gave me a 6 month old puppy, a Sharpei X Bull Arab, I named he Ruby and I taught her to hunt. Life got easy after that, I didn’t even have to get out of my chair, every second day she brought home a little piglet or a wallaby, usually still alive if only just. Important lesson – dogs are far more efficient hunters than fat old men with crossbows.

I lived on that property for 18 months until we had a falling out, but by that time locals in the area had come to like me and they appreciated having a computer geek in their midst. Several people let me stay on their land and I remained in the area until late 2019.

My official rate for computer work was 2 beers an hour, that way I didn’t have to worry about inflation. Many of them couldn’t afford beer and they paid me in fresh buffalo meat, pork, beef, prawns, mudcrabs, threadfin salmon, and home grown fruits and vegetables. People in cities can’t afford to eat like that but out at Dundee this was what everyone ate because they couldn’t afford to buy food. She’s a funny old world.

By the time I was in my mid 50s it was starting to get harder to cope with the heat, by then Ruby was starting to get old as well. When I had another falling out with the owner of the current property I was staying on I decided it was time to start looking at my retirement. I jumped on a plane down to Adelaide because there’s not much in the way of services up in Darwin, I got my autism diagnosis (level 2), I got a disability pension, and I got subsidised social housing.

Sadly Ruby died before I could fly back and get her, she was left with a good family who looked after her well but she loved snakes. Unfortunately she was getting too old and slow and she got bitten. I always knew that was how I would lose her.

I still don’t know if I’ve recovered from my burn out or not, who I am has changed and I’m becoming more comfortable with the new me. I guess that’s the best many of us can hope for. Now I spend most of my time playing video games and harassing politicians. It’s a good life.

 

[Jumpinbare]

With me, I was working at a school for deaf children. (I was decades away from learning I'm autistic.)

I had always made sure I had lots of alone time, because being around people all the time was draining. I didn't know why, back then I just accepted that I was weird and had figured out what I needed to function well

Working at the school was not what I had expected. I was a dormitory supervisor. I was on duty 24 hrs a day, 5 days a week. Some weekends, I was still on duty. I slept in a room adjacent to the dorm. My room door opened into the dorm itself. If a kid had a problem during the night, I had to wake up and deal with it. With 24 kids in the dorm, this happened fairly often.

I knew the complete lack of alone time was getting to me, but I figured I would unwind and recover during school breaks. I didn't last that long. After an interaction with a student where I had to stop myself from pushing him into a wall (VERY uncharacteristic of me -- I just don't lash out in anger like that), I told my supervisor that he needed to find a replacement for me because I couldn't keep this up. It was only 2 weeks till Christmas break, so I told him I would hang in till then.

About that same time, the school had a psychologist come in and run evaluations on all the staff. I got my results after meeting with my supervisor, and according to the psychologist, I would only function well in a job where I could work without a lot of social interaction (too bad he didn't assess me for autism then).

I managed to finish out the two weeks, but I was a wreck. Besides just being overwhelmed, I also felt I was a failure for not staying with the job. I had never quit a job before. I had had seasonal or temporary jobs, where I knew I was only there for a fixed time, but I had never quit before. It was months before I was back to a semblance of myself.

 

[Poppy98]

With me, I was working at a school for deaf children. (I was decades away from learning I'm autistic.)

I had always made sure I had lots of alone time, because being around people all the time was draining. I didn't know why, back then I just accepted that I was weird and had figured out what I needed to function well

Working at the school was not what I had expected. I was a dormitory supervisor. I was on duty 24 hrs a day, 5 days a week. Some weekends, I was still on duty. I slept in a room adjacent to the dorm. My room door opened into the dorm itself. If a kid had a problem during the night, I had to wake up and deal with it. With 24 kids in the dorm, this happened fairly often.

I knew the complete lack of alone time was getting to me, but I figured I would unwind and recover during school breaks. I didn't last that long. After an interaction with a student where I had to stop myself from pushing him into a wall (VERY uncharacteristic of me -- I just don't lash out in anger like that), I told my supervisor that he needed to find a replacement for me because I couldn't keep this up. It was only 2 weeks till Christmas break, so I told him I would hang in till then.

About that same time, the school had a psychologist come in and run evaluations on all the staff. I got my results after meeting with my supervisor, and according to the psychologist, I would only function well in a job where I could work without a lot of social interaction (too bad he didn't assess me for autism then).

I managed to finish out the two weeks, but I was a wreck. Besides just being overwhelmed, I also felt I was a failure for not staying with the job. I had never quit a job before. I had had seasonal or temporary jobs, where I knew I was only there for a fixed time, but I had never quit before. It was months before I was back to a semblance of myself.

I'm glad that you had the wherewithall to step back when you needed to.

Do you mind if I ask what country you were in?

 

[Angular Chap]

My first long term burnout was caused by forcing myself through a job in retail for 5 years. It approached slowly and gradually, until one night I deflated like a balloon over the course of a shift. I left early and handed in my resignation the day after. Now that I didn’t have to work, I noticed the symptoms: Tired, yet couldn’t sleep. Sleep not energising me. Brain fog. Feeling dazed and slow. Constant migraines one after the other. Over time, it went away as I slowly gravitated towards my own routine, sank myself into my special interests and limited my contact with people, although it took a few years.

My second burnout hit in late August 2020. I had already endured the intense, acute anxiety of the global pandemic in the preceding months, but what finally got me was the constant loud neighbourhood parties. Every other day, every other house had some kind of party until 4am, for months. Then one night at around 11pm, I guess everyone finally had enough and the police were finally called to stop the latest illegal gathering that had been going on since midday. After the inevitable loud shouting match, I actually felt something happen in my head that night. Hard to describe, but like an old incandescent light bulb gently giving out with a subtle pop.

Since I was already in a stable routine, this burnout didn’t last as long and the only thing prolonging it (other than the obvious global pandemic!) was the constant masking. Less symptoms than last time, mostly brain fog and feeling dazed and slow. Having to constantly delete and re-type the same thing into a search bar because I kept making mistakes. The words “worn out” kept going round and round inside my head.

This second burnout passed when I came out about being autistic to my close family and I went for a diagnosis, got back into my usual routine and no longer had to hide my autism traits, or lie about the traits I could no longer hide.

 

[UFO]

What makes all these examples autistic burnouts? What would be a good descriptive definition about what makes them different from normal burnouts? Edit: One answer is this https://www.autismforums.com/threads/autistic-burnout.41208/post-901864 I take that the burnout itself is not different, but its causes are, and capabilities to solve the situation are.

My own experience is that I was working for a large international company as a software engineer. My problem wasn't workload, it was exactly opposite: I had interest, ideas, capabilities and efficiency to do more work, but I wasn't given any (not that my superior wasn't trying, it was that there was already overcapacity and very tight control of all development). Bug lists got shorter and my overhaul suggestions were blocked because "if it works, better not touch it" (read: the software actually was a pile of bubblegum patches over each other, and even smallest changes actually risked breaking the whole house of cards).

I began to grow both frustration and guilt of feeling slacker. Add there the social deficits, and such frustration about everything made me both stressed and being on the edge which lead to confrontations with the people. I had to be careful about what I do and say all the time, and I had to worry what I am allowed to do both professionally and socially.

Eventually I got a moment when I was berated about being a little bit too open about how I perceive other people's incompetence (that was an understatement, I think I actually had some kind of meltdown). After that I passed out. Just found myself lying on the floor of my cubicle. I asked a coworker to escort me to a doctor. Nothing was found. Blood pressure etc. was fine (usually I have both low blood pressure and low pulse, I don't remember if they were now higher but within limits). Heart wasn't even listened. Blood test was taken next day, and based on that they decided that I must have had a low blood sugar... I disagreed, but I guessed that all my problems would go away if I just quit, and then I did that... (It wasn't entirely successful retirement, as I got involved with a startup company which was a completely different experience, very positive one, but at least there wasn't any more health issues)

 

[Outdated]

Edit: One answer is this https://www.autismforums.com/threads/autistic-burnout.41208/post-901864 I take that the burnout itself is not different, but its causes are, and capabilities to solve the situation are.

What I didn't know back then was that my burnout was a social/emotional issue. I always had an extremely active social life and that was what kept burning me out. I pride myself on my ability to spot patterns but it took me more than 40 years to pick up on that one.

When I moved down to Adelaide I made the very deliberate choice that this time around I was going to avoid making any close friends and having a social life. I've stuck to that for 6 years now and it's the most stable my life has ever been. I still chat to people when I'm out and about and that gives me enough social interaction without people invading my own little world.

 

[RandomBogy]

https://www.autismforums.com/threads/autistic-burnout.41208/

I just realised the page I linked to is in the Members Only area, here's a copy of my first post in that thread:

Autistic Burnout.

I didn’t know what it was at the time, I had suspicions that I was autistic but I knew very little about it. It was another 20 years before I got around to getting a diagnosis and learning more about myself.

I was a highly productive and well paid printer, I was the Production Manager of the company. I had a high metabolic rate and I was extremely active, I only needed 5 or 6 hours sleep a night. I was incredibly social as well, I worked 70 hours a week, I spent another 20 hours a week in the pub, I had 2 nights a week where I played video games with friends, I was teaching myself programming languages, C, C++, Ruby and Python, and I had a girlfriend. I was a busy man.

That all changed in 2001, almost overnight, for no reason that I can understand. My metabolism slowed down dramatically and I couldn’t drink full strength beer any more. I put on weight, I became depressed. I started having fits where I pass out and drop like a felled tree, often breaking bones in the process. My whole world collapsed.

This was one of the very few times that I went to see a doctor, most of them are pretty useless but this one was truly pathetic. He tested my blood pressure and told me there was nothing wrong with me, and he told me that he wasn’t giving me a sick note. I told him that I didn’t want a sick note, I just wanted to know why I was passing out, he told me that it didn’t happen and I was lying.

I thanked him for wasting my time and started to walk out, he chased me out and told me I still wasn’t going to get a sick note. I rounded on him, “I never asked for a sick note and I don’t want a sick note. Even if you gave me a sick note I’m the Production Manager, I’m the man people hand their sick notes to. I wanted a doctor, not a useless old pisstank that should be deregistered!”.

His front office girl had been trying not to laugh but that last comment was too much for her, she obviously had a similar opinion of him. Over the next 20 years I saw several other doctors who also demonstrated that complete lack of ability, I wonder how many of them go for a holiday in Indonesia to buy the PHDs.

I decided that I obviously had to work things out for myself. I decided to try and tackle my depression first, I needed to revert back to a slower pace of life where I could find my balance again, I moved back up north to Darwin.

That didn’t work. I had plenty of fun times but my depression kept getting worse. In 2008 I had had enough and I gave up. When most of us are feeling down we have idle daydreams of escaping to a desert island, an idyllic tropical paradise. I started considering this idea seriously and I used google maps to study areas that likely had year round fresh water. I settled on the east arm of the Adelaide River.

I had 2 backpacks. One with some minimalist camping and hunting gear that I put on my back, another with my favourite SLR camera and lenses that I put on my front. I left my front door open and told my neighbours to help themselves to everything I owned before the landlady claimed it, and I walked away.

I spent 18 months in Adelaide River, sometimes staying in the bush and sometimes staying with some people in the township. I took a lot of wildlife pictures and I put together a picture CD, I used to sit in the local roadhouse when the tourist busses came through and flogged picture CDs to tourists. $20, cash only.

During this time I had had a mate that owned a 20 acre property at Dundee, yes, as in Crocodile Dundee. He had been asking me for a while to move to Dundee and be a caretaker on his property, after a rough week with heat stroke, scorpion stings and severe dehydration put me in hospital I decided to go and live at Dundee.

I had no electricity or water, I had to get water from a natural spring about a kilometre away, that was a bit scary because that was where all the wild pigs hung out too. No electricity means no refridgeration, I had to have fresh meat every second day, you can’t dry meat in the tropics, it just rots. I hunted wallabies because of their size, once they’re gutted and boned you only have a couple of kilos of meat.

Someone gave me a 6 month old puppy, a Sharpei X Bull Arab, I named he Ruby and I taught her to hunt. Life got easy after that, I didn’t even have to get out of my chair, every second day she brought home a little piglet or a wallaby, usually still alive if only just. Important lesson – dogs are far more efficient hunters than fat old men with crossbows.

I lived on that property for 18 months until we had a falling out, but by that time locals in the area had come to like me and they appreciated having a computer geek in their midst. Several people let me stay on their land and I remained in the area until late 2019.

My official rate for computer work was 2 beers an hour, that way I didn’t have to worry about inflation. Many of them couldn’t afford beer and they paid me in fresh buffalo meat, pork, beef, prawns, mudcrabs, threadfin salmon, and home grown fruits and vegetables. People in cities can’t afford to eat like that but out at Dundee this was what everyone ate because they couldn’t afford to buy food. She’s a funny old world.

By the time I was in my mid 50s it was starting to get harder to cope with the heat, by then Ruby was starting to get old as well. When I had another falling out with the owner of the current property I was staying on I decided it was time to start looking at my retirement. I jumped on a plane down to Adelaide because there’s not much in the way of services up in Darwin, I got my autism diagnosis (level 2), I got a disability pension, and I got subsidised social housing.

Sadly Ruby died before I could fly back and get her, she was left with a good family who looked after her well but she loved snakes. Unfortunately she was getting too old and slow and she got bitten. I always knew that was how I would lose her.

I still don’t know if I’ve recovered from my burn out or not, who I am has changed and I’m becoming more comfortable with the new me. I guess that’s the best many of us can hope for. Now I spend most of my time playing video games and harassing politicians. It’s a good life unc

Thank you for sharing uncle much love (┬┬﹏┬┬)

 

[Captain Caveman]

It hits both mentally and physically. For me, a massive increase in shutdowns and partial shutdowns, along with it being hard to switch off at night so sleeping patterns are out.
Trying to do things such as when I was in work feels like daily physical torture. Even small tasks feel like a massive physical undertaking.
And at its worst, it can turn more into a type of breakdown where ones mind can begin bouncing back and fore when it hits hard and one starts losing abilities one relies on such as balance, co-ordination and remembering how to walk.

It can take years to properly recover from depending how hard it hit.

The worst thing one can do if one feels the signs is to try and push through as it will get worse and worse.

I never realized what they were called in the past, but I knew they hit. They always hit me in a work situation where not realizing that their cause was mental, I would try and push through. (It took me years to even realize that shutdowns were mentally caused as a doctor said to me it was "Some sort of allergy").

Most people get what I call "Mini burnouts" where they feel the symptoms (Which can be more mental than physical for some as we are all different in how we are effected and our mental senses work) they then need to ease off and as they ease off their recovery is quicker and the damage less.

The issue is there are many undiagnosed autistic people out there going through mental and physical torture along with poverty as one eventually breaks down and needs a long time to recover where if one can't explain to doctors, one can't claim government support while one can't work which is the situation I sometimes found myself in in the past. The problem is, outside of those who know they are on the spectrum, that the lack of knowledge as to what autism actually is and the wide ranging effects it can give, there are more undiagnosed than diagnosed going through a tough time.
For around 40 years I had been desperately trying to find out what shutdowns were. Doctors didn't have a clue! As I seemed to have a disconnect in realizing a shutdown was mental as for me, I assumed physical effected the mental because I would not realize the initial signs were mental, it took me most of my life to discover what autism was... Partly because in the press they concentrate on the worst cases where their mind can't make their bodies work and effects their ability to talk etc. A classic example is when before I was diagnosed, a teacher who never taught me, said when my Mum mentioned I was waiting to be assessed "You are not autistic. NO WAY. You are not in a wheelchair!"
This is typical of what the world sees when they only ever come across the worst cases in the press. Don't forget, she had been teaching for 30 years and was in her last few years at a school with 2000 pupils. She would have taught a great many autistic pupils without knowing it, many of them going through hard times due to trying to cope with the school enviroment. (Some autistic kids thrive in such an enviroment but others find it highly stressful, and only some can display this stress outwardly as others have been forced to learn to mask their emotions).

I do not know if I am describing things in a way that one would understand or relate to as it can present itself in different ways.

 

[Outdated]

You did describe everything very well. All of that ^^ describes me perfectly.

It hits both mentally and physically. For me, a massive increase in shutdowns and partial shutdowns,

I started passing out for no fathomable reason. No warning, pass out and drop to the ground like a felled tree. Broke a few smaller bones and lost some teeth that way. Doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me.

Trying to do things such as when I was in work feels like daily physical torture. Even small tasks feel like a massive physical undertaking.

That's me too. I think there's a fair bit of Demand Avoidance at play here too, the more important it becomes that I get off my arse and do something the more I don't want to do it. I've got a home inspection (social housing) coming up on the 8th of Jan, it's only a tiny flat, surely I can get it spruced up a bit in that time.

When I was young I used to keep an immaculately spotless home and I had a very active social life. The housekeeping fell apart when I was about 30. Then when I finally snapped in my 40s and went bush I didn't have much to do all day except read books and enjoy nature, my only tough decisions were what to eat or should I have a beer. And making a mess didn't matter within reason because I had a dirt floor - spill your coffee, kick a bit of dust over it. I miss that lifestyle in some ways.

The worst thing one can do if one feels the signs is to try and push through as it will get worse and worse.

That was my biggest mistake. I had a truly great life and I wanted it back and it took me a long time to accept that I'm just not that person any more. The more I fought it the worse it got, but I'm a tenacious little bastard when I've decided I want something so I didn't give up until I snapped completely.