Struggling with Sensory Overload and Meltdowns

I have a very hard time with sensory overload. In my years, I have found that, especially at jobs, I need to separate myself from what is causing me overload, regardless if it is people, objects, whatever it may be. Sure, it looks kinda odd to people who don't understand, but I try to help people understand after I have cooled down. I just look at them and say 'I'm sorry, I'm autistic, almost had a breakdown, had to separate myself from what was going on' and *usually* people understand, but most are like 'you're not really autistic'... But that's a different subject for a different day.

I've realized lately that I'm pretty sure I've been in burnout and pushed myself past the breaking point so bad that I've been out of work for over a year. I've noticed that I can barely go out and do anything without being overstimulated. I have a meltdown almost any time I go anywhere. Even if I'm in a safe space and try to do something and it doesn't work out exactly the way I envisioned it, I meltdown and if I melt down more than 2 or 3 times in 1 day it leads to a full out shut down that takes a few days of rest and sleep to come out of. I think the best way to explain it to a neurotypical person is.. imagine any type of irritating scenario. It could be heavy traffic on the way to work where people are constantly honking, getting rung up at a register just to realize the discount tags hadn't been updated and you have to pay full price, or even going on a walk expecting the weather to be nice all day but then it starts pouring. All of these things might be mildly annoying or inconvenient for someone who's neurotypical but for autistic people, you have to take the emotions and multiply them by 10. If we have any expectations of something and it doesn't going according to plan, normal people will suck it up and move on but for autistic people we might start showing symptoms of an anxiety attack because we're going into a meltdown not knowing how to cope with the change in plans. Everything gets exacerbated and we're not able to shut it out because our brains work differently. Personally, I've been working on getting rid of my mask and just letting myself stim and not forcing myself to use up unnecessary spoons (if you know about spoon theory). I know that's not necessarily super helpful if you don't tend to mask all the time like I've gotten so used to, but I'm still trying to learn what works for me too.. actually I'm thinking of starting Journaling again. It's a really good stim for me and helps process through everything even if someone else reads it and thinks it's just word vomit.