Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / Why Autistic People Burn Out (The Unsaid Truth)
Transcript
- 0:00OK, so why do autistic people burn out and what is the issue
- 0:04with sensory input that causes burnout, Shutdowns, meltdowns?
- 0:09I'm answering all of that right now.
- 0:11Stay tuned. And yes, I'm driving.
- 0:13Hey guys, welcome back to the Aspy world.
- 0:15My name is Dan and I'm a quickly videos all about this stuff.
- 0:17So if you're new around here and you want to learn more about
- 0:19autism and ADHD right from the horse's mouth, make sure to hit
- 0:23the subscribe button and follow along to every video that I
- 0:27upload on a weekly basis. OK, so I'm taking the question,
- 0:30why do autistic people burn out? And one of the reasons why I
- 0:33want to answer this question is like, if we can figure out why
- 0:35autistic people burn out, then we can figure out how we can
- 0:38stop ourselves burning out. OK, Now, one of the most
- 0:41interesting things is that when I teach, I coach a lot of
- 0:44autistic individuals. And I myself have autism and
- 0:46ADHD, so I know exactly what it's like.
- 0:49And I've made my mission in life to try and help overcome many
- 0:53issues. You mean you can't cure anything
- 0:54when it's autism related, right? Because of the neurological
- 0:56condition. But what you can do is you can
- 0:59attain some kind of tools or coping strategies and mechanisms
- 1:03to help you overcome it. And one of the things I noticed
- 1:06that was common was that autistic individuals had high
- 1:08levels of anxiety and also high levels of stress, burnouts,
- 1:13shutdowns and meltdowns. But why?
- 1:18And the core principle is this when we feel out of control, we
- 1:25then lose control. And what does control mean?
- 1:29If we think about it in a very literal interesting sense,
- 1:31control means that you're in the driver's seat, kind of pardon
- 1:34the pun, but you're in the driver's seat and you know
- 1:36exactly what you're doing or where you're going.
- 1:38Hence why autistic people like routine because they like to
- 1:40predict what they're going to do or where they're going to be.
- 1:43Which is why when we're dealing with autistic children or, you
- 1:47know, autistic people who have difficulties with understanding
- 1:49instructions, we say we're going to do this now and then we're
- 1:51going to do that next. So it's like now a next
- 1:54scenario, but autistic adults, when we're dealing with life in
- 1:57general, what seems to happen is this, we can juggle about four
- 2:01variables, right? Like and we call it the spoon
- 2:04theory where you get 4 spoons and you make up and each thing
- 2:08demands one spoon. So you give one spoon to, oh,
- 2:10the kids seek my attention, give that one spoon.
- 2:12Then I need to clean the house. That's another spoon.
- 2:14So I've got 2 spoons left before I lose control, right?
- 2:16And then you've got another, oh, the trash needs to be taken out.
- 2:18And then I get a phone call from my doctor.
- 2:20OK, 4 spoons all used up and you lose control.
- 2:26So no spoons, no control, complete mess.
- 2:29I feel like garbage. I don't know what to do, right.
- 2:33And so when you have so many demands on you as a person, as a
- 2:37human being, usually a typical human being can deal with so
- 2:41many demands due to the fact that they're just able to kind
- 2:44of make work around. Autistic individuals are already
- 2:47maxed out because we have sensory input from stimuli
- 2:51exterior to ourselves. So we have maybe there's a noise
- 2:54going on, two people are talking, there's a smell that we
- 2:57don't really agree with. Then there's sunlight beaming
- 2:59into our eyes or flickering from a, a light, like a fake light in
- 3:03like an office or something. Then there's a the, the
- 3:05temperature is maybe too hot. Then somebody wants us to ask us
- 3:09a question, Hey, could you take this to this?
- 3:11I need you to do it ASAP. One more thing and we're, we're
- 3:14already at Max spoon capacity and we lose control of our
- 3:18entire reality because all we can do as autistic individuals
- 3:22is look at our reality and rationalize.
- 3:24We say, OK, this is my reality. I have to urge myself to survive
- 3:27within this reality. But when you can't do that, when
- 3:30you can't get there, when you cannot get yourself to that
- 3:33moment where you are completely in control of that environment,
- 3:36you lose it. And what happens when you lose
- 3:38it? You shut down, you melt down.
- 3:41It could be an outburst of emotions.
- 3:42And So what happens when we lose control?
- 3:45When we lose control, we then start to worry or have a fear of
- 3:50a problem because when we lose control, it causes a problem
- 3:53because then we're like, we're not doing the thing that we
- 3:55think we should be doing or we think that we're demanded to do,
- 3:58like act like an appropriate human being, be normal in a
- 4:01situation, get on. We get a job, take care of the
- 4:02kids, make sure that the house is done.
- 4:04But in actual fact, these things are just superficial because
- 4:07nobody's going to die instantly. If you can't, you know, take a
- 4:11piece of paper to somebody or, you know, say the kids breakfast
- 4:14is 5 minutes late, nobody's going to die, right?
- 4:16So those things are OK, but they're just in, in that, in
- 4:18that moment in time, we're like, dude, this is everything.
- 4:20This is all, all or nothing. And then the, the fear that we
- 4:27should be doing something, we're not doing something turns into a
- 4:29worry. And then that worry turns into
- 4:32an anxiety. And that anxiety diminishes our
- 4:36confidence exponentially. So rather than have a, a life
- 4:41that's filled with, hey, I'm able to do this thing because I
- 4:45have less, you know, less spoons, but I have no worries.
- 4:50What happens is when we have no spoons, then we increase our
- 4:52worries, we increase our anxiety, we lose control and we
- 4:54lose confidence. Now our ability to pick
- 4:57ourselves back up from having a lack of confidence or a lull of
- 5:01confidence is the only way in which we are going to build back
- 5:05up and come back stronger. And when we do that, we increase
- 5:08in our potential towards reality.
- 5:09And when we increase in our potential, what happens is we
- 5:12create confidence and confidence is key because without
- 5:15confidence you have nothing. Now I have a free webinar on
- 5:19three ways to build out a bulletproof brain or a conscious
- 5:25effort to create the best experience for you so that
- 5:28you're more confident and you are less anxious.
- 5:30Now, if you're interested in that, I will leave a link in the
- 5:32description down below. You can click it and then watch
- 5:35the webinar and let me know how you found the workshop.
- 5:39Okay guys, you haven't already subscribed.
- 5:41I'll see you next time. Peace.