4/16/24, 9:05 AM ‘The Battery’s Dead’: Burnout Looks Different in Autistic Adults - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/well/live/autistic-burnout-
advice.html

The Battery’s Dead’: Burnout

Looks Different in Autistic Adults
Though little studied, exhaustion among people with autism has become its own
pandemic.

By Beth Winegarner
Published Sept. 3, 2021 Updated Oct. 14, 2021

Tyla Grant, 24, holds down a full-time advertising job, is trying to get a nonprofit off
the ground and creates regular content for her podcast, YouTube channel and
Instagram. Occasionally, she winds up so fried she can’t speak or get out of bed for
days.

Ms. Grant is also autistic. While most people undergo periods of burnout —
physical, cognitive and emotional depletion caused by intense, prolonged stress —
autistic people, at some point in their lives, experience it on a whole different level.
Autistic traits can amplify the conditions that lead to burnout, and burnout can
cause these traits to worsen. They may become unable to speak or care for
themselves, and struggle with short-term memory. This harms their ability to
perform well at jobs, in school or at home.

“It’s the point at which there’s no more of you left to give. The battery’s dead. Tyla’s
left the chat,” she said. “Whatever you want from me, you’re not going to get.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that, as of 2017, 2.2 percent of adults
in the United States — nearly 5.5 million people — are autistic. That’s almost
certainly an undercount; many in the autistic and research communities believe
that women and people of color are underdiagnosed.

Autistic burnout is a concept already widely accepted in neurodivergent

communities, but it hasn’t been formally studied much. Research does show that
autistic people have a harder time keeping their heads above water in ways that
are similar to burnout, and some experts offer advice on how to deal with it.
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Autism and mental health.

A wide range of life stressors contribute to autistic burnout, according to a small
2020 study led by Portland State University researcher Dora M. Raymaker. Those
include being forced to hide their autistic traits (often called “masking”), managing
the disabling aspects of autism and coping with a world that expects autistic
people to perform at the same level as their non-autistic peers.

Participants of the survey described barriers to support, such as having their

experiences and differences dismissed by others, a lack of external support and an
inability to take breaks.

Beyond this study, there are few published papers about autistic burnout, but
similar conditions can help fill out the picture. For instance, in one 2020 study, 20
percent of autistic adults had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, compared
to just under 9 percent of non-autistic adults.

Some of that anxiety stems from peer rejection or from being ostracized for autistic
traits, such as a deep interest in a specific topic, researchers found. Autistic people
are also simply more vulnerable to anxiety; they’re more sensitive to sensory input
and their nervous systems are more likely to react strongly to stress, according to
the study.

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4/16/24, 9:05 AM ‘The Battery’s Dead’: Burnout Looks Different in Autistic Adults - The New York Times

Tyla Grant at her home in London, England. “The battery’s dead,” she said of her burnout experience.
“Whatever you want from me, you’re not going to get.” Amara Eno for The New York Times

Autistic adults are also more likely to feel suicidal; a 2018 study published in
Molecular Autism found that 72 percent of autistic adults scored highly for suicide
risk, compared to 33 percent of the general population. Numerous studies have
found a connection between burnout and suicidal thinking in non-autistic adults in
a wide range of professions, including medicine and policing.

For autistic people, a number of factors contributed to their suicidal thoughts,

including self-harm and masking, as well as not having their support needs met,
according to the study.

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Burnout can erode independence.

Political reporter Eric Michael Garcia agreed that rest is a key remedy for autistic
burnout, and he’s noticed, as he gets older, that it takes him longer to recharge. Mr.
Garcia, 30, experienced his first extended period of autistic burnout while covering
the 2016 elections. At first he thought he was just working too much, but a
debilitating fatigue hung over him for a month.

Soon after, he started noticing autistic people writing about burnout. Many of his
peers, he said, spend all their energy trying to perform well at work and come
home too exhausted to tend to other needs, such as cooking healthy meals, taking
out the trash or sustaining friendships and relationships.

In his book “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation,” Mr. Garcia
wrote that when non-autistic people experience burnout, no one doubts their
ability to live independently. But for autistic adults, a burnout state can lead loved
ones and medical professionals to question their self-sufficiency, and even suggest
they move home with family. Many can remain independent by having a live-in or
occasional support person who can help with shopping, cooking and bills, he wrote.

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Ms. Grant sitting at her local park. It’s Mr. Garcia at his apartment in Washington, D.C.
important for autistic people to find ways to rest He said his first experience with burnout in 2016
an recharge when facing burnout. Amara Eno for stayed with him more than a month. Greg Kahn for
The New York Times The New York Times

Sleep is challenging — but crucial.

Autistic burnout isn’t a permanent state, however. One of the best ways for anyone
to recover from burnout is rest, particularly sleep, according to Amelia Nagoski,
the co-author of the best-selling 2019 book “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the
Stress Response Cycle.” But autistic people have a harder time sleeping because of
their neurological differences, according to a 2019 study.

Autistic people are more likely to sleep for shorter periods of time and experience
lower-quality sleep, and they’re more likely to be night owls, the study found.
Research on non-autistic adults shows that insomnia is a strong predictor of
burnout, suggesting a similar link among autistic people with sleep disorders.

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Ms. Nagoski, 44, addressed autistic people’s sleep woes in a recent YouTube video.
“This essential thing that is fundamental to wellness is harder for autistic people,”
she said. She was diagnosed with autism in 2020, and launched her channel,
Autistic Burnout, to offer advice and resources to people experiencing the
condition.

All the usual sleep-hygiene tips apply to autistic people, including avoiding screens
near bedtime, making sure the room is sufficiently dark and cool, and taking a
shower to make your temperature drop afterward, which tells your body it’s time
to sleep. But autistic people have to follow this advice more diligently, and even
then, she said, it’s “more effort for less result.”

Find social connection that works.

Rest isn’t the only remedy for autistic burnout. Connecting with others is a
significant way to alleviate burnout for non-autistic adults, Ms. Nagoski said, and
may be helpful. But many autistic people misread social cues, take statements
literally and are uncomfortable with touch.

Ms. Nagoski (with her twin sister and co-author, Emily Nagoski) recommends 20-
second hugs and six-second kisses for neurotypical adults because they release the
hormone oxytocin, but “those never worked for me,” she said. Instead, she
recommends finding community through social media, where the #actuallyautistic
and #autisticburnout hashtags help people find one another on most large social
media platforms.

Ms. Grant finds herself making trade-offs when it comes to friendships. When
people ask to spend time with her, she often declines, in order to protect her
energy. But her autism already strains her friendships. “Just saying ‘no’ isn’t that
easy, especially when you’re used to saying ‘yes’ just to keep your friends,” she
said.

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Ultimately, one of the best ways to keep autistic people from burning out will be to
increase accommodations in workplaces, schools, hospitals — anywhere they
might spend time, Mr. Garcia said. Each autistic person may need different
supports, such as quiet spaces to work, longer lunch breaks, alternative lighting,
predictable schedules or the ability to have a support person with them. But there
needs to be adequate motivation for those spaces to change, or autistic adults will
continue to burn out more intensely than their peers, he said.

Autism is still largely considered a childhood condition, as though those children

don’t grow up and continue to be autistic. As more and more people are diagnosed,
“there are going to be more autistic people graduating college and in the work
force,” Mr. Garcia said. Because autistic people have such differing needs, “it may
be impossible to determine a uniform policy,” he said. “But it does need to be
addressed.”

Beth Winegarner is a journalist, essayist and author, most recently of “A Riff Of One’s Own.”

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