Open Society

These themes highlight a need for balancing social activities and spaces with time and space alone and the benefits of creating or protecting spaces, which encourage recovery from overwhelm.

This study shows the importance for autistic adults in balancing social activities and spending time in social spaces, with alone-time. It also shows the benefits of finding/creating and protecting spaces that are not overwhelming for autistic adults. These findings may help autistic adults explain their need for alone-time, which is useful information for people who support, live with, and work alongside autistic adults.

Despite having a low opinion of their own influence, and despite being socially constructed as disempowered, autistic people, through skilful self-advocates, actually exert influence at all stages of the policy process and represent the primary form of expertise taken into account by policymakers.

The belief that you can have influence, even when society tells you that you cannot, is a powerful factor in motivating people from marginalised groups to lobby for their needs and rights (Dempsey and Foreman 1997).

You crash and you keep crashing.

Autistic and neurodivergent rest is different from neurotypical rest. The recommended recovery strategies for the majority of neurotypical people who are in burnout (and often also experiencing depression) are to try to engage more with others, to try and do more exercise, have a better diet, to try and join in more with the group activities and to generally be more active and engaged in society. This doesn’t work if you are autistic. Such strategies have left me with less capacity and a feeling that I am falling deeper and deeper into a void and becoming even more disembodied and disconnected, it has left me with even less energy to function and get through life. Autistic ways of recovering typically involve giving yourself time and space to be yourself, to stim more, to engage in your monotropic interests, and to create more flexibility in your life so you can embrace your own autistic way of communicating and socialising rather than trying to ‘fit in’ to others' expectations. Research led by neurodivergent teams is especially valuable in exploring ways to support those experiencing burnout. Research led by people who are also autistic or otherwise neurodivergent adds to the narrative of recognising and validating the inner experience of autistic people.

If you are experiencing burnout, a deeper understanding of autism and learning to embrace your own authentic autistic identity can provide ways to help give your body and mind authentic and meaningful ways to rest, recharge and recover. Learning more about theories such as monotropism (Murray, 2005), discovering more about the sensory system and how an understanding of the interoception system works is vital and can help enormously; it can bring a much-needed sense of meaning to life.

The neurodivergent community offer a safe space where the DEEP double empathy problem is dissolved and where love and friendship can flourish.