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 Hi, and welcome to Understanding Neurodivergent Burnout. I'm Claire and I was diagnosed as autistic in my late forties. Burnout something I've experienced severely on several occasions throughout my life. It's also something that many of my clients have been through. Experiencing burnout can feel as if it's ruined your life and it can lead to relationship breakdowns, poor health,  destructive coping mechanisms and difficulty sustaining a career. Serious as it is though, it's often completely misunderstood, both by people experiencing burnout by people around them. The first time I experienced burnout was when I was 18 during my first year at university. I didn't know I was autistic and I'd never heard the word burnout. Instead, I woke up one day and couldn't go to uni. I was exhausted in a way that I'd never experienced before. 

And I couldn't bear to be around anyone, even the good friends I'd made. I had no energy to leave the house and the thought of getting the train, which had previously been fine. Was impossible. I just left. Cut my ties and recovered at home for a few months. The next big episode I had was when I was 24, at the end of my degree. I've always called this a breakdown. 

This felt far more serious as I was living away from home. And couldn't manage basic living without the help of my partner. Since then, like so many neurodivergent people, I've experienced a pattern of very significant burnout episodes, which have completely stopped me in my tracks. For myself and many other neurodivergent people, burnout has been at the root of significant life decisions.  Burnout can affect our futures and continues to have ripple effects long after we're feeling physically and mentally better. 

Burnout is about more than just being tired or stressed. For neurodivergent people, burnout often stems from prolonged periods of stress, sensory overload, or masking. Neurodivergent burnout is different from general burnout because it's deeply tied to executive function issues, sensory issues, and often emotional regulation and overwhelm. It can occur when we're forced to navigate environments or meet expectations that don't align with how we process the world. For many near divergent individuals, burnout  can last for weeks, or months, or even years. This prolonged state of exhaustion, fatigue, and finding it hard to cope, can impact pretty much all aspects of life. Recovery can feel difficult, especially if you don't fully understand why it's happening or what to do about it. There's an overlap between autistic and ADHD burnout, but the root causes can also be different. Autistic burnout often results from the pressure of constantly masking and camouflaging and being in social situations that consistently feel pressured and exhausting. Sensory overload also plays a significant part in autistic burnout and changes in routines and expectations, particularly if they're ongoing, can lead to someone reaching a point of burnout. Both autistic people and people with ADHD or other forms of neurodivergence may reach burnout because of a lack of recognition and accommodations for their needs. 

ADHD burnout often stems from over-committing to things, to thinking that we can take on a lot of different things and starting tasks in a more impulsive manner. When we combine this with executive function issues around task management, finding it hard to start and finish projects, and feeling a constant sense of pressure from other people to follow through on things that we might have committed to, the pressure of trying to achieve something that feels insurmountable can lead to burnout. Emotional regulation issues, which are often heightened in people with ADHD, as well as other neurodivergent people, can lead to difficulties coping with a wide range of situations. And the ongoing pressure of trying to find ways of coping with situations that don't make sense, or which aren't going well, or where you're receiving criticism from others can eventually result in burnout. Ultimately burnout is the result of trying to live in a situation that's really difficult in a way that many other people would fail to recognize. It's often the case that we can do this for a certain time period, we can manage a few days, weeks, or even months. But the constant stress, executive management issues, sensory overload. Suppressing our needs, masking who we are and what we're experiencing. Can all eventually build up to a point where we cannot keep going.    Burnout manifests differently for everyone, but there are some common, emotional, physical, and cognitive signs to watch for. If we think about emotional symptoms, many people experience, intense feelings of anxiety, hopelessness or irritability. That can be a sense of emotional numbness or detachment and ongoing low mood. Even when things that you once cared about and were passionate about. No feel unimportant or overwhelming. Increased sensitivity to rejection or criticisms, are also common during burnout. Physical symptoms are another key component of burnout. 

One of the most common signs is extreme fatigue that doesn't go away with rest. Even after sleeping for hours, you may still feel physically, mentally exhausted. Many people also notice heightened sensory sensitivities, where noises, lights, or textures that were previously tolerable become unbearable. Physical aches,  headaches and frequent illnesses may also occur as burnout weakens the body's ability to cope with stress. 

Cognitive symptoms of burnout include difficulty concentrating, memory lapses, and an ongoing sense of brain fog for many people. My personal description is feeling as if my head is full of cotton wool. I can't make the same connections. My brain is working in a much fuzzier and slower way. And when I reached that point, it feels quite different to the way that my brain usually functions. 

And it's a sign that something different is happening to me. Tasks that once felt manageable can suddenly seem completely impossible. And executive function issues around organizing tasks, managing time and making decisions can become extremely difficult. You might feel mentally shut down, unable to think clearly, or even plan simple activities. 

These symptoms can overlap and amplify each other. So if you're experiencing cognitive struggles, you might start to feel a sense of emotional frustration. Which in turn makes you feel physically tired. So we really want to think about this in quite a holistic way, that this is a cycle of burnout symptoms. 

A critical part of addressing burnout is understanding how it differs from other conditions like depression or anxiety or sensory overload. So while they may share some symptoms, the root causes and management strategies are different. Burnout is often the result of prolonged stress or overwhelm. It tends to improve with rest, reduced demands and accessing the right type of support. On the other hand depression is characterized by persistent low mood, feelings of worthlessness and a lack of interest in some activities. Unlike burnout, depression doesn't necessarily have a clear cause and it doesn't necessarily improve with rest. It often requires a different type of mental health intervention. Many people have previously been diagnosed with depression, and once they realize they're neurodivergent, they discover that their depressive symptoms instead pointed to burnout episodes. Far from experiencing a consistency of low mood or ongoing feelings of hopelessness of worthlessness, they've had times when they find it hard to cope or function. Which may have been accompanied by low mood and very much presented similarly to depression. But which they can later explain in terms of particular ongoing situations that they were in at the time. 

Understanding these differences can help you identify whether you're experiencing burnout or something else. And that can be a great starting point to think about what type of treatment you need. To deal with whatever you're experiencing. In the next module, we'll explore the burnout cycle in more depth, exploring what fuels it and how to begin to break free of that cycle. It's important to remember that no matter how impactful burnout is it, doesn't define you. 

With the right tools and support and a degree of self-awareness and the ability to recognize burnout, you can begin to reclaim your energy and build a life that's working with your neurodivergence, not, against it. I'll see you in module two.