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real_

Updated 10mo ago

Questioning if I'm experiencing an autism breakdown

I think I'm in the first part of catatonia type breakdown in autism. I brought this up to my mom and my therapist as an explanation for what's happening to me: (losing speech more and more- haven't said anything the past 2 weeks, I get physically frozen for 20 minutes to an hour on a daily basis with more time being slow and failing to start actions, and I just seem more autistic than I used to or have higher support needs.) I introduced it as 'I'm not sure but what I have kind of seems like this thing I read about...' and they support the theory. I don't have enough symptoms though. I'm really afraid of people thinking I'm faking and I don't want to self diagnose even though that's an ok thing to do. I had the privilege of a professional autism diagnosis and it seems like I have the opposite problem of everyone else, the people who are in control of me are just going along with my stupid theory. So how do I know if it's real??

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Alyss

1y

I can't speak to whether it's specifically autistic burnout, but I do want to reassure you that it's real. Stress and chronic shut downs can cause sometimes extreme and idiopathic things to happen with the body. Also, remember that there are multiple stages of burnout even within the allistic community, so the "not enough symptoms" thing makes me side eye and think *they* might just be going along with it, but that doesn't mean you're wrong. Be gentle with yourself. I don't have a lot of advice for this because I've been trying to get myself out of burnout for about two years now because of how bad mine got, but you're not alone, and as scary as it is, the best thing I've found to do is to try to examine your emotions and their sources. Trauma therapy, specifically, has helped me a bit. Dealing with the mind-body connection has made me at least understand where the weird neurological symptoms were coming from, even if I can't really fix them. Good luck, and feel free to dm me if you wanna chat.

The content in this post is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

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