So I’m autistic, Level 1, and today I want to talk about two things that I experience as an autistic person with lower support needs that really impact me on a daily basis, but you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at me for the most part.

So these two things are autistic anxiety and autistic burnout.

So I’m going to start with autistic anxiety.

There’s actually a term for this, it’s called distinct anxiety… or at least that’s what researchers are referring to it as right now.

Now distinct anxiety, or autistic anxiety, is anxiety that is not tied to any other type of anxiety that exists currently.

Autistic anxiety impacts an autistic person pretty much on a daily basis.

So let me give you a couple of examples of how autistic anxiety affects me, just to put it into some context.

So, I have a morning routine which includes a certain type of breakfast that I get every single day.

And if for some reason my morning routine is disrupted and I can’t get that breakfast item, my anxiety is spiked.

There’s also anxiety related to my sensory needs… I sleep with a fan every night, for example.

And let’s say the fan were to break, or I’m traveling and I don’t have the fan with me… that would spike my anxiety too.

So these are two specific examples of how my autistic anxiety shows up, but there are so many more.

And literally my autistic anxiety is triggered on a daily, if not hourly basis.

Now think about a person who’s living in the world doing their best on a daily basis, but their anxiety is triggered constantly. 

All the time.

That is bound to lead to burnout.

And that’s where autistic burnout comes in.

So the way that I think about my autistic burnout is that it’s just me getting to a point where everything in my brain has just gotten too much. And my brain just shuts down.

So it’s kind of like my brain has overheated, like an electronic device, where it just got to the point of being overloaded and now it just stops functioning.

That’s autistic burnout to me.

It might mean different things to other people… but for me, when I have autistic burnout, I literally am completely incapable of doing things.

The thing is, for me, as an adult with kids and a lot of responsibilities, I most of the time just have to push through and do things anyway.

But when I’m experiencing autistic burnout, I have to try infinitely harder to get things done.

So that is how autistic burnout and autistic anxiety are tied together in my brain as an autistic Level 1 person.

I hope some of you found this helpful. Let me know in the comments if any of you relate to this.

And I hope you all have a good start to your week.