There is increasing awareness of managing autistic burnout in the autistic community. In my clinical experience, the cycle of pushing frantically to meet obligations, followed by crashing in a prolonged need for deep rest, often gets mistaken for bipolar disoder in autistics. Here is a closer look at four different types of autistic dysregulation.
Burnout can look like depression. Inertia can look like “laziness.” Meltdown can look like tantrums or immaturity. Shutdown can look like hypersomnia and dissociation / derealization. Autistic dysregulation can result in condescension by others who are not as vulnerable to this level of overload. It is important to understand that these states are involuntary protections to force the brain to finally say no to overload, when a person can’t stop meeting the needs of other people on their own.
References:
Phung, J., Penner, M., Pirlot, C., & Welch, C. (2021). What I wish you knew: Insights on Burnout, inertia, Meltdown, and shutdown from autistic youth. Frontiers in Psychology, 12.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.741421
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