The New York Times: Autistic Burnout as a "Secondary Pandemic"

In the middle of COVID-19, the New York Times ran an article which I have since sent to more people than I can count, as it explains, in part, what happened to me during the pandemic (and which never stopped). The title of the article was "'The Battery’s Dead': Burnout Looks Different in Autistic Adults." In autistic communities, the term "burnout" generally means something almost entirely different, and radically more severe, than in neurotypical communities. In the Times article, the reporter--Beth Winegarner--attempts to explain the phenomenon of "autistic burnout" for a lay audience. As she writes, "[A]utistic people, at some point in their lives, experience [burnout] on a whole different level. Autistic traits can amplify the conditions that lead to burnout, and burnout can cause these traits to worsen. They may become unable to speak or care for themselves, and struggle with short-term memory." Winegarten reports on the experiences of autistic adults who are unable to do anything but their jobs (no cooking, cleaning, socializing), and on others who can't get out of bed for days. 

While Winegarten notes that there has been very little research on the phenomenon of autistic burnout to date, she extrapolates usefully from several other related fields in order to offer insights and recommendations in the meantime. Winegarten suggests that the recommendations for "autistic burnout" may be similar to those for neurotypical people in burnout. She suggests getting more sleep, while acknowledging that sleep is difficult for autistic people, who often struggle with insomnia. She also suggests that "connecting with others" is a key strategy for recovery--while acknowledging that such connections are highly challenging for autistic people, especially those in burnout. Finally, she observes that accommodations will furnish a critical piece of any real solution to this so-called "secondary pandemic." 

Perhaps the greatest value in Winegarten's article is how strongly it validates the experience of autistic burnout and how persuasively it shows it to be a large-scale social problem. As Winegarten acknowledges, none of her proposed recommendations can be complete on its own. Moreover, all of them pose enormous challenges for already-burned-out autistic people. Most burned-out autistic people are likely already trying to sleep and/or unable to do anything else. Likewise, most burned-out autistic people likely already understand themselves to be lonely (if not outright despairing of human connection). Yet Winegarten's own article provided me, at least, with a sense of imagined or vicarious human connection, simply by showing that my experience of profound autistic burnout was not occurring in isolation from others but was itself, in a sense, a social phenomenon, one that linked many people together. Her piece is well worth reading even years after its publication, for its discussion of how burnout arose during the pandemic and for its careful and empathetic treatment of individual examples.