A Survival Guide to Autistic Burnout That Isn’t a Guide at All
I thought I was just burned out. Turns out I’m autistic and on fire. This is what autistic burnout really looks like. Executive dysfunction, zero joy, waterboarding laundry, and takeaway bags as interior design. There are no tips in here. Just truth, jokes, and the (one) occasional puffin.
This builds on my first post, Restraint Collapse | A Journey in Executive Dysfunction, to go deeper on how my burnout feels.
Warning-ish: Contains references to autistic burnout, executive dysfunction, and the low-grade suicidal ideation that isn’t urgent but still exhausting. Nothing graphic. Just honest. Skip if it’s too much today; it’ll still be here tomorrow. And so will I.
I Thought I Was Burned Out. Turns Out I’m Autistic and on Fire
I thought I was ‘just’ in professional burnout. The kind you fix with a duvet day, aromatherapy, and a podcast about setting boundaries. What I actually have is autistic burnout. And an autism diagnosis. At 54. Which is quite the discovery when you’re already too exhausted to do your laundry.
It was a relief at first; suddenly, the things that made me “too sensitive,” “too dramatic,” “too much” had a reason. I ‘m not lazy or disorganised. I am autistic. There is a reason why I flinch at strip light, hate candles, want to scream at background noise, smother mouth breathers, and find serif fonts physically offensive.
But the relief comes with grief. Grief that no one noticed when I was a child. That I was bullied and isolated and maybe that wasn’t just bad luck or my fault, maybe it was just because I was too different.
Grief that I’ve spent decades trying to work out why I was always too much or not enough. Grief that I’ve left people I cared about, because I didn’t know how to name what I was feeling, let alone explain it. Autism doesn’t always give me the words, just the overwhelm. So I ran. May the bridges I burn light the way.
This Isn’t Depression. This Is Black Belt Burnout
I thought I was depressed. Because I am past exhausted and accelerating. I cry all the time. Because I can’t do anything. Because fonts and socks hurt. But this doesn’t feel like depression.
Depression, for me, is “I want to do things, but I can’t.”
Autistic burnout is, “I can’t remember why I ever wanted to do anything in the first place. And I will have a full-on tantrum if you suggest a nature walk. Or journaling.”
I love photography. It usually brings me deep joy. But right now I can’t even leave the house. I can write for ten hours about photography, with perfect structure and flow, but I can’t take a single photo.
Puffins vs The Duvet of Despair
For the last three months I have been working from Europe. I was in the right time zone for work. I went out. With my camera. I took photos. I watched Puffins. I just about stayed on top of life; thanks to the structure, the novelty, and the fact I was staying in other people’s homes, not my own.
Then I came home.
It was like rolling in the Duvet of Despair. Stepping into the Slippers of Sadness, and putting on the Dressing Gown of Doom. Replete with scratchy labels.
I’ve been home three weeks. I’ve made my bed once. Run the dishwasher once. Left the house twice. My laundry has been in the washing machine for ten days. I’ve washed it five times because I keep “forgetting” to have the energy to hang it out and then panicking that it smells. At this point I’m not doing laundry, I’m waterboarding my clothes.
My Home Is a Archeological Dig
I am a clean freak. Clean as a form of control. Clean because chaos makes my skin crawl. A tidy environment for a tidy mind.
Now?
There are two bags of rubbish on the kitchen floor. I’ve started my very own science experiment and am waiting for Marvel to call me to ask to use them as the next MCU multiverse.
The kitchen counters are buried under dishes I should just put in the dishwasher. The dishwasher is right there. It’s not broken. I am.
I eat delivery food straight from the bag (all the dishes are on the counters in the kitchen, at risk of sliding off and smashing, though perhaps the trash bags will break their fall), and leave the bags on the floor. At this point my floor is more “archive of takeaways” than “walkable surface.” I am just relieved you can’t see my floor on Teams calls…
Shazam!
The other day, I was listening to a podcast on my iPad. A song came on. It was beautiful. I wanted to know what it was. I opened Shazam on my phone and held it up. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. I glared at it and swore. Because that always makes things work.
It took me a geological age to realise that the music was playing only inside my head. I was wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
Shazam wasn’t broken. My brain was.
I live in those headphones. I rotate between three pairs like I’m DJing a set called “Please Stop Breathing Noisily Near Me.” I never leave home without them… wait. I never leave home.
Still Working. Not Functioning
I work from 3PM to 2AM. I’m in the wrong time zone for my job. I sleep badly. I wake up feeling like a software update failed. I need six espressos just to sit up. My morning defibrillator.
I’m not tired. I’m pathologically exhausted. Depleted. “Fatigued” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I get to the end of every workday and think, “I can’t do this anymore.”
And then I do it again.
That’s the trap. I can function. But just barely. And it costs everything. Regulating my emotions feels like holding a giant beach ball underwater while someone’s shouting at me about KPIs. I shut down mid-sentence. I stare at walls. Keeping my temper is like trying to calm a truculent volcano.
The Part I Won’t Say Out Loud
And yes, the suicidal ideation is there. All day, every day.
Not the active kind. Not the hotline kind. Just the ‘If I say this out loud, it’s drama queen territory’ kind.
I “joke” that I wake up disappointed I didn’t die in my sleep. I write meeting notes with I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE in ALLCAPS between action items.
It’s not a crisis. It’s not a warning sign. It’s just passive emptiness.
I don’t talk about it because I’m not going to do anything. It feels pointlessly melodramatic. It’s just a fact. A boring, exhausting, persistent fact.
Five Steps to… the Garbage bin? No
There’s no advice here. No list of five things that fixed me in 5 minutes a day at 05:00AM. No ‘Do this and you’ll be all over your Special interests in less than 48 hours’.
I’m writing this because someone else is probably sitting in a house full of takeaway bags and unwashed laundry thinking they’re alone and lost.
Because someone’s being told they’re depressed and lazy and not trying hard enough, when what they actually are is autistic and burnt out. To within an inch (or 2.2cm) of their life.
Autistic burnout isn’t something to nap and aromatherapy a way out of. It’s something to stagger, crawl, drag through. By any means necessary.
Still Here
I don’t have a happy ending. I don’t even have clean socks.
But I’m still here. Still writing. Still listening to music I can’t Shazam.
If you’re in this too, if you’re past tired, disoriented, and done. You are not alone.
You’re not broken.
You’re just burnt out in a world that wasn’t made for you.
And somehow, despite everything, you’re still here too. That counts for something.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or just seen in a way that stings a bit, there are people who get it. And places to turn. You don’t have to do this alone.
Start here: National Autistic Society (UK), and / or Reframing Autism (Australia), and / or Recovery Plan for Autistic Burnout.
And if you want to reach out, I’m around, please contact me.