…and just like that, burnout vanished

My bout of autistic burnout set in on 4 June 2019, and has been going strong ever since — until literally two days ago.

Back then, I didn’t have the words to describe what I was going through. The big, important communications department was planning a big, important social media campaign, and I was the girl who made the content. A throng of Ivy League-educated people who’ve never posted anything but food and cat pics huddled around me in a conference room on the 16th floor of a San Francisco high-rise, waiting for me to pluck another fantastic idea out of my ass.

But there would be no more great ideas. I was fresh out.

In 2025, burnout is practically a rite of passage in the United States. But I’d bet money that every autist in the country is at least somewhat aware of the distinctly autistic flavor of burnout. Where neurotypical people find exhaustion after months or years of meaningless work for a nebulous cause they don’t care about, neurodivergents get to experience that feeling, but for our entire existence: a unique brand of hopelessness that comes from never really being seen by most of the “normal” people in our lives, the people we’re surrounded by day to day.

A week after I ran out of fucks to give, my boyfriend and I boarded a flight to New York. My boss thought I just needed a break and would be back and “firing on all cylinders” in no time. When I say that company left me a* complete and utter mess*, I mean they held my severance package hostage under a non-disparagement agreement to make sure I can’t properly tell you what a mess they left me.

Since that day, I had no desire to learn anything about my coworker’s lives, then my partner’s, then my roommate’s; everyone seemed to be demanding something from me, and I couldn’t take any more. Journaling in my traveler’s notebooks after a trip stopped feeling fulfilling. Instead of drawing or crafting, I watched YouTube. My life ground — slowly, laboriously, like a cargo train — to a complete stop.

Regular burnout robs you of your career. Autistic burnout robs you of the desire to connect at all. It makes you hypersensitive, drained, agitated. And if you can’t get un-stuck, it persists.

I quit that job in 2023, jumping ship to my next gig with newfound hope and eyes wide open.

It felt the same. Worse, even.

Building a social media team from scratch during the beginning of the content creation era didn’t feel great, but neither did learning a brand-new industry from scratch with three different job titles on my business card. I barely lasted 15 months before I crashed and burned, quitting my hotel marketing job to do…well, nothing, pretty much.

I had no savings, no prospects. But I did have community, and friends and family who love me. I had to swallow my pride and ask for help more than once, but I paid the rent making content for small business owners and therapists. I didn’t try more than I need to; I didn’t have the energy. All that mattered to me was having a little food in the fridge, and a warm bed to wait out the winter in.

I was tired of being everybody’s workhorse. Tired of feeling exploited, tired of feeling like an alien. Sick and tired of offices. I wanted to hurry up and heal so I could get my joy back, and when healing didn’t really happen, I settled into the stasis of doing just enough to make sure I don’t end up homeless.

Writing for no good reason is curing my autistic burnout.

Content has revolutionized so many industries. With ambition, skill, and a little luck, any animator can make it. Unpublished authors are going viral on TikTok. We are killing it in so many ways.

I don’t know what to call my novel yet. I probably won’t give it a name until I’m some 30 chapters in, tbh. But sitting down to write it reminded me that I really haven’t written something fun — something I genuinely liked, that made me happy to read back — in over a decade.

I’ve written poetry (to perform at slams) and blog posts (to improve my clients’ SEO) and so, so many TikToks (for clients who expect me to make them go viral tomorrow) but holy fucking shit, did I miss writing something unmarketable.

It’s got witches, and a mob boss, and a hot dad who spends more time with his kid’s pet than the kid, even though he said he didn’t want one. It’s got childhood trauma and childhood joy, and a superpowered Jeep, and other ridiculous shit. And the main character and love interest are autistic-coded, without being trainspotters or code jockeys.

And, by God…they’re middle-aged. Gasp!

Even if no one reads it, I wake up at 5am with new ideas, and I actually get out of bed and write them the fuck down, the same way I did as a non-verbal tween joyfully building new worlds with every second of her free time.

Some people grow up knowing exactly what they want and how to achieve it. I don’t know anybody like that, but if that’s you…nice, I guess.

The rest of us come full circle to the things we love, in such a fascinating way.

My autistic burnout ended on 20 June 2025 — six years, four apartments, and two long-term relationships later. I don’t think I’ll ever take a corporate job again, but so far I’ve been writing like my life depends on it.

That’s probably because it does.