Autistic Burnout Question.

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I do not know if I have been having burnout or not. Probably not but if I have I have had it for several years as I have had such a decline with such an increase in partial shutdowns that when I tried taking a temporary part time low hours job it was almost unbearable. The people were great. The job was great. I know the job back to front and insideout. But I was in one long continuous partly dissabling partial shutdown through most of the shifts almost every day. It was horrible. And lacking sleep at night. Full on anxiety in the morning so it often took me 20 minutes to be able to walk from the carpark to the shop.
I felt like my body was wearing a cast iron suit of armour where every move I made takes soo much effort.

Question.

I have been really strughling for over a decade now but the last few years have gone downhill fast, and the last month or two taking on this job for financial survival purposes, has been the final limit of my ability to physically work. The job has ended now. I hope to recover. But I know I have hardly recovered before that when I took the previous job before Christmas and that was low hours part time work too. How long does it take to fully recover? I feel like I have de-stressed all I can by only taking the occasional low hours part time work for the same company (So I avoid the stressful job interview and application forms etc) and the last full time job I had where I eventually became suicidal so I had to leave, was in 2007.

From how I feel now and how I have declined, I feel it could take me ten or more years of recovery to cope wirh working full time again. I hope not, but it is how I feel. I want to get back on the bicycle again. I love cycling. But as I am prone to partial shutdowns this year only once have I been out. Last year I went out a few times. The year before I was not up to much but I was able to cycle a bit more... Yet before 2007 I could easily tackle a 30 to 40 mile ride if I wanted to. I may be saddle sore and tired afterwards, but I could do it if I took my time. Roughly ten years before that, I was averaging over 100 miles a week to 250 miles a week.

As I have got older the partial shutdowns/shutdowns have increased. My ability to work has decreased.

Is it possible to recover from this and reverse the trend?

I'm a connoisseur of burn out..

Across the domains you describe, it becomes a question of how the stress-rest equation is shaping up, how the rest of your life is structured to support or degrade functioning levels, your level of pain tolerance which comes back to alignment with something bigger than yourself, and the tools in your toolbox for improving the stress/rest ratio.

One book which started me on my recovery after a major crisis was Peak Performance by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness. It's all about how to perform while avoiding burn out. It's not autism specific but I found the concepts extremely helpful.

Beyond that, Passion Paradox by the same authors is a good follow-up on that point of purpose alignment.

One autism specific pointer I'll add is this.. we especially risk burning out if we try to "have it all". It's critical to work out what matters most in life versus what doesn't, and ruthlessly trim the latter.

I used to be able to tolerate a lot of stress at work. Not so much, now that family demands are ever present.

Burnout sucks

^ I think this is very wise and I agree with this. I would add that we risk burning out not only by trying to "have it all", but also by trying to "do it all".

I've experienced autistic burnout from my job. It started about ten years ago and got progressively worse to the point that for the last three years or so each day was exhausting on every level. I changed jobs this year and didn't realize how stressful that last one was until I was done with it. I tried to "do it all" at my job and take on more than I could handle. Just because some people can juggle many different things at a job successfully and excel at it doesn't mean everyone can. I finally accepted that I couldn't and I also accepted that it was Ok for me to admit that it would be healthier for me to do something else than to continue with something that was killing me psychologically.

Will my burnout last? The stress has lessened for the time being in my current job and I negotiated a four day work week which has helped a great deal, but at this early stage I still feel damaged and wounded from the stress over such a long period of time.

For the last decade I have been stripping myself of everything I can... Even posessions... So I can unstress myself as much as I can. I have almost reached a point where there's not much in my life I can strip back anymore, and the wierd thing was that the more I tried to empty my life, the more things seem to happen unrelated to me that fill it, or the more well meaning visitors we get. My Mum has people who have not visited her for ages phoning her asking her when she is going to be in when no one else is visiting, and she can't tell them. We have several people on hold, as almost every day seems to have someone calling in. I would never have guessed that a house in the middle of no where could be so busy! My youngest brother and his wife are such social people so they often have carloads of people turn up. My other brother comes up to de-stress. He has 9 children. My brother has an expanding business which has really taken off. He is self employed doing gardens and working all the hours he can while the sun shines. Some of his friwnds ae working with him as he is getting them involved so they can all have businesses doing the same thing as there is a shortage of work in this area, but lots of retired people who can no longer do their gardens. He does not charge a lot. Most businesses doing what he does charge horrendous prices. How can pensioners afford that?
He has one lady in her 90's who he has been helping her with her garden for a good while now. She loves his company and she always loves her garden. She teaches him about plans etc... She is quite a character having come from a wealthy family whose fortune has dwindled over the years so she has a little bungalow and she can't really aford to have him that often, but he loves going there and he would do it without being paid as he enjoys visiting her. If my brother goes abroad (His wife is from Korea) the lady is often phoning to see if he is back. She sometimes sends my Mum some of her spare flowers.
Anyway. I do all I can to de-stress. Sometimes Mum and I go out in the car to nice places to de-stress so we can avoid visitors. We like the people but need to recharge sometimes.

I've been burnt out for years. Now I just don't care anymore. I figure I'll keep working until I have a heart attack and drop dead.

Mountain Goat, why don't you try a new sport? Maybe you could take up hiking. Are there any nice areas around where you live?

Lots of nice areas but I find walking and cycling are out of the question when I am fragile with partial shutdowns.

View from a coastal walk footpath which goes for many miles.



A much closer footpath by the side of one of our village shops.

I'm just curious Mountain Goat. Why do you normally refer to "partial shutdowns" rather than "shutdowns" ?

Perhaps you've explained this before, but you're the only person I've noticed on WP or elsewhere who says "partial". I don't think I've seen you mention having a "shutdown" (implied: full shutdown) before, but always partial.

When I feel the shutdown starting I can delay it for a while but by doing this I go deeper into the shutdown. For example, if I am driving, and I feel it happening, I can go a few miles to look for a place to pull in. I then put the seat back in the car and then it comes, and I then simply wait to recover. For me, as I can relax while driving, I rarely get partial shutdowns, and I am probably at my most vunerable stage if I am stuck for a long while ina traffic jam and I start to panic, so I am always looking for countey lanes to make my journeys if I see any build up of traffic where I expect long delays. I have been known to drive 20 miles or even twice that distance to keep the car moving via country lanes to aboid waiting 10 or 15 minutes in a traffic queue that I have seen on the opposite side of the road and I would have come back that way! My brother calls them my "Famous shirtcuts" which take twice as long to reach the destination! I know many of the thousands of little roads throughout Wales, and is why I love travelling through Wales and why I am on edge if I travel into England, because I don't know all the alternative routes. Is like I have an inbuilt map in my mind for Wales so I know roughly where I am and where I am heading even if I have never been on one of the little roads.
As I have warning that it is going to happen before it happens, I can get myself to a quiet place and lie down to recover so I can catch it in time and only lesser things shut down. My body starts going limp so I can't keep standing. Is like I slowly collapse to the floor, but before this stage, everything I do physically becomes a great effort. It is like I am wearing a heavy iron suite of armour where every move I make takes great effort and it is as if I have not eaten for a month so by trying to continue a physical task, I quickly weaken... The weakening stage then brings me into the collapse on the floor stage.
If as soon as I start feeling a shutdown coming, and I then immediately stop what I am doing and lie down, it does not take that long to recover, especially if I feed my brain with some sort of food to give energy. This is what I call a partial shutdown.
When I am in my vunerable stage which I have mentioned, I can be feeling like the start of a shutdown coming for most of the day which I will be battling with by trying my best to take things easy but try to keep functioning... For example, if I am in a work enviroment where I simply feel like I don't habe the option to try to recover... None of the work would get done. (And outwardly no one ever sees anything that shows I am going through this unless I slowly fall to the floor if I start shutting down.
Now to me a shutdown is what I call going deeper where I go past the partial shutdown stage and more things start to shut down. The last things to shut down are my eyesight and if bad, hearing. Yet I am still concious and aware of my surroundings. Is why I was soo puzzled for so many years as it was not fainting and not a blackout... Was not unconciousness. It was different. I could never make it out or describe it in a way which doctors could make sense of it, and my previous doctors surgery assumed I was faking it and for several years efore I changed doctors the receptionist used to stop me seeing any of my doctors except for once a year. Hence I was getting no where.

Thank you for clarifying. I didn't realise that you also have regular / full shutdowns as well. I had noticed you say "partial shutdown" quite often, and I thought that was the only type you experienced.

Lets say I have a total shutdown. It starts as entering the fringes... What I call the first warnings. This is the point where I am normally starting to look for two things (This is before I realized that purposeful stimming works... I only started this about half way through last week. I never knew how effective it could be). The first I would look for is a place to sit or preferably lye down. (Is it lye down or lie down... Uhmmm). The second is that I will be looking for some food or drink to boost my energy as I feel weak and it does help. It does not always work, but it can speed up the recovery process.
Now what I call the fringes of a shutdown where I get the first warnings, I have been having this feeling constantly the last few weeks because I have been working and also we have had lots of visitors on the days off so I have not had any recharge time. Hence I have been very fragile and vunerable to shutdowns.
Next, if I can't immediately find a place to liedown to recover and eat something to help I would then slowly slip into partially shutting down. If in work or a social setting where I would do all I can to keep going as if I was having no issues, as I want to look for a quiet place, and lets say I am unable, I can struggle on and delay the effects of the partial shutdown for a while but then I eventually reach a point when I can't do it any longer, and instead of partially shutting down, I shut down. I will also go from a partial shutdown to totally shutting down if people start making a fuss of me if ai am lying down or people say to move (I could move but it takes great effort) or people try to tell me to get up, or think I'm faking it... People who try to get me to engage in conversation with them... This will bring on a shutdown. I may be quite grumpy and even blunt with people just before I shut down if they try to say I am faking it or make some sort of remark... This is not how I usually am by character, but I am fighting a shutdown off here. I then shut down.

Now the recent miricle here for me which has held off total shutdowns in work when I have been partially shut down has been stimming. (Violently flapping my hands). It is not 100% effective by any means, but it works better then other methods so far, and I have been impressed .
The problem is that I am very concious of stimming in front of people, mainly because I have had years and years of having to train myself not to stim when I used to do it automatically (And I didn't know why I did it when I did it but did it for different reasons compared to how I used to stim (I never used to hand flap or rock back and fore, but I used to stim by many different methods which I never knew were stimming until recently). Now over the years so many different people have told me off and some trained me by watching to see if I did it and telling me when I did so I could stop... (I actually eespected this more then the people who would simply tell me off, as the person who told me when I was doing it so I could correct myself (A manager in a store I worked in) was not harsh with me but more gently reminding me. He didn't know whyI did it and I could not tell him why I did it, but he was training us on body language when dealing with customers, so it was part of this training).
I hope I have explained things clearly enough that it makes sense.

I've been burned out since High School. I graduated several years ago and have never recovered. Maybe you'll recover, probably not. It's hard to say since everyone's ASD experience is so unique. For me, it's been very horrible and unpleasant, as in everything I do takes too much effort as I've gotten older. But some seem to enjoy having ASD quite dearly.

If you find yourself continuing on enjoying your interests, you'll be fine. If not, then you're really burned out! And I've gone through that stage.

I had a burnout in 2000 which landed me in hospital. My adrenal glands were literally shutting down (I was using too much adrenaline from stress). I didn't really recover before going back to work full time. My second breakdown started about six years ago. I don't work any more, but even with reclusive behaviour and a completely relaxed routine I have yet to recover from this burnout, and I don't know if I will.

Thanks both.
I believe I have hit burnout about a decade ago and sunk down further since then. Is like everything is an effort.
I have not hit complete breakdown stage, but at times I believe I have been pretty close, which is why I feel that I am now too fragile to try to work. I have tried it recently, as a temporary low hours part time job and I sank so much further, that I just can't see myself working again. Not unless I recover, and I know this takes time.
I have almost abandoned my one special interest these days, and the main special interest I only touch now and then. When I feel up to it. Seems to be I have times when I do turn to rhe hobby and most times these days I find I rest thinking about the hobby. Haha. Does thinking count?

Yes, it's too bad. Really. I'm already completely too burned out to do anything enthusiastically but in a position where I need to keep working full time. I'm about to turn 27 years old, still never had a girlfriend, never kissed a girl, never had sex, and have even made a suicide attempt a few years ago. I'm hardly functional as a human being and completely torn apart. Even if all of a sudden I was able to stop working and spend full time in therapy to address my past issues, there's no way I will make any sort of recover at this point. It's far too late, and irreversible damage has already been done.

But whatever, nobody cares about autistic health.

So sorry to hear.
Never give up hope.
I used to change from job to job as it gave my body a rest, as I recognised within me a pattern. This was years ago... I only recently, after many years eventually, with prayer, joined the dots which led to asking to be assessed for asperges, now called autism.
Now what changing jobs did for me... I am one who was masking a lot. Usually after two years the mask started to come down, and it was then I was vunerable. By changing jobs the moment I felt cracks developing in the masking, I was able to avoid any issues.
Back then I could not explain what was going on exceot that I knew it was time for a change.
Whilw I hated change, it did prevent me from burning out and crashing. I am rhinking that this may help you or someone else. It may not be ideal, but it may help.

Another thing which perked me up a little though I don't know if it is something to do with my body or mind etc or why etc, is Metatone tonic. I do not know what is in it, but as long as I don't take it for too long (Where the effects wear off as my body gets too used to taking it) it does seem to do something. This may be totally unrelated to autism but just in case it feeds the mind with some vitamin, mineral or nutrient etc, I thought it is worth mentioning it. It is not easy to get here because it is in high demand. I do not know if it is available elsewhere in the world.

A third thing to mention is prayer. For a start, it cost nothing to pray. So even if it does nt work, so what? You are no worse off. But, I have found that it does work. It is prayer asking God what is wrong with me which eventually led me on this path of discovery. It was a long process from the prayer to the discovery, but it was an ultra fine process. I mean.... If I was given the answer there and then I would not have beleived it and dissmissed it. But because it has been a gradual learning curve, where God sent me BIG clues like letting me date a beautifully hearted lady who has asperges and her son has autism where, when I started to ask her what asperges actually was, I could find hardly any difference between what she said and what I thought was nornal. It didn't occur to me back then that the way I thought wasn't normal! Haha!
No. though I have come close, I have not had sex in my life yet. I am saving myself for marriage. I mention this to say you are not alone. I have kissed and cuddled etc., though mostly with the first girlfriend that I dated back when I was around my mid 30's. Late for a first gf I know! I write this so you don't give up hope. And also, you may date two or three or more young ladies before you find the right one for you, so don't be too hard on yourself if things don't work out straight away. I have not knowingly met the right lady for me as yet.