She’s working essentially three jobs and is extremely tired - is that really autistic burnout, or just regular exhaustion? I saw someone on TikTok who got diagnosed with ADHD because they felt unable to go to school, work a job, go to the gym, see friends, and still do necessary life stuff like cooking etc without running out of energy. At what point are we going to say that expecting people to do so much is not realistic and that it’s unethical to diagnose people with disorders just because they can’t keep up with the work of three people?
>She’s working essentially three jobs and is extremely tired - is that really autistic burnout, or just regular exhaustion?
I think where the autism factors into this is that she literally doesn't realise exactly how she's harming herself, or what she needs to do to "recharge her batteries".
I know for a fact I wasn't even cognizant of the fact that I had physical and emotional needs until I was in the latter half of my 20's, and even now a lot of my "self-awareness" is second-hand observations from others.
Currently working with a 22 year old on the spectrum going through exactly the same thing, and the hardest part is seeing her repeat my mistakes. I guess that's just life...
> I know for a fact I wasn't even cognizant of the fact that I had physical and emotional needs until I was in the latter half of my 20's, and even now a lot of my "self-awareness" is second-hand observations from others.
How much of that do you had more to do with upbringing or environment?
>How much of that do you had more to do with upbringing or environment?
Honestly, I'd be surprised if it had much to do with upbringing at all.
Even in healthy families, Autistics just don't have the sense of self that Neurotypicals do.
If anything, introspection skills in Autistics are worse than being able to read the emotions at others. It's at least possible to visually and audibly perceive changes in the body language/tone of others.
> She’s working essentially three jobs and is extremely tired - is that really autistic burnout, or just regular exhaustion?
> At what point are we going to say that expecting people to do so much is not realistic
The problem from my standpoint is that some autistic people just want to do so much, they have a variety of very intense interests that simply override basic things like personal health, and there is no conscious awareness of those things, that requires someone outside the loop to intervene
I was trapped in the exact same situation for years, being an autistic and constantly hyperfocusing on what made me happy, during all that time the most I cared about was my own hobbies and nearly everything I thought about somehow led back to a new idea I could apply to one of them, the whole time anything about sleep exhaustion or eating properly was just not in my headspace. It was like I was blind to those things
And the hardest thing? We are led to believe that some things in life are "one's calling", that they fulfill us or make us the happiest, etc. I got into the state of believing that for my hobbies to the point that they overtook me. With my kind of focus there's no such thing as guard rails, Ill look up after "two hours of work" and it will actually be 4:00AM and I wouldn't have even realized it
Its really the definition of "too much of a good thing", it got to the point where I was asking my parents or my therapists to help keep me accountable by gently reminding me to go to bed at a certain time, but all they offered me was the equivalent of "well you're a grown adult so you're going to have to learn to deal with basic life needs by yourself, good luck." It was no less than two minutes of their time a day yet it was seen as so trivial that those people believed I had no choice but to understand what I could not understand if left to my own devices
That is the kind of thing that is misunderstood about autistic people I think, others underestimate the support that they will need to function at the same level as normal people, but when offered the idea of keeping them accountable they overestimate the supposed burden it places on them, when its really not that much in my eyes
This is a really interesting take, and I think the whole thing of "you're a grown adult " isn't just something that people say but becomes internalised as well.
I'll be sure to bring it up with the missus tonight. Thanks for the perspective.
It's going to only get worse. There is no indication that employers or states are ready to deal with the boomer retirement wave that is about to begin. In my home country Germany, this development has been forecast since the early 2000's [0]. And the reaction of previous governments has so far been similar to how climate change is dealt with.
In Germany, leading politicians are currently debating on forcing young adults to work in elderly healthcare after finishing school, to at least deal with the most obvious signs of a declining workforce in the healthcare sector. [1]
Employers are trying to turn towards cheap migrant labor due to shrinking applicant pools from inside the country. We too have the infamous "Fachkräftemangel" (skilled labor shortage) which is just a hoax - obviously employers are looking for skilled labor, that is also cheap.
Eventually, you get anxiety and burnout, because there is this sense of ever lasting competition. When in reality, there will be less and less, because boomers will eventually die.
Nah, from this quote it just seems like this person is overextending herself: "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."
