
Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Masking and Passing (2017) - depressed
https://boren.blog/2017/01/26/autistic-burnout-the-cost-of-coping-and-passing/
======
robotresearcher
"Common life strategy for autistic people: achieve/overachieve until burning
out and maybe the overachievement will result in enough social and economic
capital to see you through the burnout." @theoriesofminds (Twitter)

This jumped out to me.

~~~
bitL
Heh, but isn't that almost everyone these days? And even normal people get a
burnout when they have to run an internal virtual machine to conform to
quickly changing society/rules they don't believe to maintain their status,
and need a downtime to recover.

~~~
cortesoft
They called out this type of response in one of the articles linked from the
main article... saying, "I also have that problem!" to someone trying to
explain their autistic struggles is dismissing the extra difficulty they face.
While it comes from a good place (trying to relate and show empathy), it
actually can make them feel worse.

~~~
bitL
Yeah, I guess it's way more difficult for autistic persons :-( Aren't there
any supplements that could "boost" the brain to at least decrease the burnout
rate?

~~~
rexpop
It may not be as simple as "supplements," but there are probably dietary and
habitual augmentations to bolster these neuro-physiological resources. Sleep
is crucial for replenishing neurotransmitters. Exercise is crucial for
establishing biorhythms necessary to sleep. We're all fairly malnourished,
given the modern western diet is biased towards cheap calories. Copper. Zinc.
Iron. Deficiencies in all of these can cause mental health issues. Then
there's the notorious (tenuous?) connection between suicidality and gluten.

Anyway, you can do your own research but as for supplements to facilitate
extroversion... B vitamins?

------
sudosteph
> For seven months, I didn’t leave the house. I had started ordering my
> groceries online. I didn’t have any reason to go anywhere. I wasn’t
> agoraphobic or afraid to leave my apartment. I just didn’t feel like it.

This has been me for the last few months. I just can't bring myself to do
things I hate lately. I hate breathing cold, dry winter air and feeling it on
my face, I hate being accosted on the street for cash, I hate the loud
construction noise, I hate navigating through crowds of people and cars, I
hate the overwhelming smells from exhaust and food trucks. I was able to deal
with it for a while because I knew the expectations that came with living in a
city like Seattle. It's just that the downsides are so many, and the upsides
are so few. I want to preserve the facilities I have for doing things that I
like and that allow me to make a living.

I'm hoping an upcoming move I've got planned will make it more pleasurable to
engage with other people more regularly, but protecting my well-being still
has to come first. I'm so incredibly fortunate to have a career that allows me
enough income to offload menial things like shopping for groceries. I feel
terrible for those of us on the spectrum without that option, as if I couldn't
live this way I would end up being entirely dependent on my spouse or family.
I can imagine that burning out + feeling guilty about being a burden
financially makes recovery from that state even more difficult.

~~~
jpernst
Also from the Seattle area and this hits home as well, except I am a bit
agoraphobic and need to build up courage to go out.

I used to push myself to go to dev meetups and such, even gave a few
presentations, but eventually stopped. The emotional cost of going was high,
and when I would get back home feeling wiped out and reflecting on it, I
realized I actually gained very little from the experience. All the
socializing was just hollow small talk and no lasting connections were ever
formed. Interest-based meetups I've found to generally be transient,
ephemeral, and unfulfilling for those who can't muster the enormous social
buy-in to get any meaningful results. Volunteer work was more satisfying, but
also fleeting and temporary.

On the plus side I did gain experience in public speaking and discovered it
really doesn't bother me (although the mingling afterwards is social anxiety
hell). Unfortunately that skill on its own isn't terribly useful.

> I feel terrible for those of us on the spectrum without that option, as if I
> couldn't live this way I would end up being entirely dependent on my spouse
> or family. I can imagine that burning out + feeling guilty about being a
> burden financially makes recovery from that state even more difficult.

It is. I was swinging a remote-work career and doing the whole order-
groceries-online shut-in routine as well. Eventually I succumbed to burnout
for a host of reasons and the career crumbled to dust. Extended unemployment
pulls you in like quicksand and I've been out of work for over a year now. I
live in a converted tool shed in my parents back yard, and the guilt and shame
is crushing. The erosion of self esteem saps your will to improve yourself,
creating a vicious circle.

My last recourse at this point is to try to use this as an opportunity for
learning and personal enrichment. While working I was myopically focused on
programming and industry issues, and utterly ignored the wider world. I'm now
trying to rectify that by reading more about philosophy, politics, history,
etc.

There's so much more to the world than tech or vocation, and I regret ignoring
that for so long. My advice to anyone in this situation is to, as much as your
circumstances permit, expose yourself to a wider range of culture and find
value and human dignity in ways other than your potential for capital
generation. The value of a life is not measured in dollars, and don't let the
world convince you that it is.

It feels like this is becoming a blog post or something, so I'll stop.
Needless to say this topic hits home for me, as it seems to for many others
here.

~~~
vorpalhex
> All the socializing was just hollow small talk and no lasting connections
> were ever formed.

You have to be the one who moves the conversation from chit-chat about the
weather to interesting topics. Sure, it's fine to show up to a dev meeting and
chat about your favorite APIs and all, but that won't help you make friends.

The vague process chart I personally use looks like this:

1\. Determine if you share common interests with the person (eg, small talk
about things you do)

2\. Talk at a higher level about a single interest. A good trick is to treat
the other person a bit like an expert about that interest - "Oh, what board
game would you recommend for X?"

3\. Make an offer to hangout in the future. It should be in a situation with
multiple people and a public place. You're not trying to invite them to a
date, but instead communicate that you're already doing something and want
them to join: "Hey, I hang out Tuesdays with some folks at the comicbook shop
and play boardgames. You should come join us."

4\. If the person finds that agreeable or reciprocates, exchange contact info.
I usually just hand them my phone with my contact info on the screen so they
can choose their preferred method, but you can also give them a personal card.

Congrats, you've now made a new person you know. Hang out with them, invite
them to things. Relationships are like gardens, they require regular tending
and maintenance at first but as they get established, they only need
occasional check-ins.

~~~
satokema
> You have to be the one that moves the conversation

Why is it always up to me? I feel the same as parent poster - I go to events
or work functions or what-have-you and the onus is always on me - the one with
stunted social skills - to advance things along.

Are there really no people that can at least bootstrap things for me? Or is it
the case that those people with social competence already have a healthy
social life and aren't actually interested in any deeper connection to begin
with?

Herein is where my "you're a dummy" thought loops kick in on this. I can see
it is a little spoiled to demand that a social life be handed to me with no
work involved, but on the other hand, I see a bootstrapping problem here:

How am I supposed to invite new people to the comic book shop when I don't
have the aforementioned "some folks" or the shop itself?

Gardens are great when you have good soil and plants already in place, but I
feel like I am tearing up old blacktop and trying to build a garden on top of
it.

~~~
vorpalhex
Having a deeper connection requires having shared interests and enough in
common to form that bond. There are plenty of people who may be perfectly
social, but not share much of anything in common with you (which you can
mitigate by expanding your interests).

> Are there really no people that can at least bootstrap things for me?

There are, it's whoever assembled your meetup/function/etc. Getting a bunch of
people in a room together who share at least some kind of commonality is a
borderline magic trick, and it's a ton of work.

Your job is to pair it down from there, because you don't have anyone who
knows you well enough to do that last mile for you. You might get there - if
you make good friends with organizers, you will be the person they introduce
new folks to.

> How am I supposed to invite new people to the comic book shop..

There's two elements to this. One of which is just actually leaving your house
to go to meetups or places on a regular basis - find your local board game
shop (or other interest - hiking, old movies, food, etc) and go to that thing
with some regularity.

The second element is to talk with folks. Maybe even folks with whom you don't
have a connection yet, but enough to exchange your lists of interests and
whatnot. If you struggle for things to talk about, use tools like FORD
(Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams) or the interview strategy ("Oh, and
what got you into hiking?").

You don't have to have a deep connection to have folks you enjoy spending time
with, even if it's just playing Catan once a week - but that's at least your
bootstrap.

------
arduanika
Wow.

> Ultimately, for me, passing as “normal” means that I am now a fake person,
> never able to be myself without putting my ability to make a living in
> jeopardy.

> An issue that was previously “fixed” can suddenly appear to be “broken”
> again. In fact, nothing has been fixed or broken. We simply have very fluid
> coping strategies that need to be continuously tweaked and balanced.

Bipolar I here. As an episodic disease, bipolar is extremely susceptible to
this passing/masking phenomenon. I have been "stable" for so many years that
even close co-workers can't detect anything, and I hardly even notice how much
effort I put into "passing". But the effort does tax you and build up over
time. This post really hits home for me, and I identify strongly with this
kind of play-acting and exhaustion (without claiming to understand, or taking
anything away from, the autism spectrum experience).

Moreover, I consistently underestimate the amount of detox and rest that I
need to recover from this constant performing. To borrow a line from Rogers &
Hammerstein, "whenever I fool the people I act neurotypical for, I fool myself
as well". I forget I need to take care of myself.

Thank you Ryan for aggregating & posting!

~~~
jackmodern
me too on both the diagnosis and "I forget I need to take care of myself."

It's really a struggle to maintain normalcy in the professional world and take
care of myself.

------
sdrothrock
This hits home for me and my experiences.

People often believe what they see and first impressions are strong. I seem
like a perfectly functional hearing person 97% of the time, but the 3% of the
time when I can't cover the gap, people tend to react with incredulity because
they can't believe I have an actual disability. Some days I just don't want to
deal with it because it's exhausting.

I've never really found a good solution to this that doesn't just require
patience and persistence from the start. The best approach I've found is to be
up-front from the start about my deafness and then to just "lie" about not
being able to hear periodically to reinforce the "he's got a hearing problem"
memory.

In the past, I used to try to be explicit and say things like "I'm sorry, but
the air conditioning or something is droning and I can't hear you well," but
that generally derails as people try to explain my own hearing to me with
things like "that's so quiet, how it is louder than me" or "if you can hear
THAT you should be able to hear me," etc.

~~~
candiodari
I'm not even sure what I've got. I can hear very well. With enough focus I can
follow people and animals around at pretty sizeable distances. I practice
that. Or perhaps I should say I enjoy doing that, in the dark in the small
pieces of forest that still remain where I live. I can easily follow a
conversation from 30 meters distance, with sufficient focus.

But I cannot process, and sometimes not focus on multiple people talking, even
when they're not talking through one another. I can tell you a lot generally
about their speech, just not what it says. Where they're standing, tone of
voice, are they moving, what their intentions are. But if there are 2
conversations in earshot of me I cannot tell you what anybody is saying even
if they're shouting to me. If 3 people are standing around and talking I can
only participate if I totally ignore one of them and just blindly shut them
out, whatever they're saying. Sometimes it gets worse and even with little
disturbance I just cannot tell anymore what people are saying to me.

People don't understand. In a 1:1 conversation I'm warm, open, attentive and
so on. In a 3 way or more conversation, I'm cold, absent, distracted, annoying
(because: very bored) ... Worse, often suddenly, from their perspective, I no
longer understand them. I've learned to just hide this, and guess, and find
some other excuse to turn the conversation back into a 1:1 conversation.

~~~
joker3
That sounds like auditory processing disorder.

~~~
candiodari
Reading it, it seems not to fit very well. I can process speech just fine, I
just don't seem to be able to switch from one person to another without a long
time to make it happen.

------
throwaway383961
We went through the ASD diagnostic process with our son, and it left us very
sceptical about the whole thing. I was never convinced he had ASD (and I'm
still not), but some psychologist talked us into it.

I really got the impression the psychologist was cherrypicking information
(especially in the parent interview) just to check things off the diagnostic
criteria. Everything he did that vaguely sounded like an ASD symptom was
attributed to ASD, with no real thought as to whether it actually is or not. I
compared her report to the DSM-5 criteria, I didn't get the impression she was
actually applying the criteria properly, just doing her own thing and then
invoking its name at the end as if it was some magic spell.

Her diagnostic report claimed our son (who was about to start school) needed
all this special education help (timers in school, sensory diet, etc), and she
really wanted us to give it to his school. The report sounded like a bad
caricature of our son. We decided not to give it to the school and not tell
them anything about it. And his teacher tells us he is going very well.

She also put him down in the report as being ASD Level 2, but she told us
verbally she only thought he was Level 1, but she always puts people down as
Level 2 or above because that's the cut-off for Australian government
disability funding ("NDIS List A").

He's mostly normal kid, rather like myself at the same age. He's very
intelligent, social stuff isn't his strong suit (but so what, it's never been
mine either.) He's very shy, but my wife says she was even worse at his age.
We did go through a period last year when his behaviour was becoming rather
unmanageable (aggression, defiance, hyperactivity), but he's much much better
now (so much so that we took him off his ADHD meds) and I think a lot of those
behaviour problems were due to family stresses (new baby), parental mental
illness (I have anxiety/depression, and I suspect my wife does too, although
she resists diagnosis), sub-optimal parenting skills, rather than ASD and/or
ADHD and/or whatever.

When people say that ASD is being overdiagnosed, and I look at what this
psychologist did, I think it really is.

~~~
justinjlynn
No, of course it's completely logical generalise the whole field of psychology
and the diagnosis and treatment of complex mental disorders from the singular
experience you had - especially when they've told you they're trying to get
you the most help they can from various government bureaucracies. It's also
perfectly logical to just take a face value your child's teacher's opinion
that "they're fine" when they've got 20+ other children to worry about and
monitor. Don't worry, you're the parent and you always know best - and you're
sure to tell other people too. /s

I was diagnosed with ADHD _three times_ as a child, my parents never believed
it and chose to never tell me or get me the help or medication or
accommodation I needed because "I was fine". By god, I'm getting treated now
and holy hell life would've been a billion times more enjoyable and productive
if they'd just listened, or even told me later so that _I_ could decide. I
know you're just trying to do the best you can, but jeez this is sad - if you
doubt the diagnosis, fine - get a second opinion, and a third, but think that
if they're all the same, you went there for a reason and they're probably
right.

~~~
throwaway988371
(same person, new throwaway, forgot password to the previous one)

> if you doubt the diagnosis, fine - get a second opinion

We actually tried to get a second opinion. We went to another psychologist for
one, she booked us in, but then her superiors cancelled it. They said if a
child has been diagnosed as having ASD Level 2, they didn't want to repeat the
assessment since there was a risk they might get undiagnosed or only diagnosed
as Level 1, which would remove his eligibility for government disability
funding (NDIS). (Which we still haven't applied for, because we aren't
convinced he needs it, and don't know what to spend it on anyway.) They wanted
us to go to see some paediatrician they like, who is actually a colleague of
our son's existing one.

Instead we took him back to his existing paediatrician. He said he too was a
bit sceptical about the diagnosis, but that psychological diagnosis isn't an
entirely objective process, and it doesn't really matter whether he has ASD or
not, and it would be a waste of time to repeat the assessment, so we should
just do nothing about it for 6-12 months, and see how he goes, and consider
repeating the assessment in another 2-3 years.

~~~
cbhl
The NDIS funding might be useful when your child is an adult, in the event
that your child has difficulty finding and keeping a full-time job.

As an adult with Asperger's/Autism in a full-time job -- I agree that your
child might not need the funding. But at this point, it is probably too early
to tell.

I can also imagine a situation where a person with Autism was relying on, say,
a bus funded by NDIS as part of their routine, was re-diagnosed as L1, had
their routine disrupted, and came back to the psychiatrist and had a meltdown
in the office. You'd only need one or two of these experiences to decide on a
blanket policy to not rediagnose folks.

------
soulnothing
For the longest time my high functioning autism, formerly aspergers. Took a
toll on me. I was second guessing every step at work.

Do I say hi, how do I make small talk. What's the appropriate distance for
personal space. I wasn't afraid of people. I was afraid of acting outside of
neurotically behavior, and causing an uncomfortable work place.

Now I'm at the other end of the spectrum. I take a very honey badger approach
to work. Zero shits given at work. This has made it much easier. Not that I
don't deliver work, or half ass it. I just put aside any personal attachment.

I did have the aspie burn out before getting into my own routine. Work as
above, but social interaction stimuli. Self discovery is key for anyone on the
spectrum. For me things like constantly having earbuds, textile I wear,
maintaining light (via sunglasses), etc.

One of my biggest pet peeves is noted in the article. Constantly being told
I'm not autistic. Just because I don't appear that way doesn't mean I'm not.

Right now my burnout is a sister symptom of the autism. In so much that it not
directly caused. But a resulting effect. Where in I'm constantly moving or
switching jobs. Because I don't feel stimulated at work, or challenged. The
other big item is I don't do politics. Which can be very detrimental.

I still view being on the spectrum as more of a benefit. But it does require a
fair amount of self awareness.

~~~
rijoja
Not doing politics is not a mental disorder it's being noble.

~~~
vibrato
I don't like politics, but I have to admit nearly every major human
achievement is a political effort.

~~~
int_19h
I think this referred to office politics.

~~~
vibrato
Are you implying offices aren’t involved in significant human achievement?

------
adamnemecek
Idk if I'm autistic, but I do identify with this post to a surprising degree.
My solution was quitting my job and working on projects hoping that one of
them will take off. I've talked about it here on HN many times and a lot of
people have reached out. I've convinced two of my friends to do the same and
they've never been happier.

It's viable, you might need to scale down your life-style a bit but I've never
been happier.

Programming on things you care about is a lot easier if you have a lot of
time.

------
everdrive
I really appreciate (and relate to) this discussion, but I wanted to point out
that some folks out there don't mind people who are a little on the spectrum.
You don't _always_ have to pretend to be somebody else. Some people will like
you the way you are, or, will tolerate and respect you even if they don't like
you.

It seems like the authors never attempted an alternative: pushing back on
people's assumptions and being themselves more often. People like and respect
Spock and Sherlock Holmes. I get that those are extreme and fictional
examples, but you don't have to be extroverted and "normal" to be liked. I'm
not saying it'll be perfect, or always easy for you, but there are societal
niches which don't mind that some people are weird. More importantly, they can
tell that you're altruistic and well-intending, even if you you come off a
little poorly socially.

~~~
twofig
I'm going to push back a bit on this. People like Spock and Sherlock only
because they are incredibly capable. That is, it's entirely predicated on
their instrumental value, not because of their personality. If they weren't as
capable, people wouldn't hesitate to kick them to the curb and never interact
with them.

~~~
Nasrudith
Not to mention they never have to deal with the "step one" of giving them a
chance. Even if they would find them indispensable if actually hired due to
being a 10x performer getting in the door is a challenge when they would
rather pay attention to irrelevancies of posture than actual qualifications.

That sort of talent filtering for stupid reasons is very not new - going back
at the very least sexist exclusion from fields and Jewish university quota
caps (as in maximum number of Jewish scholars) - let alone cases where people
with massive potential never had the resources for education.

~~~
everdrive
This got dark fast. I was just trying to say that autistic personalities
weren't universally hated.

------
winrid
Generally I am lucky enough to ride the burnout fine. But there are times when
I'm in a meeting and all the sudden I just can't talk and start studdering or
something. One time I said I had three points and could only remember two,
literally seconds later. Wow!

Probably happens twice a year during stressful times...

On the upside - I get a lot done! :)

~~~
nilkn
This happens to me as well. I sometimes avoid speaking in meetings because the
act of drawing the attention of the whole room on me tends to compromise my
ability to think and speak clearly. So I can start with a completely coherent
set of points I want to make, but when I start actually talking I can no
longer “remember” them, which in the worst case could make me seem
incompetent. I use quotes because I don’t believe it’s a legitimate lapse of
memory so much as it is a sort of social overload that shuts part of me down.

This doesn’t always happen and I’ve found the exact conditions that trigger it
to be complex. A huge factor is definitely whether I know everyone in the
meeting in advance and feel comfortable with them. This is partly why I choose
to stay at a job for years instead of job hopping — once I feel comfortable
and stable with coworkers, suddenly I’m not only able to speak coherently in
meetings but in fact I can even enjoy running large meetings with no issues.

~~~
retsibsi
I have a similar experience -- I was going to say that my intelligence seems
to vary inversely with my level of social anxiety, but I don't think it's
quite that consistent. Sometimes my intellect really seems to shut down for no
particularly good reason. If I may lapse into bullshit evo-psych for a moment:
I guess my brain sometimes decides that I'm in a social emergency (perhaps if
I say one more embarrassing thing I'll be ostracised from the tribe and left
for dead!) and it needs to devote 90% of its cognitive resources to that
problem.

~~~
bitcoinmoney
I have similar experience? Am I autistic?

~~~
retsibsi
> Am I autistic?

I wouldn't assume so, unless you have other reasons to think so. I'm not
diagnosed autistic, and I wouldn't self-diagnose either, though I do think I'm
on the autistic side of 'normal' for some traits.

------
miedpo
Hmm... so I have Asperger's Syndrome, and my thoughts on the article are a bit
varied.

Honestly I don't think I've experienced burnout from trying to normalize.
There are probably a lot of reasons for that... I have a pretty good support
system, I enjoy understanding other people, and perhaps I just don't always
take it fully seriously.

I have had burnout related to other things. I personally think all people get
burnt out if they are stressed out for a long period of time or deal with too
many changes at once. That's not something super tied to Autism in my
experience. Just tied to being human

I do relate to taking normalization a bit less seriously as I've gotten older.
Partly because sometimes the normal thing to do isn't the best option. So
perhaps I risk looking a bit weird at the cost of doing what I think is
better. Going on my mission helped with that quite a bit I think.

So yeah, kinda mixed feelings. I'm sure some have felt what's described, I
personally have not though.

------
sleepychu
Interesting, definitely had the experience of thinking "Am I becoming more
autistic?" but just put it down to caring less about what other people think
about it. Now I wonder if this is closer to the truth.

I'm not sure but I'm pretty confident I've experienced a degradation of
memory. I combat it with copious note taking and judicious use of a calendar
but it does feel unpleasant. I do wonder if it's simply because I do more
activities within a single day than I used to in my previous routine of
development on a single application one task at a time + social. Now I can
have to deal with many tasks for many customers all vying for my attention in
parallel.

EDIT: Found great improvement from wearing headphones and sunglasses outdoors
though. Helps me avoid too much new information in the morning when my brain
is best suited for taking on new information and I have the minimal number of
draws on my attention.

------
sametmax
Latest discovery on my part, after the burnout, a heavy magnesium supplement
helps a lot. Especially with the foggy brain, and the physical contact with
others.

------
drilldrive
I definitely commonly fall into a cyclic productivity setup, though I am not
sure if I would call it 'burnout'. I think that burnout is coupled with
disgust for the primary activity, while my lows are characterized by low
executive function, not quite at odds with disgust but personally I love my
work, and I am just not thinking right when I am at my lows.

There doesn't seem to be intrinsically grinding pain to neurotypical
behaviors. I say this because for the past couple months I have fixed the
productivity highs and lows into a nice marathon pace. I will see how long
this pans out of course.

------
firecall
As someone with ADHD and bi-polar like cycles, I can fully relate to this. I'm
burnt out right now - exactly as he describes. Problem is, the rollacoaster
doesnt let you get off.

------
ozzmotik
man I've been needing this for a while. this is basically what happens to me
any time I take a job in the corporate sector and have to heavily constrain
myself. it usually ends with me spiraling down into addiction self medicating
with whatever helps me manage to function even just 1% better (subjectively
speaking of course, i probably just get worse!)

nowadays im trying to just stick to cannabis and nootropics (namely memantine
as nmda antagonism also tends to help me function and maintain the
neurotypical façadre) though as they tend to get the job done without putting
my body and mind in danger. I have a job interview with wpengine coming up so
im hoping that maybe this time I can do it right because I don't really have
any other options. im essentially going to lose my place to live at the end of
the year so I really need to make sure I figure out a healthy way to maintain
if I get the job.

im open to advice if anyone has any suggestions, as ive tried to do this alone
my entire adult life, and i just can't seem to figure it out. you give me a
formal discipline, something I can quantify and study every aspect of and ill
have no problems figuring it out, but when it comes to figuring out how to irl
properly i am but an inchoate

~~~
captainredbeard
"im essentially going to lose my place to live at the end of the year so I
really need to make sure I figure out a healthy way to maintain if I get the
job"

Start with finding a healthy way to maintain _even if you don 't get the job_.
That will put you in a place where you'll be able to find and retain one.

~~~
ozzmotik
you know, i think that's what I meant to type because that makes a lot more
sense to me now that i think about it. evidently sitting in a hot bath makes
me lazier about my typing. who would have guessed

------
PaulHoule
see [https://www.amazon.com/Masks-Mirrors-Generation-Chameleon-
Pe...](https://www.amazon.com/Masks-Mirrors-Generation-Chameleon-
Personality/dp/0275973255/)

------
Balgair
I'm confused, what makes 'autistic burnout' any different than regular
'burnout'? The stories linked in the post seem to be just describing burnout,
though I've not clicked into the linked pages. What am I missing that makes
autistic burnout different?

~~~
samirm
Autistic burnout is partially a result of pretending to be "normal" around
other people (those who don't understand and judge autistic behaviour like
stimming). "Normal" people can also experience this burnout if they're also
pretending to be someone they are not (day in, day out).

Part of the problem is that people don't realize that everyone is on the
spectrum, autism isn't a binary "property". The other, bigger, part of the
problem is that there seems to be a negative stereotypical view of people with
mental illnesses or just people who aren't "normal". Unfortunately autistic
people fall towards that category in the current social context.

~~~
Balgair
> Autistic burnout is partially a result of pretending to be "normal" around
> other people (those who don't understand and judge autistic behaviour like
> stimming). "Normal" people can also experience this burnout if they're also
> pretending to be someone they are not (day in, day out).

Wait, so autistic burnout is just regular burnout, but from general social
interactions? I get that we're all on this autistic spectrum[0], but I think
we all just get burnt out from time to time when dealing with jerks and other
people in general. Is it just that autistic people get more tired from the
standard social guessing game? If this is a spectrum, then where is the cut-
off? Is it all self-diagnosis then?

Also, what is stimming?

Sorry for all the questions. Feel free to answer any/none of them. Thanks for
the answers thus far!

[0] Also, how is the spectrum any different than just the normal range of
being a human? It sounds like we've just got a new word for another normally
distributed human thing, like height or hearing ranges.

~~~
samirm
> It sounds like we've just got a new word for another normally distributed
> human thing

I was trying to find some stats on the distribution myself, but couldn't find
anything. All the data that's easily searchable is about people who have ASD
:/

> Is it just that autistic people get more tired from the standard social
> guessing game? If this is a spectrum, then where is the cut-off? Is it all
> self-diagnosis then?

I guess so, I'm no expert on this myself, just know that I'm relatively high
on the spectrum, but below this "magical" threshold you mention. From personal
experience most social interactions for me are very tiring, especially around
non close friends/family. However I can't comment on whether this is normal
for most people since I've always been this way. I self-diagnosed myself
through literature and a few online tests, but it's obviously not as accurate
as a real diagnosis done by a professional. You _can_ try to self-diagnose,
but you obviously have to take the results with a bucket of salt.

>Also, what is stimming?

Short for stimulating. Basically engaging your senses to make yourself feel
calmer/more comfortable. This explains it in more detail:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimming)

~~~
Balgair
> Self-stimulatory behavior, also known as stimming[1] and self-
> stimulation,[2] is the repetition of physical movements, sounds, or words,
> or the repetitive movement of objects common in individuals with
> developmental disabilities and most prevalent in people on the autism
> spectrum.

... Holy Shit ... I do this all the time ... I'm autistic?

Where does one do more tests?

~~~
samirm
hahaha maybe a little, but that language is also pretty general.

This is the one I took: [https://psychology-tools.com/test/autism-spectrum-
quotient](https://psychology-tools.com/test/autism-spectrum-quotient)

And then "verified" with other random ones.

------
candiodari
Who else thinks that this autism was caused by this school and the fact that
this guy believed, for some reason, that he deserved such treatment ?

------
contingencies
Honestly I know this probably sounds insensitive which isn't my intent but I
feel like a substantial amount of noise around these mental condition labels
are people using them to subconsciously raise the victim flag instead of
dealing with shit, either personally or by proxy (parents claiming kids are
abnormal, when really they are just bad or absentee parents). There must be a
technical term for this perspective in the science, could anyone with a psych
background fill us in?

~~~
pjc50
I'm reminded of how some people complain that there are a lot more queer
people around and claim that they are somehow "fake" or "going through a
phase", when all that's happened is that visible signs are no longer quite so
violently suppressed. Or dead of AIDS.

~~~
abledon
well, rebelling against parents nowadays in a unique fashion, is hard to do,
our parents have already rebelled using so many facets available to them,
listened to punk music, drugs/mdma/acid, fashion etc... one of the areas to
rebel with , left untouched by previous generations, is gender.

~~~
pjc50
> left untouched by previous generations, is gender

Stonewall was 1969; gender-fluidity, androgyny, "glam" etc were a big part of
70s and early 80s pop. I do agree that there's a big fight between second-wave
feminists and trans people going on at the moment.

~~~
Nasrudith
Not to mention before that with women wearing pants as the rebellion,
suffragists and others - that was a rebellion against gender. You might say
those were different as "not really a part of gender" but the past would
vehemently disagree with you.

Look at photographs of secretly female soldiers - to the modern eye it is
obvious enough to serve as documentation but then her comrades didn't know
until after injury or death because they expected women in skirts and dresses
not uniforms.

