Wild of Brain burnout series. Part Two.
What does burnout look like? What causes it? The difference between shutdowns/social hangover pit stops and destination Burnoutsville.
In the last Wild of Brain Substack, Part one of the Burnout Series set the scene with terminology, why we burn out and who is at-risk. If you haven’t read that one, you might like to start there. Here I explore how burnout is different to shutdowns, social hangovers and sensory overwhelm. We look deeper into what causes Autistic & Neurodivergent Burnout and the importance of small moments of connection, contentment and joy.
A few people have asked what burnout looks like so let’s start there.
The person might lose their spark. Bodies might feel heavy, we might be moving slower. Unable to find joy in our usual places. We drop out of social life, sports, spiritual practice, all the things. Struggle with basic care and household tasks. Be unable to eat or prepare foods we usually enjoy. Be exhausted beyond the usual and beyond reason. Not eating / sleeping well.
Neurodivergent traits like memory, emotional regulation, impulsivity, motivation, ability to focus, executive functioning can all flare.
The person might experience dissociation or be less in our body, more in our heads, especially if trauma is in the picture. Autistic folks may experience increased shutdowns. Our experiences of burnout are as unique as our neuro-profiles but basically, in burnout, life is reduced to a kind of numb staggering through commitments. Super low on spoons. Barely surviving life. If we don’t make changes - act to carve back commitments and ramp up the things we love- burnout gets worse.
Eventually, if we haven’t spotted the signs of impending burnout, or chronically persist in living a life that is unsustainable for our wild brains, we can find ourselves in debilitating and isolating Severe/Complex Burnout, a near-constant shut-down state, loss of interoceptive and proprioceptive abilities, reduced capacity or inability to mask, further challenges in communication (I lose the ability to speak more frequently and for longer periods of time). We might be unable to read or create. Any kind of Burnout, especially being in chronic burnout state or in a boom-burnout cycle, leaves us susceptible to co-occuring mental health and health issues. (Part Four of this series is scheduled to be a Severe + Complex Autistic Burnout special so I won’t go deeply into this here.)
The neurodivergent experience is not a consistent one, our unique profiles of neurodivergent traits will wax and wane with changes in hormones, sleep, life stresses, health issues and as we get older but in burnout the magnification of traits and limitations are next level HARD. I recommend learning more about neurodivergent burnout by following Autistic and ADHDers in burnout recovery. It’s common for folks to identify periods of burnout retrospectively.
Neurodivergent and Autistic Burnout is often mistaken for depression. Depression can creep in as a RESULT of burnout or be present in the person’s life as burnout sets in but it is not the start nor cause. I think one of the shared indicators that has GP’s assume depression is waking in dread and difficulty getting up in the morning.
Due to mental health and care professionals not being able to spot neurodivergence in the wild (meaning people go undiagnosed/identified) and being unfamiliar with burnout, especially severe autistic burnout, it is common to be misdiagnosed as depressed.
This is highly problematic because the treatment approach for neuro-normative depression usually compounds burnout making it worse. Those with depression will be strongly encouraged to get moving, push through and get social and busy, a kind of ‘fake it til you make it’ strategy supported by meds. Medication is fabulous when appropriate but you can’t medicate your way out of burnout. Or being autistic. My radar goes up when I’m referred clients who have a long MH history of crisis and who don’t identify as ND. And the referrals include statements of ‘treatment resistant depression and/or anxiety’ or ‘breakdowns’.
What is considered a ‘successful’ depression or anxiety treatment often features the return to full-time work or all of the person’s prior commitments and responsibilities. A recipe for a return ticket to Burnoutsville for the neurodivergent person, since the life they were living before burnout is what got them into burnout in the first place.
It’s super duper important to know that the neurodivergent person’s inner experience of burnout can look very different to what others see externally. This is why it’s vital to listen to neurodivergent lived experience and action support on what their needs are, as opposed to what is seen externally. The undiagnosed neurodivergent person in burnout may be gaslit by professionals, misunderstood and judged by their peers.
So, what causes autistic / neurodivergent burnout?
I think about autistic and neurodivergent burnout as being a natural outcome from living a life that doesn’t work for the person long term. The cumulative results of too much time in sensory unfriendly environments, too many commitments.
I see it as a kind of trauma response. A self-protective mechanism of a hyper-connected overwhelmed brain and nervous system. Too much doing and not enough being. Trying to live up to NT expectations. Not enough recovery time. Lack of support.
Dr Alice Nicholls sums the causes of Autistic / Neurodivergent Burnout into seven words:
Too Much Stress and Not Enough Help
Something I’ve noticed about most lists about what causes autistic burnout especially is that they are all on the autistic or otherwise neurodivergent person. It can feel a bit blamey. Things like being too busy (When we’re just trying to pay bills) or failing to uphold boundaries at work (when you’re asking for what you need but hearing crickets).
Just as implicated in causing burnout are social, societal and environmental factors like:
-lack of ND understanding and accommodations in the workplace
-being judged as somehow defective or wrong in communication, for stimming or special interests
-not being valued for our unique strengths and ways of being
-a lifetime of feeling like we don’t fit in the world
-lack of meaning in our paid work
-chronic stress from financial inequities
-barriers to health care & being gas lit by medical professionals
-energy required to regulate finely honed neurodivergent nervous system
-lack of accessible and appropriate support
And the added complexity of intersectional identities like being multiply neurodivergent, co-occurring disabilities, chronic health issues, having cPTSD, being queer, trans, BIPOC, polyamorous, a single or solo parent.
To name a few.
In a guest post on David Hammond Gray’s Emergent Divergence website, Tanya Adkin cites monotropic split as a key cause of autistic burnout.
Coining of the term monotropism is attributed to Dinah Murray to describe a cognitive style shared by many Autistic folks in particuliar, one characterised by deep and passionate attention to specific interests.
“At any one moment, the amount of attention an individual can give is limited” - Murray et al 2005
To quote Tanya Atkin from her piece (link is in the usual place below, do read it!),
“A monotropic individual focuses more detailed attention over fewer attention streams than a polytropic (non-autistic) individual. When they are forced into environments where they must perform like a polytropic person, the amount of attention to detail they apply to multiple attention streams does not decrease, all that happens is the monotropic mind experiences trauma by being pushed into trying to give more attention than any individual can cognitively give.
I call this monotropic split.”
Tanya goes on to talk about the monotropic mind taking on more than it can process creating meltdowns and shutdowns, and ultimately being a strong contributing factor in burnout.
What is pretty much always missing in these lists of what causes Autistic, ADHD and otherwise Neurodivergent Burnout is glaring to me:
a lack of connection, contentment and joy.
I’ve written about Quiet Moments of Contentment and the importance of joy here before. It’s been a hot topic for me in recent years.
I used to be very good at centring connection, contentment and joy in my life but somewhere in the years of unhealthy relationship, pretending to be polytropic (I am not, no matter what my ADHD brain squirrels say) and being a single unsupported parent trying to make ends meet while being of service in the not-for-profit world, I lost the knack. Life became survival and joy swallowed by severe burnout.
Just one or two of these causes of burnout add weight to a person’s journey through life. Tick a bunch of these boxes when you live life on hard mode and we have a recipe for burnout.
Burnout literature / studies / community surveys I’ve seen have burnout often lasting three months but can be anywhere up to three years. I hear positive stories but not everyone reports fully recovering from severe autistic burnout. As someone still very much in recovery, more limited in movement, energy and ability to think than my baseline of wellbeing, I worry about this.
Another murky area in neurodivergent language I’d like a little light on is to make distinct burnout and Autistic shutdowns / sensory overwhelm / social hangovers.
Why do I think it’s important to distinguish between shutdowns and burnout?
One, I’m autistic so there’s that: the desire for clarity lol.
Two, (and this is a big one) it’s simply not fair that the reduction in capacity or functioning ability for a few hours or days of shutdowns or sensory overwhelm or social hangover recovery/ processing time with the three months - year plus of neurodivergent burnouts.
How the confusing of shutdowns with burnout might look like in action:
Person A, in Severe Autistic Burnout and unable to work: “I’ve been in Burnout for ages, I’m still so limited with what I can do. I didn’t know burnout could be this awful.”
Person B, working full-time and talking about time away at a wedding: “Oh, I know what you mean. I was SO burnt out when I got home from the wedding, I couldn’t go to the gym at all on Saturday. Burnout is horrible.”
These folks are talking about different experiences. Related, sure. And similar in some ways, but decidedly and emphatically different.
Shutdowns, being in sensory overwhelm and having to change plans is stink at any time but they’re an acute experience. Repeat autistic shutdowns and more recovery time after social events, work or sensory challenging environments, or the increasing frequency of them are signs of impending burnout for many neurodivergent folks so they’re obviously not healthy by any means but not in the same category as full-on burnout.
Person A, the person in severe burnout, might have gone from being relieved at being able to speak openly about their experience with another ND person to being too tired to explain and effectively shuts down, possibly leaving their interaction feeling even more isolated.
Shutdowns are acute. A system overload and temporary suspension of business as usual with a recovery time of hours to days.
Burnout is chronic. Serious impairment during a recovery time’ months to years.
In my systems change work I talk about ‘flipping the model’ and designing for the most vulnerable, because that’s the ethical thing to do, the rest of us will be okay. I also talk a lot about using language that has the struggling feel seen and able to recruit support.
Shutdowns are not fun but they don’t last months or years. I’m a strong voice for being clear about the difference between shutdowns and burnout for these reasons. And because that clarity allows us to understand that increased shutdowns are red flags of impending burnout.
There ARE shared indicators. I’ve described my brain in autistic shutdown being like a car with a flat battery, shutdowns and sensory overwhelm can feel like that too.
Last week I went to my first social event in a very long time. It was local, outdoors and with mostly people I knew so I thought I’d manage okay. Nope. I had a hard time getting to sleep processing it all, had the telltale high frequency ringing sound that is the harbinger of a shutdown and signs of a bad headache. Sure enough, I couldn’t get out of bed the next day. It was a beautiful sunny day and I spent it in a darkened room unable to read, write, eat or do much of anything until the evening. The following day I was at about 30% operating level and needed long stints in that darkened room. It took another few days to come through it fully. That’s a high cost to socialising, even as low demand as that event was. SO frustrating. I get so mad at the time I ‘lose’ to just being me.
For me, shutdowns are…well, hard to describe. It’s a weird feeling, kind of like being slammed by a bad flu but with my brain powered down. My desires and messages to my limbs to move and actually DO stuff just don’t get through. My system is on overload, fried. Toast. I can name hundreds of notable times of shutdown like this in my life. Countless times I’ve had to retreat to darkened rooms curled in a ball unable to function but all sensory everything hyper sensitive and fending off all the feels at hearing loved ones laughing and talking or knowing what amazing work conversations or mahi I was missing out on. These times were incredibly confusing to me. And it was hard to impossible to explain to others. I sank in shame. At least I know what it is now.
This means I know the signs, can structure in ways to avoid, recover faster but I don’t think it’s possible to live completely free of shutdowns, they’re part of being me, of being autistic, a package deal along with the pattern spotting innovative designing brilliance and the bundle of traits that make me up.
It’s worth noting that the cause of autistic meltdowns can be the same as shutdowns - just that one is external and the other internal. Sometimes we’ll go into shutdown to recover after a meltdown.
You could say Neurodivergent Burnouts are a kind of chronic and interminable shutdown with extras. A battery that fades out at unexpected times, sputters out if we tax it too much, doesn’t start up at all at times and only improves if we leave it without any demands for a good long time. You know, like back in the day (for fellow elder neurodivergents out there) when you flooded the engine and had to let it sit before you tried again.
So yes, for those wondering, it is possible to be in burnout AND experience shutdowns. Approaching and in burnout we are more likely to have them and experience them more intensely. Darn it all.
A taster menu of what’s helped me:
In a practical everyday sense, prioritising regulating my hyper-connected system through simple vagal toning exercises, embracing glimmers and sensory joy, co-regulating with the critters and time in nature has been my core business.
On a more heady level, I’ve found the research proving the hyperconnectivity of neurodivergent folks, the Polyvagal theory, learning about trauma-informed practice, monotropism, and the learnings around pacing from the ME/CFS communities invaluable in learning about autistic and neurodivergent burnout. And making sense of my own experiences of it.
I can’t put into words how important it’s been to meet other autistic women who have been in or are in recovery from severe autistic burnout. I feel less alone. Seen. Understood. Special shout out to my dear friend Sangeetha in India here. Waving my appreciation across the seas to you my friend. No wonder we felt such a connection when we met all those years ago - we’re neurodivergent twins!
I’m grateful there is a growing awareness worldwide about Autistic, ADHD and otherwise neurodivergent Burnout and its causes, costs and the care needed to recover. I believe we’re collectively, slowly, moving toward a shared language, understanding of, and way to measure, Autistic, ADHD and otherwise Neurodivergent Burnout. The next step is to make some noise about accessible pathways to appropriate support. The foundation to effective advocacy is care for ourselves and our families though. The next Wild of Brain substack is all about this.
Next up in the Wild of Brain burnout series, Part Three:
Prevention and recovery - identifying your unique red flags of impending burnout and having a plan in place in response. AKA how to design a life that works for our unique neurodivergent selves -working out our strengths, places we need support, workarounds or strategies in place , sources of connection, contentment and joy,
Each week I share resources and content related to the week’s Wild of Brain theme. To inform, lift spirits or just because I keep thinking about them:
Dr Alice Nicholls on Social demands in Autistic Burnout
- Dr Alice again, on What causes Autistic Burnout
What is Monotropic Split? Tanya Atkin’s guest post on Emergent Divergence.
Autistic suffering and Atypical Burnout - by David Gray-Hammond / Emergent Divergence
- And here’s a reel of David talking about ADHD, Autism, anxiety and burnout
Dr Joey on masking and burnout
Ndwelnes reel on the AuDHD and overstimulation
The Chronically Resilient OT (the fabulous Rebecca) on different kinds of rest - a must read graphic
Autistic artist Susan Te Kahurangi King’s facebook page.
And for a dose of wholesome. These tamariki singing to Tane Mahuta (a famously huge old kauri tree here in Aotearoa NZ) gave me hope for the world.
In other news, us newbie group admins managed to accidentally delete someone who had asked to join the Severe Autistic Burnout and Recovery FB peer support group. Huge apologies to that person, please try again!
I’ve loved hearing your stories and feedback, keep it coming! Send me your fave burnout resources, I’m looking at pulling some resource sheets together at the end of the series.
Love to y’all,
See you next time
Ax
