Mi'sen

A lot of people think of burnout in terms of 'regression'. I think that can be an unhelpful framing for the individual. Cynthia Kim introduced me to the idea of Fluid Adaptation, which I find much more practical in terms of how one learns to manage/avoid burnout.

A good example of fluid adaptation was listening to @campbellclaret in his documentary, describing the process of learning to manage his depression. It isn't just a sliding scale of +/- symptoms; over time you also learn warning signs, skills, strategies, and so on.

Although my experience has largely agreed with current information, its important to remember that its a *big gap* in understanding ASD; its very early days in it being discussed & researchers only recently noticed that autistics are discussing this as a fairly common experience.

This infographic is pretty good as a loose summary/reminder:https://twitter.com/Adriana_Edu/status/1028977682674069504?s=20 …

Vague, but: as well as much more rest, a key component in my recovery, was slowly increasing activities which I'd identified as invigorating/balancing, not draining. These are usually minimally social, include some physical movement. Otherwise recovery stagnated.

Try to build the capacity to notice positive emotional states even in the midst of exhaustion, memory problems, speech issues, sensory processing stuff, all of that crap. Contact with gratitude, love, contentment, enjoyment, however subtle, was profoundly helpful for me.

As you begin to regain some capacity and willingness to do more stuff, keep track of what you think the warning signs are. I think that a big component of managing burnout is gaining visibility on hidden costs of pushing through & living as if you have unlimited resources.

I suspect there is a distinction to be made between recovery time — which is pretty much standard daily/weekly part of being autistic — versus full blown autistic burnout, which is much worse, can take months/years to heal from.