Table 3.

Potential Solutions for Autistic Burnout

Domain	Strategy	Representative quotations
Acceptance and social support	Individual support	Have a healthy support system setup of people who will accept you as you are and not try to change, fix or shame you.
		Having a supportive person or persons who understood my anxieties in their complexity and helped me face what I could not change by understanding why it was so difficult for me. Having a loving support system that would respect and allow me to just be how I was until I could sort out the issues.
	Community support	[My burnout] might have even come sooner than it did had I not been around some communities of people who were generally more accepting of “quirkiness,” and so provided some periods of time where I likely was needing to mask less, or less intensely.
		Try to find people who…accept you and I know that's not always, you know, not always possible but community is out there you know, if the person has a way to connect to it, the community, that's a good source of support.
	Peer support	The writing below [by other autistic people related to burnout] helped me understand myself. If you are autistic, you will likely see yourself in these perspectives. They might change your life.
		The biggest thing that has helped me avoid and mitigate it, is learning about myself and the way I have done that, is by connecting with the Autistic Community.
Being autistic	Attending to autistic needs	Give yourself a break, go hole up in a cupboard under a blanket for a few hours, or…run or cycle really, really fast (sometimes the wind rush can literally help clear away the cobwebs because so much sensory information is cut out). A big sensory break every few days, or weeks, coupled with smaller sensory breaks throughout the day could make the world of difference…
	Unmasking	The biggest thing of all you can do to prevent, or at least mitigate burnout, is to start identifying what you do when you Mask and stop. Even just little things like eye contact, which so many of us do, or at least pretend to do. Allow yourself not to be sociable if you don't want to be.
	Using autistic strengths	I think [preventing burnout] would be…something around better understanding and better application of…the sort of natural skills or traits of somebody on the spectrum.
Formal supports	Reasonable accommodations	I told the [human resources] department that I was autistic and they said, okay well we'll deal with this…so it was like an 8 or 9 page document that we presented…and at the end of it [they] said…we're going to give you a permanent accommodation. The accommodation that they gave me…was the ability to with short notice take time off without pay.… I have the lights taken out above my desk, …now I wear clip on sunglasses…all those things gave me back time gave me back energy.
		Not having my needs be seen as unreasonable or “mental” but getting accommodations.
	Instrumental support	I wish that I had been able to qualify for like, help cleaning or something for stress at home.
		Respite services so, so I can get a break from, break from uh, you know, get a break from the kids when I need it.
	Mental health support	Dealing honestly with scary and difficult emotions might actually be a way to prevent burnout. By allowing people to complain and be heard the difficulties can be overcome and the person is actually more likely to be able to put them aside and work again.
		Okay so to medical professionals I would say um, because depression can be part of burnout, treat the depression first.
Reduced load	Time off/breaks	On a basic level, allowing periods of withdrawal, or decompression time at the end of the day, or even throughout the day can make a big difference.
		Take a spiritual retreat [laughs] like that's not a definite way of curing it but that's the only way I came up with is give yourself a break, withdraw into your own world and give yourself a break.
		The biggest thing of all you can give yourself, or your loved one, is time.
	Social withdrawal	Allow yourself not to be sociable if you don't want to be. Give yourself permission to duck out of situations you can't cope with instead of pretending you can.
		I have gone through a few distinct periods of burnout and have successfully managed them by withdrawing from the world as best I could.
	Reduced activity	Pulling back from activities, tweaking how much you do of different activities…all are important.
Self-advocacy and health	Setting boundaries	Advice I would give…it's okay to—you know, okay to say no if people…are asking things of you that you don't feel like you can handle.
		Listen and respect when your boundaries are being crossed.
	Asking for help	I wish I had known much earlier on that there was no shame in needing or requesting accommodations. If I could redo things, I would likely have tried to acknowledge the contribution of sensory issues to, say, meltdowns at work and put measures in place to better manage them.
		Learning to be able to ask and accept help from trusted authorities (Ask and Tell by Stephen Shore is a good book).
		Asking for help and accepting help is an important skill to succeed through autistic burnout.
	Being healthy	Breathing exercises, regular exercise, doing activities that bring you joy as a way to decompress.
		Something as simple as petting an animal, meditation, the ability to exercise in short spurts or do something mindless like watch a funny video or squeeze a stress ball. That'll help ease the oncoming tension and I can float back down to earth gracefully.
Self-knowledge	Early recognition	Once it happens…it spirals downhill that if you can recognize that you're, you know, recognize it's happening…and conscious of it then there might be uh, be able to avoid it.
	ASD diagnosis	Asking that question [of what would prevent burnout] now I would say a diagnosis and help recognizing when I liked doing something.
		What potentially could have helped prevent burnout would have been an earlier diagnosis, which potentially could have meant less need to camouflage.
	Understanding patterns and making strategic decisions	I have learnt to understand the “why” of why I react to certain things in certain ways, I've learnt to understand “how” to best avoid certain situations or to shield myself from them with Masking. I've been supported into learning how to Accept myself and shuck off, to a certain extent what has been thrown at me.
		But by FAR the most crucial dimension of my recovery? I'm recovering my ability to listen to my own body, after decades of being taught to distrust and override my very own senses.

ASD, autism spectrum disorder.