Autistic Burnout Is Real: What It Feels Like, Why It Happens, and How I’m Learning to Rest

The Unseen Collapse

Burnout isn’t just being tired. It’s something deeper. Heavier. Like the world has settled on your shoulders and forgotten to lift.

Some mornings, I feel like Jacob Marley—dragging chains forged from years of regret, masking, and survival. My brain misfires like the gears no longer match up. Thoughts get stuck somewhere between the spark and the mouth. Starting the day feels like moving a mountain, and if it weren’t for needing to get my boys to school, I’m not sure I’d even get out of bed. That’s my emergency override system. Without it, the engine might not turn over.

This burnout didn’t happen all at once. It was a slow avalanche—gaining mass over time as the weight of life’s responsibilities quietly outpaced my actual capacity. And the hardest part? Not even realizing it. Introspection can be slippery when your body and mind are constantly out of sync.

Somewhere in that unraveling, I began digging into the possibility that I might be autistic. I took test after test, not just once but over and over—just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke or a bad day. And even though the signs all pointed clearly, something in me still hesitated to believe it fully. When the official diagnosis finally came, it wasn’t a surprise. But it cracked something open anyway. And ever since, it’s felt like I’ve been underwater.

My days now feel like trying to function inside a malfunctioning steampunk machine—rusty, chugging, groaning under strain. I’m hyper-emotional. Commercials make me cry. Stories, songs, fleeting moments of kindness—I leak tears for all of it. Happy, sad, angry, overwhelmed—no filter, no dam. The emotional suppression I used to wear like armor is cracked wide open.

People only see me at work, and they’re starting to notice something’s different. I ask more questions. I challenge more things. I speak truths I used to swallow. I probably seem “too much” now. But what they don’t see is the exhaustion behind it—the sense of needing to say something, anything, just to stay connected to the world while I still can.

I feel like a penguin in someone’s backyard duck pond—out of place, confined, surrounded by creatures who don’t understand why I don’t swim the same way.

Burnout isn’t dramatic. It’s not a breakdown. It’s the slow collapse of someone who has carried too much, for too long, without being allowed to rest.

What Autistic Burnout Really Is

Autistic burnout isn’t the same as ordinary burnout.

It’s not just being tired from overworking or overstimulation for a few days. It’s a total systems shutdown—a collapse of your mental, emotional, and sometimes even physical capacity after years (or decades) of masking, pushing, adapting, and surviving in a world not built for your neurology.

It’s not a moment—it’s a state. And sometimes, it lasts for weeks. Sometimes months. Sometimes years.

For me, autistic burnout feels like my internal battery is fried—not just drained, but damaged. Rest doesn’t always fix it. Sleep doesn’t reset it. Even the things I once found soothing—music, silence, nature—feel distant or muted. It’s like I’m here, but only halfway plugged in.

And it doesn’t just come from stress—it also comes from sustained self-abandonment. It comes from ignoring things that truly cause you great discomfort just to fit in.

From decades of hiding traits that others misunderstood or mocked. From forcing eye contact when it hurt, or staring at their nose to make it look like eye contact. From holding back stims, clenching jaws, gritting teeth, silencing meltdowns, faking expressions. From talking myself out of what I need—over and over again—until my system quietly gave up trying.

Autistic burnout is the body and brain finally saying, “Enough.”

• A sharp drop in executive functioning (can’t start tasks, forget everything, lose track of time).
• Intense emotional exhaustion and irritability.
• Heightened sensory sensitivity (noises, lights, textures feel unbearable).
• Regression in skills or communication.
• Withdrawal from social interaction—not from disinterest, but pure survival.

It can feel like grief, like depression, like emptiness—but it’s not quite any of those things. And that’s part of what makes it so disorienting. Even to those of us going through it.

Autistic burnout isn’t failure. It’s the body collecting its long overdue debts.

Rest Is Not Laziness

One of the hardest things about autistic burnout isn’t just the exhaustion itself— it’s the way our brains, and sometimes the people around us, interpret that exhaustion.

When I try to rest, a voice creeps in:

• You’re just being lazy.
• You should be doing something.
• Other people are tired too and still keep going.
• You used to handle more than this—what’s wrong with you now?

Even when I know better, I still hear it.

This lie—this cultural myth of laziness—is like a splinter in my brain. It pokes every time I try to rest. It whispers guilt into my down time and turns self-care into something I feel like I have to earn instead of something I need to survive.

Rest, for me, is rarely peaceful.

It begins as a stabbing in my brain—sharp and intrusive—and then spreads outward until it becomes physical discomfort. My body aches with stillness, like a puppet yanked upward by a marionette string, forced to move even when I don’t want to. Stillness feels unsafe. Motion feels mandatory.

It reminds me of a shark—if I stop swimming, I fear I’ll wither and die.

So I keep going. Even when my body begs for pause. Even when my soul is sinking.

Rest is not laziness. But for many of us, it’s still an act of rebellion.

If You’re In It Too

If you’re reading this and it resonates—if you’re in the thick of burnout, wondering what’s wrong with you, why you can’t just push through like you used to—I want you to know something:

There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken. You’re just tired in a way most people don’t understand.

Autistic burnout is not a flaw in your character. It’s not weakness. It’s not laziness. It’s the result of living too long in environments that never fit, playing roles you weren’t meant to play, and carrying weights no one saw you holding.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to rest or fall apart or begin again. You’re allowed to feel how heavy it is. You’re allowed to grieve what it’s taken from you. You’re allowed to move slowly—or not at all—for a while.

As for me—I’m very much in the grips of burnout right now. I have a long road ahead, and no, I’m not okay. But what I’ve come to understand is… I’m okay with not being okay.

This is a season. And if nothing else, I’ve always been an unrelenting optimist. Somewhere beyond the fog, there is sunshine.

Writing these thoughts down has been cathartic—like leaving breadcrumbs for myself, or maybe for someone else who feels just as lost. Maybe this is the beginning of something more. A new direction. A different kind of purpose.

I don’t want others to suffer the way I have—to feel alone, unseen, or ashamed. If I can help even one person avoid some of the pain I’ve carried, that’s enough. That’s everything.

So if you’re in it too, please hear this:
You’re not alone.
You’re not too much.
You are worth rest, and peace, and healing.
You are worthy—just as you are.