How long does autistic burnout last?

Many of the women I work with have hit autistic burnout multiple times before I see them.

The first few times they hit autistic burnout, they weren’t able to recognize it for what it was because they didn’t even know they were autistic until later in life.

So for years, they looked to solutions that helped – temporarily.

Sometimes they think their work situation is to blame, so they switch jobs – only to hit the wall of autistic burnout again a few months or a few years later.

Or they figure they just need a break. So they take some time off from work, maybe to go on vacation or to stay home to rest and recuperate. But it doesn’t take long once they return to their usual routine before they hit the wall again.

Maybe they decide they need to take better care of themselves. So they commit to new habits or routines that seem likely to help, maybe exercising more or getting more sleep. That helps for a while – until it doesn’t.

Short-term fixes are just that. Although they likely offer some temporary relief, they don’t address the underlying problem.

What actually happens is that those short-term fixes just buy time. I think of them as recovery with a lowercase r. 

That kind of recovery is helpful, to a point. 

Many women get through life in a perpetual cycle of burnout → recovery → burnout → recovery.

It’s certainly possible to make that work. It’s also perpetually exhausting. And it’s only a matter of time until you hit the next burnout.

To escape that cycle, your nervous system requires you to make major structural changes in your life so that the way you live will align with the way you’re built.

That’s what I think of as Recovery with a capital R.

Short-term solutions are recovery that can help regain energy for a period of time. 

Long-term solutions are Recovery that redesigns your life in a sustainable way that supports your nervous system. 

True Recovery is rarely quick. 

It tends to happen slowly – over many months, sometimes years – as a person’s nervous system stabilizes and they make changes that align their life with their nervous system. 

The seeds of burnout take root for years

From the time you were very young, you were trained to ignore what your autistic nervous system actually needs. 

Don’t be such a picky eater. Look at me when I’m talking to you. Don’t be so sensitive. Stop complaining. You’re fine. 

And on and on.

Your nervous system has been trained to push past its limits. All. The. Time.

Many people somehow manage to keep functioning externally – working, parenting, adulting – long after their nervous system has started to falter. From the outside, things might very well look as though nothing has changed.

But internally, it requires more and more effort to maintain the same level of external functioning.

It’s an exhausting battle that nobody else can really see.

By the time burnout is recognized for what it is, there’s a good chance your nervous system has been under immense strain for years. 

Understanding what you actually need

Most autistic women live for decades trying to conform to neurotypical standards.

They attend all the family birthday parties and they eat lunch with coworkers and they answer the phone whenever someone calls, even though all those things drain their social battery.

Every day, they move directly from getting the kids off to school, to work, to making dinner, to running errands, all without the transition time and alone time that they need to recoup some of their energy.

At work, they tolerate fluorescent lights that buzz, indoor temperatures that are too hot or too cold, and clothing that might look good but feels uncomfortable.

They do all these things because everyone around them is doing those things and somehow apparently managing to make it work.

Autistic women do all the things but end up perpetually exhausted, feeling like they’re falling short, and remaining incredibly confused as to why they’re trying so hard but getting results that never seem to measure up.

You can’t fix a problem until you know what the problem actually is. 

So each time a woman hits autistic burnout without recognizing what it really is, she inadvertently puts a Band-Aid over something that actually requires major surgery.

Along the way, each of those Band-Aids does, in fact, buy her some temporary relief. 

For some amount of time, she’s able to function at work and parent the way she needs to and keep the household running.

This is recovery with a lowercase r.

Eventually, though, she bleeds through the Band-Aid.

She might go through a whole bunch of Band-Aids. Each time, she likely becomes increasingly  more frustrated, knowing that she’s trying to make the right changes but realizing that none of them seem to work for very long.

It’s not until she either gets a formal diagnosis or reaches a point where she accurately self-identifies as autistic that she’s able to understand that while Band-Aids are nice, they’re not the same as major surgery.

They’re not Recovery.

Designing an autistic-affirming life

The reason those short-term solutions aren’t long-term solutions is that they eventually return the autistic person to a life that does not align with their nervous system.

Rest alone does not solve the problem if, after resting, you return to the same environment and life that contributed to autistic burnout.

If you have asthma, you’re able to breathe while you have access to an inhaler when you need it. But as soon as you no longer have an inhaler, you have trouble breathing again.

Lasting Recovery from autistic burnout requires profound life changes that better support your nervous system.

That sometimes means deconstructing the life that’s taken decades to build and redesigning it in a dramatic way.

It takes time.

Designing an autistic-affirming life might mean making a major pivot in your work or career that might involve trading a traditional 9 to 5 career in favor of something more flexible, where you have more control over your schedule and work environment.

Sometimes designing an autistic-affirming life means redefining personal relationships and establishing new boundaries that respect your needs.

It might look like doing less every day in general, to give yourself more down time.

Or it might look like countless other things. 

Creating an autistic-affirming life is different for each person. 

True Recovery requires time to do two things: First, understand what in your life isn’t working. And second, make changes that will better support your nervous system.

Here’s the basic formula for Recovery from autistic burnout: Listen to your nervous system. Do less of what depletes you. Do more of what energizes you.

It’s incredibly simple. And incredibly difficult.

There’s no map or how-to manual for Recovery from autistic burnout.

Recovery often takes months or even years

Many of the women I work with have reached a stage of burnout that requires them to take time off from work. 

In some cases that might be a few months. In many cases that could last a year, two years, or even more.

That can sound daunting. Months or years – it’s a long time, to be sure.

But nothing about autistic burnout is quick.

In most cases, you’re undoing decades of living in a way that didn’t actually work for you. The damage that builds over a lifetime is going to take considerable time to undo; it makes sense.

Unlike lowercase-r recovery, capital-R Recovery isn’t about getting back to who you were before – because who you were before is what led you to burnout in the first place.

Recovery is about becoming someone who no longer has to push that hard just to get through the day.

That means learning what your nervous system needs and actually honoring that.

It would be nice if there was some sort of dramatic switch that heralded Recovery from autistic burnout, some major turning point.

But the truth is that Recovery is usually a long, gradual process of small changes that build momentum over time.

Eventually, life becomes less of a struggle; less of a thing to merely endure and instead, something you can actually enjoy from one day to the next.

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If this resonates, you might want to explore one of these next:

• What autistic burnout feels like (so you can better recognize what’s happening)
  

• Why highly capable autistic women burn out (and why it’s not a failure of ability)