Autistic Burnout, “Regression,” and Identity Crisis – #TaketheMaskOff Week 4

Part 1: Autistic Burnout – Playing on the Social Field

Autistic burnout = I literally can’t pretend and devote 90% of my energy to being on your social playing field anymore. Metaphorically, I have to go lie down in the grass because I’ve played too many games on the social field. No one will have noticed until I go and lie down, even though I was more exhausted than everyone else while playing the social games in the first place. But because I was still doing my best to keep up, and was able to keep up, even though it hurt, no one could notice my pain until I stopped playing the game.And that is dangerous for us. That means anxiety, depression, self-harm. That means that we don’t have any resources left to do daily tasks, or take care of ourselves, or to translate our thoughts to NT-speak. That…