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Less than 20% of autistic adults are in full-time employment. Many of us drop out of the workforce after just a few years. Why is that?

Let's talk about Autistic Burnout!

#ActuallyAutistic #Autism #Neurodivergence #MastoArt #Comic #Comics

Comic title: Autistic Burnout.
Dee lies on the floor, looking exhausted. “Hi!” she says. “You're probably wondering what I'm doing down here.” She turns over. “Have you ever heard of 'Autistic Burnout'? If you're autistic yourself, you've likely experienced it before.”
The next panel shows an infographic of many Dees in various states of duress. The text reads:
Autistic burnout is best described as a period of extreme mental and physical exhaustion from day to day life. Experiences vary between each person, but it can be accompanied by: loss of skills, difficulty regulating emotion, increased sensory sensitivity, a surge in repetitive behaviours, intense anxiety and other mental health issues.

The first panel shows Dee pointing at a depleted battery. “A lot of autistics say that burnout occurs as a result of trying to blend in with and meet the daily demands of the neurotypical world. Masking and camouflaging can be useful skills for fitting in at school or work, but they use up a lot of energy," she says.
The second panel shows Dee screaming at the top of her lungs.
“I always compare it to having to shout all day long. Most of my self-expression is internal, so I have to make an active effort to use body language, facial expressions, and tone.”
In the final panel, Dee is twisting and contorting herself into a really over the top thumbs up pose with a fake smile. She looks exhausted.
“Hello, how are you?!” she says in an overwrought manner.
“Imagine having to do really over the top reactions for eight hours every day—that's what it feels like!”
Another cause of burnout can be overstimulating environments, such as the bus we use to go to school or noisy work offices.

The first panel shows a car speeding along, with a clock in the background. Text:
One of the biggest problems of autistic burnout is that the world is not built to accommodate our needs. It's really hard to avoid or recover from it when we're expected to go to work or school five days a week, follow hectic schedules, and blend in with society.
The second panel shows Dee struggling to walk, a ball and chain attached to her ankle.
It also doesn't help that scientists only recently started doing research on this topic after conversations with adult autistics. For years and years we've had to muddle through this experience without proper recognition.
In the final panel, Dee is talking to her employer. He looks angry.
And without recognition it's hard to get accommodations at school or work, which can mean being forced to drop out or take lots of sick days, without really being able to give an official reason why.
So let's keep raising awareness together and demand better research!

Like 25 Nov 2022 at 15:03 | Open on wandering.shop

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iamcanehdian 🍁

@newtsoda magic. Thank you.

22 Dec 2022 at 16:00 | Open on mstdn.ca

Alex Q (misplaced)

@newtsoda and sometimes you burn hard enough to never recover your precedent cognition and energy again.

Took me 1,5 year of nothing to recover from the last one, and I'm still way more fragile than before, my attention who used to be good enough is all over the place, I don't think I will ever recover completly (I'm not even 30).

12 Feb 2023 at 15:52 | Open on eldritch.cafe

Cadence of Life :VeryQueer:

@newtsoda Oh yeah... I know that feeling...

12 Feb 2023 at 16:07 | Open on eightpoint.app

Newtsoda

There has been a lot of research about autistics over the years, but this one really took the cake! 🍰

Find out what happened when researchers attempted to compare the moral compass of autistic and non-autistic people... (1/2)

#actuallyautistic #autism #neurodivergence #comic #art #MastoArt

Comic Title: Morality & How Researchers Talk About Us.
The first panel shows a researcher looking at a graph. The text reads: In 2020, researchers conducted a study with autistic and allistic people. Participants were from Brazil and between the ages of 14-25. They were given a choice.
The comic shows two different choices. The first one is: Support a bad cause for monetary gain. The panel shows a girl smirking and holding a stack of money, her back turned to a cardboard box of crying kittens. The text on the side of the box reads 'termination'.
The second choice is: Don't support the bad cause but miss out on the money.
The girl is holding one of the kittens in her arms and yells “No!” as she kicks the empty box away.
The comic goes on to explain that the choice was given in two different settings: public and private.
One panel shows a girl sweating nervously, surrounded by a group of people. The other panel shows the girl alone in a big open space as she carefully considers.

A girl is seen clutching a sack of money, cackling wickedly. She has little devil horns and a tail. The comic text reads: This is what the study discovered: Allistic people were more likely to support the bad cause. The higher the monetary reward was, the more likely they were to do so. The girl is seen fawning over a pile of money with hearts in her eyes. She gasps “Wow!”, her mouth wide open.
The comic goes on to say that allistics were more likely to support the bad cause in the private setting. One panel shows the girl in a group of people, with a halo over her head and sweating nervously as she lies, “I don't support it!”
In the next panel the devil horns have returned, and she is alone in the room with a wicked grin, clutching the sack of money as she says, “Give me the money!”

Autistics, on the other hand, were much less likely to support the bad cause. And their answer stayed the same, regardless of the setting. The first comic panel shows an autistic girl playing with the kittens from the first page. The second panel shows the girl turning up her nose at the stack of money. In both panels the girl says determinedly, “No way!”
The comic then asks: So, how did the researchers feel about these results? Well... They concluded that autistics were too concerned with their principles and morals. The panel shows the researcher tapping a sign showing the girl and the cat crossed out; the text reads, “Bad!”.
The comic goes on to say that the researchers framed the results as a negative thing. It shows three shortened excerpts from the research paper, which read as follows:
Excessive valuation of negative consequences when judging the moral appropriateness or permissibility of actions. Inflexible when following a moral rule even though an immoral action can benefit them. ASD individuals, unlike healthy control subjects...

Like 1 8 Nov 2022 at 11:12 | Open on wandering.shop

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LiquidParasyte

@newtsoda wow, this study is pants on head backwards

They consider people who stick to their principles "less healthy" than those who are easier to corrupt? Da fuk??

7 September at 12:34 | Open on pawb.fun

Johanna Janiszewski

@newtsoda the world makes more sense now knowing that. Also: wtf?

7 September at 12:54 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place

mirabilos

@newtsoda

what?!

I’m appalled. The kitties, too.

7 September at 14:26 | Open on toot.mirbsd.org

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