Tyla Grant, 24, holds down a full-time advertising job, is trying to get a nonprofit off the ground and creates regular content for her podcast, YouTube channel and Instagram. Occasionally, she winds up so fried she can’t speak or get out of bed for days.
Ms. Grant is also autistic. While most people undergo periods of burnout — physical, cognitive and emotional depletion caused by intense, prolonged stress — autistic people, at some point in their lives, experience it on a whole different level. Autistic traits can amplify the conditions that lead to burnout, and burnout can cause these traits to worsen. They may become unable to speak or care for themselves, and struggle with short-term memory. This harms their ability to perform well at jobs, in school or at home.
“It’s the point at which there’s no more of you left to give. The battery’s dead. Tyla’s left the chat,” she said. “Whatever you want from me, you’re not going to get.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates[1] that, as of 2017, 2.2 percent of adults in the United States — nearly 5.5 million people — are autistic. That’s almost certainly an undercount; many in the autistic and research communities believe that women and people of color are underdiagnosed.
Autistic burnout is a concept already widely accepted in neurodivergent communities, but it hasn’t been formally studied much. Research does show that autistic people have a harder time keeping their heads above water in ways that are similar to burnout, and some experts offer advice on how to deal with it.
Autism and mental health.
A wide range of life stressors contribute to autistic burnout, according to a small 2020 study[2] led by Portland State University researcher Dora M. Raymaker. Those include being forced to hide their autistic traits (often called “masking”), managing the disabling aspects of autism and coping with a world that expects autistic people to perform at the same level as their non-autistic peers.
Participants of the survey described barriers to support, such as having their experiences and differences dismissed by others, a lack of external support and an inability to take breaks.
Beyond this study, there are few published papers about autistic burnout, but similar conditions can help fill out the picture. For instance, in one 2020 study, 20 percent of autistic adults[3] had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, compared to just under 9 percent of non-autistic adults.
Some of that anxiety stems from peer rejection or from being ostracized for autistic traits, such as a deep interest in a specific topic, researchers found. Autistic people are also simply more vulnerable to anxiety; they’re more sensitive to sensory input and their nervous systems are more likely to react strongly to stress, according to the study.
Autistic adults are also more likely to feel suicidal; a 2018 study published in Molecular Autism[4] found that 72 percent of autistic adults scored highly for suicide risk, compared to 33 percent of the general population. Numerous studies have found a connection between burnout and suicidal thinking in non-autistic adults in a wide range of professions, including medicine[5] and policing[6].
For autistic people, a number of factors contributed to their suicidal thoughts, including self-harm and masking, as well as not having their support needs met, according to the study.
Burnout can erode independence.
Political reporter Eric Michael Garcia agreed that rest is a key remedy for autistic burnout, and he’s noticed, as he gets older, that it takes him longer to recharge. Mr. Garcia, 30, experienced his first extended period of autistic burnout while covering the 2016 elections. At first he thought he was just working too much, but a debilitating fatigue hung over him for a month.
Soon after, he started noticing autistic people writing about burnout. Many of his peers, he said, spend all their energy trying to perform well at work and come home too exhausted to tend to other needs, such as cooking healthy meals, taking out the trash or sustaining friendships and relationships.
In his book “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation,” Mr. Garcia wrote that when non-autistic people experience burnout, no one doubts their ability to live independently. But for autistic adults, a burnout state can lead loved ones and medical professionals to question their self-sufficiency, and even suggest they move home with family. Many can remain independent by having a live-in or occasional support person who can help with shopping, cooking and bills, he wrote.
Sleep is challenging — but crucial.
Autistic burnout isn’t a permanent state, however. One of the best ways for anyone to recover from burnout is rest, particularly sleep, according to Amelia Nagoski, the co-author of the best-selling 2019 book “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Response Cycle.” But autistic people have a harder time sleeping because of their neurological differences, according to a 2019 study[7].
Autistic people are more likely to sleep for shorter periods of time and experience lower-quality sleep, and they’re more likely to be night owls, the study found. Research on non-autistic adults shows that insomnia is a strong predictor of burnout,[8] suggesting a similar link among autistic people with sleep disorders.
Ms. Nagoski, 44, addressed autistic people’s sleep woes in a recent YouTube video. “This essential thing that is fundamental to wellness is harder for autistic people,” she said. She was diagnosed with autism in 2020, and launched her channel, Autistic Burnout[9], to offer advice and resources to people experiencing the condition.
All the usual sleep-hygiene tip[10]s apply to autistic people, including avoiding screens near bedtime, making sure the room is sufficiently dark and cool, and taking a shower to make your temperature drop afterward, which tells your body it’s time to sleep. But autistic people have to follow this advice more diligently, and even then, she said, it’s “more effort for less result.”
Find social connection that works.
Rest isn’t the only remedy for autistic burnout. Connecting with others is a significant way to alleviate burnout for non-autistic adults, Ms. Nagoski said, and may be helpful. But many autistic people misread social cues, take statements literally and are uncomfortable with touch.
Ms. Nagoski (with her twin sister and co-author, Emily Nagoski) recommends 20-second hugs and six-second kisses for neurotypical adults because they release the hormone oxytocin, but “those never worked for me,” she said. Instead, she recommends finding community through social media, where the #actuallyautistic and #autisticburnout hashtags help people find one another on most large social media platforms.
Ms. Grant finds herself making trade-offs when it comes to friendships. When people ask to spend time with her, she often declines, in order to protect her energy. But her autism already strains her friendships. “Just saying ‘no’ isn’t that easy, especially when you’re used to saying ‘yes’ just to keep your friends,” she said.
Ultimately, one of the best ways to keep autistic people from burning out will be to increase accommodations[11] in workplaces, schools, hospitals — anywhere they might spend time, Mr. Garcia said. Each autistic person may need different supports, such as quiet spaces to work, longer lunch breaks, alternative lighting, predictable schedules or the ability to have a support person with them. But there needs to be adequate motivation for those spaces to change, or autistic adults will continue to burn out more intensely than their peers, he said.
Autism is still largely considered a childhood condition, as though those children don’t grow up and continue to be autistic. As more and more people are diagnosed, “there are going to be more autistic people graduating college and in the work force,” Mr. Garcia said. Because autistic people have such differing needs, “it may be impossible to determine a uniform policy,” he said. “But it does need to be addressed.”
Beth Winegarner is a journalist, essayist and author, most recently of “A Riff Of One’s Own.”
References
- ^ estimates (www.cdc.gov)
- ^ according to a small 2020 study (www.liebertpub.com)
- ^ 20 percent of autistic adults (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- ^ a 2018 study published in Molecular Autism (molecularautism.biomedcentral.com)
- ^ medicine (www.tandfonline.com)
- ^ policing (journals.sagepub.com)
- ^ a 2019 study (www.frontiersin.org)
- ^ insomnia is a strong predictor of burnout, (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- ^ Autistic Burnout (www.youtube.com)
- ^ usual sleep-hygiene tip (www.nytimes.com)
- ^ accommodations (askjan.org)
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