Finally getting out of autistic burnout | what is it and how did I overcome it?
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the creator discusses their personal experience with autistic burnout, a severe mental health crisis affecting the autistic community. They share their journey of recovery, emphasizing the importance of rest, lifestyle changes, and therapy. The creator also provides insight into the challenges of identifying and treating burnout, stressing the need for patience and self-compassion during the healing process.
Takeaways
- 😔 The speaker has been experiencing 'autistic burnout' for over two years, which is a severe state of exhaustion affecting both mental and physical health.
- 🛑 Autistic burnout is not just a feeling of being tired; it's a mental health crisis that can drastically reduce one's functionality and productivity.
- 🏠 The speaker had to move back home with their parents during the burnout phase because they could no longer take care of themselves independently.
- 🔄 Coming out of burnout is a slow process that involves gradually reintroducing responsibilities into one's life to find a sustainable threshold.
- 🤔 There is no one-size-fits-all solution to autistic burnout; it requires lifestyle changes, rest, and potentially therapy.
- 🌱 The speaker emphasizes the importance of making rest a priority and stopping when feeling overwhelmed, despite the internal struggle with guilt or laziness.
- 🧠 The speaker's brain often 'gaslights' them, making them feel like they are lazy or faking their condition, which is a common internal battle for those with burnout.
- 👩⚕️ Therapy is crucial for addressing internalized ableism and learning to rest without guilt, which are key steps in recovery.
- 📉 Autistic burnout can be triggered by an unsustainable lifestyle, and recovery involves making necessary adjustments to one's daily routine and expectations.
- 🚫 There is no quick fix for burnout; it requires a long-term commitment to change and rest, which can be frustrating but is essential for recovery.
- 👨👩👧👦 The speaker suggests leaning on others for support, giving up some responsibilities, and making accommodations to ease the burden during recovery.
Q & A
What is the main topic discussed in the video script?
-The main topic discussed in the video script is 'autistic burnout' and the process of recovering from it.
Why has the video creator not made a YouTube video for a month?
-The video creator has been tired and has been focusing on rest to avoid falling back into autistic burnout, which has affected their productivity.
What does the video creator mean by 'making rest a priority'?
-Making rest a priority means that the video creator is consciously taking breaks and not overworking themselves to prevent a relapse into burnout.
What is the video creator's strategy for slowly reintroducing responsibilities into their life?
-The video creator is adding one responsibility every week or every other week, assessing their ability to handle it, and then deciding if they can take on more.
How long has the video creator been recovering from autistic burnout?
-The video creator has been recovering from autistic burnout for about 2 and a half years.
What does the video creator define 'autistic burnout' as?
-Autistic burnout is defined as a mental health crisis that autistic people experience, affecting the entire nervous system and drastically changing functionality, productivity, and emotions.
Why do some autistic individuals not realize they are autistic until they experience burnout?
-Some autistic individuals may not realize they are autistic until they experience burnout because the symptoms can mirror other mental health issues like depression, leading them to seek medical attention and receive a diagnosis.
What lifestyle changes did the video creator make to help recover from autistic burnout?
-The video creator gave up many responsibilities, such as cooking and housework, and relied more on their parents for support during the recovery process.
What role does therapy play in the recovery from autistic burnout according to the video creator?
-Therapy plays a crucial role in addressing internalized ableism, learning to rest without guilt, and working through mental health issues associated with autistic burnout.
Why is it important not to rush the recovery process from autistic burnout?
-Rushing the recovery process can lead to taking on too many responsibilities too quickly, which can push the individual back into burnout and undo the progress made.
What advice does the video creator give for managing the desire to return to the previous lifestyle before burnout?
-The video creator advises adjusting goals and expectations, as the previous lifestyle may not be sustainable and changes need to be made for a healthier and more balanced life.
Outlines
😥 Overcoming Autistic Burnout: A Personal Journey
The speaker discusses their struggle with autistic burnout, a severe state of mental and physical exhaustion that affects autistic individuals. They explain how they've been working hard to rest and avoid falling back into burnout, emphasizing the importance of recognizing one's limits and taking a slow, strategic approach to recovery. The speaker is in the process of reintroducing responsibilities into their life, collaborating with a therapist and family to find a sustainable lifestyle. They also provide insight into the nature of autistic burnout, distinguishing it from common burnout and explaining its debilitating effects on functionality and emotions.
🍲 Autistic Burnout's Impact on Daily Life and the Need for Lifestyle Changes
The speaker elaborates on the drastic impact of autistic burnout on their ability to perform everyday tasks, such as cooking and self-care, which led to a dependency on others. They describe the confusion and emotional toll that comes with this sudden loss of functionality, both for themselves and for those around them. The speaker stresses the importance of lifestyle changes and rest in overcoming burnout, noting the absence of a one-size-fits-all solution. They share their personal experience of giving up responsibilities and seeking help from family to manage daily tasks, highlighting the difficulty of accepting help and the necessity of mental rest and therapy.
🛌 The Importance of Rest and Therapy in Healing from Autistic Burnout
The speaker emphasizes the necessity of rest and therapy in the recovery process from autistic burnout. They discuss the challenge of achieving true rest, especially when one's own thoughts can hinder the process. The speaker shares their journey of learning to rest without guilt or self-punishment, facilitated by therapy that addresses internalized ableism and the societal pressure to be constantly productive. They also caution against the desire to quickly return to one's previous lifestyle, advising that realistic goal adjustments and a gradual reintroduction of responsibilities are crucial for sustainable recovery.
🚫 Avoiding the Pitfalls of Rushing Recovery from Autistic Burnout
In the final paragraph, the speaker warns against the pitfalls of rushing the recovery process from autistic burnout. They recount personal experiences of prematurely resuming responsibilities, which led to a relapse into burnout. The speaker advises taking the time to heal properly and not to force oneself to return to a previous lifestyle that may have contributed to the burnout in the first place. They conclude by offering reassurance and support to those struggling with autistic burnout, underscoring the importance of therapy and the promise of improvement over time.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Autistic Burnout
💡Rest
💡Therapy
💡Lifestyle Changes
💡Responsibilities
💡Threshold
💡Mental Health Crisis
💡Neurodivergence
💡Internalized Ableism
💡Gaslighting
💡Sustainability
Highlights
The speaker has not made a YouTube video for a month due to exhaustion and the desire to avoid falling into autistic burnout.
They are currently prioritizing rest to recover from a period of burnout that lasted over two years.
The process of recovery involves slowly reintroducing responsibilities to find a sustainable lifestyle.
The speaker collaborates with a therapist and parents to manage the recovery process.
Autistic burnout is described as a mental health crisis that affects the entire nervous system and functionality.
It is differentiated from casual burnout and can trigger depression.
Many autistic individuals discover their condition after experiencing burnout and seeking medical help.
During burnout, the speaker lost the ability to perform basic self-care tasks, leading to a return to living with parents.
Autistic burnout can be confusing and scary, with both internal and external gaslighting.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to autistic burnout; it requires lifestyle changes and rest.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of giving up certain responsibilities to alleviate burnout.
Therapy is crucial for addressing internalized ableism and learning to rest without guilt.
Adjusting expectations and setting new, realistic goals is part of the recovery process.
The healing process should not be rushed, as pushing oneself too quickly can lead to a relapse.
The speaker shares their personal experience of relapsing after trying to rush the recovery process.
The video concludes with reassurance that recovery from autistic burnout is possible with the right approach.
Transcripts
hello long time no see I haven't filmed
a YouTube video in like a month well it
probably doesn't feel like that for you
because they were like pre plan to
upload but yeah it's been a while I've
been
tired I I don't know what else to say
I've been tired I've been working really
hard to allow myself to rest and not
feel guilty about it um and I I've been
really worried about falling back into
autistic burnout and so I'm making rest
a priority and when I feel like I'm
doing too much I make myself stop which
is really difficult because my brain
likes to Gaslight me and say you are
being lazy you're you're faking this
keep keep going um yeah my brain is not
nice but you know that's what therapy is
for today I want to talk about autistic
burnout because I am finally coming out
of it after 2 years 2 and 1/ half years
something around that when I say that
I'm coming out of burnout what I mean by
that is that I am no longer in that
debilitated depressed burnt out state
but I am not 100% yet I am in the
process of getting there because like I
said it is a very very slow process I am
slowly adding responsibilities back into
my life because my previous lifestyle
was not sustainable very obviously not
sustainable but now I don't know what is
sustainable so I'm adding like one
responsibility every week or every other
week seeing if I can handle that saying
okay this is good I can handle this let
me add something else because I don't
know where my threshold is and so I I
need to be very careful because if I add
too many things too quickly and I crash
I still don't know where my threshold is
so I'm I'm trying to take it very slow
very strategic I'm working both both
with my therapist and with my parents
with this because this is going to be a
long process I think it's been a month
and a half of Me Slowly adding
responsibilities back in and I've only
gotten up to like four responsibilities
it is annoying because I just I just
want to be done I just want to have all
my responsibilities I just want to be
outliving my life but I know that I
don't know where my threshold is and I
know that I need to take it very slowly
before I get into how I got out of
autistic burnout I first want to give
just a little rundown of like what
autistic burnout really is because a lot
of people aren't aware and that is a
okay um when I say autistic burnout
people that don't know what it is think
oh burnout yeah I get burnt out
sometimes too and it is far different
from just casual burnout I just like the
name autistic burnout because it leads
people to assume oh yeah I get burned
out sometimes too I understand what
you're experienc ing because it it's not
burnout I would Define it as like a
mental health crisis that autistic
people experience because it it's so
much more than that it it affects your
entire nervous system it disrupts your
brain and your body and it drastically
changes your functionality and
productivity and your emotions and the
way that you experience things it
mirrors depression a lot of the time it
looks a lot like depression because is
you are suddenly struggling to do things
you're really tired you're really burnt
out you're having outof character
outbursts but with burnout it it's a
state of like extreme exhaustion rather
than like depression now don't get me
wrong you can experience like both at
the same time for me autistic burnout
triggers depression so I experience both
kind of at the same time but they are
two different things a lot of autistic
people don't find out that they are
autistic until they they hit autistic
burnout and seek medical attention and
that's what happened to me I was just
living my life not knowing I was
autistic and then I hit autistic burnout
when I was in college um and I didn't
know that it was autistic burnout I
thought I was experiencing depression or
some Mental Health crisis and I se help
and after about a year of um trying to
figure out what was wrong I was
diagnosed with autism and they were like
oh autistic burnout uh so yeah was in
autistic burnout for so long because I
wasn't treating it like autistic burnout
I wasn't helping myself with the
autistic Brown out because I didn't know
what was happening so I think that can
be a big factor in the reason why it
takes so long for people to come out of
it is because for a big chunk of time
they probably don't know that that's
what they're experiencing autistic
burnout can be a very scary and
confusing thing to experience um
especially if you don't know that that's
what's happening to you because you lose
a lot of your functionality when you
fall into burnout you can no longer do
things that you used to be able to do
and it's very confusing and upsetting to
experience like I loved to cook for
myself and when I fell into burnout I
could no longer cook I could no longer
feed myself it got to a point where my
parents had to move me back home because
I couldn't take care of myself when I
was previously living independently so
it's it's weird to all of a sudden like
have to rely on other people and
obviously that is a weird like ego
mental confusion to happen but it's also
confusing for people that are watching
this like what do you mean you can't do
that I saw you do it last year I saw
you've been doing it your whole life
other people don't understand as well
like you don't understand what's
happening and other people don't
understand what's happening so there can
be a lot of gaslighting both from other
people and like from your own brain and
it's just confusing and scary and
exhausting and you don't know what's
happening I'm like laughing about this
but like it was it was so scary when it
was happening I just I have to I have to
make light of it now you know if you're
watching this video right now you're
probably like yeah I know I'm
experiencing autistic burnout I know
it's scary I know it's confusing how do
I get out of it because that was my
question for like a year and a half well
yeah okay I'm experiencing autistic
burnout what do I do how do I help
myself the thing that sucks about
autistic burnout oh hi eie okay Evee
might be joining
us um the thing that sucks about
autistic burn out is that there is no
one fix like other mental health issues
you know if you have anxiety you can
take anti-anxiety medication if you have
depression you can take anti-depressive
medication autistic burnout doesn't have
like a fix a therapy a drug the thing
that helps autistic burnout is lifestyle
changes and rest and you might be saying
Lifestyle Changes like I I can't change
anything about my life I have
responsibilities I have things to do I
have this I have that my job you need to
make some sort of lifestyle change
because the reason that you are in
Burnout is because your life is not
sustainable for you you are doing too
much your lifestyle is not sustainable
there's something that needs to give you
cannot continue putting this much effort
into all the things that you have going
on and I know that this can be extremely
difficult because a lot of us autistics
hit autistic burnout when we're adults
and we have jobs we might have kids we
have spouses like we have things that we
need to do we have bills to pay you know
that kind of stuff so I understand how
like daunting it can be like what do you
mean I need to change things about my
life I can't I I have stuff to do and I
know but there are things that you can
do that you might not be thinking about
find little things in your life that you
can give up responsibilities that you
can give up and it it won't drastically
change your life um and find a
accommodations to things that you need
to keep in your life now I'm in a
slightly different position when I hit
autistic burnout I was 20 years old I
was a college student I was still
relying a lot on my parents so I gave up
a lot of responsibilities and gave it
back to them I gave up cooking I gave up
a lot of housework I gave up a lot of
scheduling of myself I gave a lot of
that back to my mom and said can you
please help me can you can you cook
little bit for me to make sure that I'm
still eating can you do my laundry
sometimes because that's too much can
you help me with this and that around
the house and it was very hard to give
these things up because I felt lazy I
felt like I was putting so much on my
mom but she saw how much I needed help
and she was willing to do it so I'm sure
there are people in your life that you
can lean on and give some
responsibilities to and then there's the
mental rest if you're anything like me
you're going to need to go to therapy
and work through like internalized
ableism and like I'm not lazy I can rest
and it's okay um before you can get to
the place of actually resting because uh
for me I would try to rest and my brain
would tell me really mean things and
just be very not nice to me and so even
though I was sitting on the couch
resting I was not resting because my
brain was just spiraling and I was
you know it was taking up so much mental
energy like fighting my own mental
battles so after a lot of therapy I can
now say that I'm not perfect but I can I
can rest and not beat myself up over it
and look when I say you need to rest to
overcome autistic burnout it's it's a
lot of rest it's not oh yeah like I just
slept and watched TV and you know did a
little hobby for like a week straight
like I've rested no it it's it's like
years it can be very annoying because
like a year into autistic burnout I was
like I've rested I've I've done it can I
be done now and my brain was like nope
we are still tired and I was like oh my
gosh how long is this going to take like
I'm tired of resting I want to get back
to my life I am bored and that mental
I'm bored I need to get back to my life
can cause its own set of M Health
spiraling out of control thoughts cuz
it's like you really feel like you're
going to be stuck in this place in this
state forever and you know that that can
cause the depression to sink in feeling
like you're going to be stuck like that
forever and you're never going to be
able to do the things that you once did
yeah that's that's depressing I promise
you it will get better but if you are
trying to get back to the life that you
were living before autistic burnout I
can tell you right now you're going to
need to adjust your goals because the
life that you were living before is not
the life that you should be living you
are in this state that you are in right
now because of that lifestyle that you
are living you need to change things
about your lifestyle and that can be a
hard pill to swallow I fought that for a
very long time I was like no I liked my
life I want to get back to it I don't
want to give anything up I was happy I
was doing things I don't want to not do
those things anymore like I like that
lifestyle and I was trying to get back
to that when that was an unrealistic
expectation and obviously I wasn't
meeting that standard and so I was
getting frustrated with myself so it
took a really long time to readjust my
expectations and set new goals that were
actually realistic for myself usually I
write a script and like read off the
script when I'm filming a you YouTube
video but today I was like I don't need
a script I can do this all off the top
of my head so I'm sorry if this is a
little all over the place and I'm just
going to reiterate some of my points
because I'm worried that I just babbled
a bunch to get out of autistic burnout
you got to give up responsibilities it
could be big things it could be little
things doesn't matter but like clearly
something's got to give so you might
want to start choosing what to give up
before you get to a point where you can
no longer get out of bed and you have to
give things up you don't want to get to
that space I tried to keep all of my
responsibilities and said I didn't want
to give anything up and it got to the
point where I could no longer get out of
bed and I was living independently and
my parents had to come and get me and
bring me home because I could physically
not take care of myself I couldn't
shower I couldn't eat I couldn't
remember what day it was and I had to
give up all of my responsibilities my
parents were like you can't take care of
yourself we are doing everything for you
and they just like kind of took all my
responsibilities from me and that felt
horrible I felt like I was useless that
made me very depressed you don't want to
get to that state start giving things up
start giving up responsibilities that
you want to give up rather than being
forced to give everything up the next
thing you need to do is accommodate
yourself make life easier for you I know
that it's impossible to give up some
responsibilities but put things in place
that make it easier maybe you rely on
another person to help you with things
maybe
you buy accommodations that help you
with that thing whatever it is you need
to be accommodating yourself more the
third thing is you need to go to therapy
if you're not in therapy already you're
going to you're going to need to find a
therapist preferably a therapist that
understands neurod divergency if they're
an autistic therapist that's even better
because there's going to be a lot of
internalized ableism that you're going
to have to work through because you are
going to say what do you mean I can no
longer do this thing I've been doing it
my whole life I can push on I can keep
going but no you can't you you need help
and you are disabled and it's okay that
you might not be able to do that thing
like there's just a lot of mental crap
that you need to work through also
learning how to rest and not beating
yourself up and not feeling guilty or
lazy or gaslighting yourself like
there's there's just so much that you're
going to need to unpack and then the
fourth thing is rest
and like I said you think you might be
rested but you probably need more rest
and then the last thing that I want to
touch on is don't move too quickly Don't
force yourself and try to rush the
healing getting out of burnout process
because it is a process and it is going
to take a long time if you try to rush
it you're going to take on too many
responsibilities too quickly and you're
going to push yourself back far further
deeper into burnout that's happened to
me a couple times in the burnout
recovery process I thought I was getting
better I was feeling better I was
feeling rested and I was like this is
wonderful I'm better let me go do all
these things let me take back my
responsibilities let me go see my
friends let me go do this let me go do
that and I would maybe get a couple days
or like a week and then I would Crash
and Burn again because I was not fully
recovered and I just wanted to get back
to my life so badly that I was pushing
myself I was doing too many things and I
was not yet recovered and it sent me
further into burnout and I kind of had
to start all over again so it takes time
I think that's all for today's video my
apologies if this is all over the place
but yeah if if you are struggling with
autistic burnout um You Are Not Alone it
will get better even though your brain
likes to tell you that it won't and um
if you're not in therapy please please
go to
therapy um so yeah bye
guys
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