I’m going to be honest here. How many of us have been employed before say, a few months to maybe a year or two, and then it just happens? Like a huge wave crashing down you just stop and can’t anymore. You just end up walking away from the job, no notice in hand or nothing. You’ve left them, burning bridges and wishing that you could keep a job for a steady amount of time?
Yeah, I’ve been there a few times, even recently. I was working in a call center, and I had been there since June. I say I was doing well at first, but the numbers proved otherwise. Whenever I had hands on help from a supervisor or a job coach sitting with me, I had more encouragement to improve my work. From having a sit with a job coach, my time on calls that had been really high started to drop. Then we went for months without any more one-on-one coaching and my numbers tanked again. I need more help I think with certain jobs over others.
The point I’m making here is that autistic burnout is a problem for employed autistic women. And the reason is simple:
MASKING.
We mask and mimic our autistic traits around non-autistic people. So much energy goes into wearing that fake mask that we can’t focus 100% on our work. If we could freely show our autism and not have to worry about it, then the job would get done with flying colors because we have the energy to do so. I remember that is also one of the things that contributed to me being late from breaks. I was tired from masking my autistic traits. Then I got my therapist to write up some paperwork for accommodation, and I tried to ask for very little, simply because I was worried about their reactions to me asking for more break times and the latter. They agreed to an extra five minutes, but that didn’t last very long. I was tired all the time, even when I went to bed. Now that I’m at home and looking for other employment, I’m feeling so energized. I don’t have to hide the fact that I’m autistic at home. My mate knows I am, as well.
If I could find a job in which I don’t have to hide the fact that I’m autistic I would excel at it. I would be great. I would be a hard worker and people wouldn’t have to wonder why I come off as being lazy or not caring about the work.
Mimicry is also the reason why if you have a job then mention being autistic the first thing out of people’s mouths is “You don’t seem autistic. Are you really?” And I actually hate that question. It’s because people are still stuck on only men and children being autistic- they think women can’t be autistic at all. Newsflash, we are, and we’ve been around just as long as the men and children. We have to hide because society expects so much from women that we just hide to cope and end up wearing ourselves out in the process.
Do you have any experiences with burnout you’d like to share? It even happens with school/college as well. I remember when I was in high school, I started out with really good grades and by the time I was a senior I had a C average simply because I was burnt out from all the socializing high school expects girls to do. It is also the reason why I took forever to go to college- the burnout really wore me thin. The stress was too much.
So readers, I invite you to talk about your own experiences with burnout. I’d love to see what you all have to say!
Autism in Black 