The 3 Stages of Autistic Burnout
I've your an autistic adult reading this post right now which you likely are. Chances are you've been in autistic burnout at least once before.
I've definitely been in autistic burnout a few times before, with the past 6 years of lately essentially being trapped with extremely limited energy and motivation (Outside of special interests) to really engage in mind, and even then special interests are often very exhausting for me anyways.
Autistic burnout is very subtle when it comes, since it's due to our nervous systems constantly being overloaded to where our baseline energy (Regardless of good of a sleep we try to get, since burnout impacts that too) which makes functioning at work and at home easily overwhelming and leading to constant meltdowns and stress from sensory input that we could previous tolerate to some degree, but as with each stage that gets substantially more harder as well as more difficult to get out from since the stressors that allows autistic burnout to flourish for so long (Constantly social expectations and demands at work, and even mistreatment due to most neurotypicals (From my experience) making subtle remarks and resentment for the way we prefer to work comfortably, which makes things much harder for us than they already are. Rinse and repeat.
Given that I've been in burnout for so long, I wanted to explain the different stages of burnout from my personal lived-experience that I'd like to share, which can be useful for those of us who have been in burnout and likely experienced these stages to some degree, or not in burnout and trying to pick up on signs early to help avoid it progressing deeper and deeper.
Stage 1: Mild exhaustion
This stage is where is not very apparent that autistic burnout is present and can easily be mistaken or assumed for tiredness, like bad night of sleep or something.
From my experience a bit of sensory overload and routine disruption is definitely tolerable, and your still able to manage most of the day as your defenses (Your nervous system) is still fairly strong against sensory input (Like uncomfortable clothes) and doesn't lead to too many meltdowns.
A bit of a itch here and there, a bit of exhaustion from the glare from the sun. Exhausting but fairly manageable. Burnout at this state often progresses to the next stage fairly easily because it's hard to pick up on.
I've experienced this stage the most during my first few years of adult hood (Roughly 18 - 21), since I know back then I was being overwhelmed with applying for new jobs and stuff, but I can still communicate my thoughts well and masking wasn't a major drain for me (Or at least it didn't feel like it).
Stage 2: The Minesweeper Stage
This stage in particular is the most common for me personally, and possibly even so for you too, and I referred it as the minesweeper stage in particular because this is where the sensory overload aspect which was mild and at the very most, moderate in majority of cases in stage 1 is a lot more common now and your actively having to fight against the stressors that make the exhaustion build up more and more, since the impact for each is much greater and the cost is a lot more severe.
Chores that I do at home at work, the threshold for being overwhelmed hits quite sooner than I expected. I find myself avoiding most tasks such as running outside during the day at around 9-10am or later since I know there would be too many cars, traffic and glare from cars to where I can't handle it anymore and my right eye starts twitching rapidly every 8-10 seconds, which gave me a hint that my nervous system was being overloaded.
Requests to hang out with friends are often pushed to the side or even ignored, since the exhaustion to respond and predicting the impact of such is far too significantly ON TOP of the exhaustion that we are already dealing with.
Work has always been exhausting to a strong degree, but now it's making it much harder to have any energy outside of work and often the point where quitting becomes a serious consideration, rather than a thought at the back of my head.
My experience being is this state has been common for me roughly from age 21 -> 22, roughly accelerating the year once the mild exhaustion was so over, the exhaustion built on top of that, and sleep didn't fix anything. Nutrition didn't fix much, and strongly urging to be accommodated my job often led me to being targeted at my job to do even more work, leading me to constantly monitor my environment and dealing with even more stress on top of that. A cost on top of a cost.
Stage 3: Pure overwhelming stage
Almost everything overwhelms you. Shirts, likely noise, and even touch as well overwhelmed up before, but now it occurs way more often and easily to the point where even minimizing these drains still leads to exhaustion anyways and the impact for when they do happen is so severe that upon waking up most days, I often drift right back to sleep because you feel SO EXTREMELY tired.
This stage is where I'm currently at, and has been seemingly present for the past few years now. I alternated between stage 2 a couple of times on less overwhelming weeks, but stage 3 has been my personal hell for way too long now.
I barely have any energy to talk.
To tolerate friction.
Even minor pushback when I need time to myself to minimize the sensory overload.
Even doing the bare minimum often contributes the most exhaustion since I'm trying to think "How am I going to navigate this without being overwhelmed" -> Trying to plan around it, and the exhaustion happening anyways. A constant dread of feeling trapped, and seemingly not knowing anyway to get out of it.
I have a couple examples from my experience that could help, a little. Even then, society pushes back so hard on us these usually fail, but what else can we do at this point?* Try to reduce as much demands as you possibly can. If your family assumed that your lazy, it's fine because we know the truth on how exhausting it is. You can respectfully deny it or even try to explain to them what makes things so exhausting for us even though most wouldn't understand the technical aspect on why it is. Some well, but majority won't.
* Aggressively fight back against any sensory demands your job or home environment forces against you. Some managers or family members will try to push back. If your sensitive to noise, just try to wear earplugs as much as you can if you find them comfortable. I know from experience earplugs do get uncomfortable after a while so taking a break from them every once in a while in the most quiet part of your family's home, or job environment should help with fatique.
* Finally, don't be ashamed to take things easy. Regardless of how much they try to push us to do more, "tolerate this, tolerate that" the only realistic way things from an energy standpoint are going to improve, and for autistic burnout to at the very least be as less problematic as it currently is is to embrace doing the bare minimum. The only things that benefit your health or even regulate you (Such as special interests) tends to help a lot. I'd normally run outside very early during the day at around 5-6am, make my blender and eat a couple of sandwiches and bread, and then call it a day.
To be honest, with me doing all of this, I'm still actively in autistic burnout and I feel due to the specific c-ptsd layer from being physically mistreated by my mom, as well as sensory overload trauma from work, I'm still actively in stage 3, but I'm trying to do as most as I can but doing as little as I can, because what else can we realistically do if the system is this broken?