Poland, medium sized city so there’s pretty much nothing I could do through public healthcare which is nonexistent outside of biggest agglomerations.

There’s plenty of places that will charge you upwards of hundreds if not thousands of euros for a couple of days of diagnosis „experience”, for lack of a better word. I just looked up a local psychologist who does ADOS-2 certified assessments and took the results to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me formally after 2 visits that consisted of chatting about various life difficulty things. Cost me something like €300 total to get the required documentation for disability.

Unfortunately autistic burnout isn’t a medically recognised condition so it’s not like you’re going to get real help with that anywhere really. Maybe in some Nordic countries it’s more civilised. As it is now you’ll be prescribed antidepressants and encouraged to do more physical exercise. Which sucks, because it’s a very real thing and requires you to take things easy for a long time. I had to change jobs because I couldn’t keep pace but realistically even if I crashed and burned nobody would care. It’s getting better now but I had to lean on my spinal injury to get longer medical leave when things got too tough.

What country? I think I have autistic burnout and it's reaching crisis level. Nobody will take me seriously without a diagnosis.

Thank you 🙏

I underwent a late diagnosis after researching the topic to the point I thought I had a good understanding of what defines autism. Well, that, and being told to „stop being so autistic” by so many people over the years, starting in childhood. Always brushed that off as a joke, haha.

Don’t beat yourself over not getting a formal diagnosis and here’s why. I got mine rather quickly, ADOS-2 people said it’s petty obvious but the results were supported by depressingly shallow descriptions of myself. Psychiatrist was surprised when he saw those results but we talked for a bit about why I thought I might have disabling qualities of the condition until he admitted that it’s surprising I’m seeking help this late. I have very mixed feelings about the whole process. It seemed to look at me very 2-dimensionally and that sufficiently clever person would be able to game it easily. Given that I consider myself capable of gaming it, I found it of little worth and ultimately I value my self-diagnosis more. I still distrust self diagnosed people regardless because of what’s happening currently.

Maybe a more distinct diagnosis will be possible in the future as we learn more about the conditions that constitute current ASD. I do recognise so many similarities among autistic people but there’s loads of differences too which have a major impact on life’s trajectory.

why don't you like sports?

What does that mean? Would you explain ?

The issue is that if you become a master at masking because of decades of experience, who can tell if you are truly on the spectrum or just struggling with certain things?

I am facing this issue, I don't know if I am on the spectrum or not because if I am, I have reached a point of being able to mask it almost completely. and if I am not, then I guess I just had a bunch of social and sensory issues that just took me longer to understand and learn to manage.

An ASD diagnosis costs about $3K and any non ASD medical professionals seem to not realise my masking.

I am left with either spending $3K or self diagnosing, both of which feel wrong, so I am stuck in neuro classification limbo.

I wasn't diagnosed until I was almost 50, mostly because autism wasn't well understood when I was younger. Back then, I was just freak, weirdo, why don't you like sports?

That said, I think those who are diagnosed later in life are the ones who are able to pass for neurotypical.

Thank you. I appreciate the words.

I often find myself taking a bunch of steps to try and improve my situation, keep it up for a while, and then drop everything because I fell sick, or got exhausted.

So the progress is so slow. But I do see some. Moving more also seems to help, but it can be so difficult to get started again. I always feel so uncomfortable.

Yeah, i've read that book and found it very fitting. That's why I started looking into this. I'm still not sure how to move forward though, I've had some improvements but still experience anxiety attacks and nightmares (without knowing the cause). And I just don't remember anything from my childhood.

I stayed for a long time with a friend already, and I notice the big difference in how they approach life and contact with their family.

They even visited my family once, but didn't want to return anymore. Even though they were kind and welcoming (I think), they felt stressed when they visited.

I actually barely remember anything from before I was 15 years old. And anything I do remember is just a sequence of facts, no emotions or feelings.

Yeah that sounds like a lot of emotional distress & suppression from an early age, at least in my unprofessional opinion.

My last therapist was saying that it’s impossible for me to have trauma (probably because I never show much emotion at all during a session)

O_o

Maybe they had a different definition of trauma than what I know of. There are different responses to traumatic experience. Some of them make big, flashy results. The fight response can make people highly abrasive. The flight response can make people nervous workaholics. The fawn response can make people into over-gentle doormats. The freeze response though can make people clam up, to hide and to bottle, to show as little externally as possible. It's also, funnily enough, the strongest trauma response. The other 3 are active responses, trying to do something about the danger. They're biologically preferable to freeze because they're options for solving a problem. The freeze response is a last resort when other solutions have been tried, and no way to deal with the traumatic situation has been found. Showing no emotion is not an indication of lack of trauma, it can be an indication of inescapable trauma.

I have found that it helps for me to do some writing of things that randomly pop up in my head, but this is always extremely difficult, as I’m rarely aware of my thoughts at all.

Hey that sounds good! Even if it's hard to do with any regularity, having any healthy medium for processing is good. Maybe you can even try turning it around, start writing literally anything that's in your head, even if there's hardly anything you can perceive, and just keep going, see if you can sort of prompt thoughts to start flowing through a medium like writing. That type of technique works for me sometimes.

I'm sorry to hear what you've gone through, no one should have to grow up in neglect like that. Keep searching & observing, I don't know if what I've said will help you much but I do think you can find the answers you need if you persist.

Neglect is definitely something which can cause CPTSD-like reactions in the psyche. Emotional neglect was a part of my upbringing as well. For what it's worth, I actually have been able to identify it somewhat by talking with friends who had healthier emotional upbringings, and noting what they experienced and I did not.

Talking with your parents so little that you don't even know much about them after living together for 30 years definitely counts as neglect.

I'd recommend having a look at the book "Complex PTSD - From Surviving to Thriving" just to see if what it describes matches. It does talk about emotional neglect as one of the things which can cause long-lasting problems.

I think in my case it might be related to emotional neglect? But it's difficult to figure that out, because it's difficult to remember the things that didn't happen, obviously.

And I don't really know that much about my parents, rarely talked to them, even though I lived with them for 30 years.

Yeah, I think having encouragement makes a big difference. I can do some things, but usually only if other people encourage me to do it.

Yeah, at some point I also came across complex PTSD. And it seems to check all the boxes.

But the weird thing is that I can never really connect my current issues with things that happened in the past.

I actually barely remember anything from before I was 15 years old. And anything I do remember is just a sequence of facts, no emotions or feelings.

My last therapist was saying that it's impossible for me to have trauma (probably because I never show much emotion at all during a session)

I have found that it helps for me to do some writing of things that randomly pop up in my head, but this is always extremely difficult, as I'm rarely aware of my thoughts at all.

Is it possible that this is a trauma response? I've had trouble expressing and feeling my own emotions to a somewhat lesser degree, and I've realized that a lot of the reason why is that I was punished for showing distress when I was growing up, hid and suppressed such things as a result. Learning about the concept of CPTSD (Complex PTSD, less like normal PTSD than it sounds at first), and practicing something similar to IFS (Internal Family Systems), have both helped me more than any of the therapists I've seen. Identifying internal "parts" and trying to listen to what they in particular have to say has helped me connect with and integrate my emotions to some extent. Expression has been happening in the form of a kind of freeform journaling, both writing and drawing whatever I feel like, which has worked better for me than normal rote prose journaling. I don't know if any of those concepts or techniques will help your situation, but it's what I've got to offer.

I, also, have had a fairly disappointing time with therapy. I'm currently seeing my 4th therapist and wondering how worthwhile it is to keep seeing this one. Most of the real progress I've made was on my own, just doing research and exploring the Internet (mostly Reddit though I'm trying to move away from using that). If I look for a 5th therapist I might look specifically for one who is autistic themselves to see if that works better.

I wish you well, and hope you find what you're looking for.

I'm not sure what type of therapy it is considered, but mostly it's just very flexible and more about coaxing me to talk about things and then feeding me information about what I'm experiencing. Rarely does she give me advice on how to handle things unless I ask so that I can do my own analysis since that works better than unsolicited advice usually. Plus never "here, read this article/book/essay" which might have useful info but only after having to fight the ADHD and limited language processing capacity in order to get to the one or two sentences I need. Instead, she gives the info I need by asking if I understand a concept or two and skipping non-novel information if I do, and then just helping to fill in the gaps of my knowledge.

The other piece is encouragement. She truly makes me know she understands how much effort I've put into getting as far as I have and she outwardly shows real excitement when I overcome something.

Basically, she arms me with knowledge, listens to specific concerns, and gives a ton of encouragement rather than "making me work for it". It may seem cute, overly familiar, or childish to a more stuffy, professional, and maybe wouldn't work as well with some more macho men or others who might consider it deprecating and not react as well to that kind of thing as women like me do. But it sure as heck helps me. I've spent my whole life being told my struggles were trivial and I was just lazy, so it being recognized and congratulated and armed with the knowledge to keep on fighting as well as recognition that it is a battle is awesome.

Wow that sounds very similar to my experience. Diagnosed with ADHD and Autism at 30, and therapy was basically useless because I would forget or stress myself out by forcing myself to do activities based on CBT.

Every time I'm in distress or physically painful, I wouldn't even grunt. I just become calm and less talkative, maybe even stop talking. It's just become a fully unconscious suppression for me.

Finding somebody that can help is tough though. There are some directories with autistic practitioners. But most of them are in the center of the city. Which is 60 minutes with the metro. (I get so tired from the ride that anything after that point just doesn't get processed anymore)

Same with the autistic communities, most are in the center. And I generally don't use common social media, so I wouldn't know about anything nearby.

Did you find any specific form of therapy helpful for you?

Took me decades to find a therapist that actually was what I needed. She is also neurodivergent, so that made a big difference. Problem is that most doctors and therapists who have a good grasp of autism, ADHD, etc., tend to only work with kids since it still is hard to convince a lot of providers that they don't go away after childhood, we just get better at masking and the other disorders that develop from constant masking end up masking the root cause. I didn't even discover I was AuDHD until my 30s and that was only because a psychiatrist I was going to for panic attacks was also ADHD and recognized it. And it took another decade after that to find the right therapist that understood that giving tedious "homework" was just making things more difficult, that I'm already past my limits so saying to try pushing past them is stupid AF, that I don't react to pain (physical or emotional) like a normal person not because it's not affecting me, but because I'm just unable to not mask it from decades of being called lazy or wimpy for expressing it, and all the other things that people who don't understand these disabilities tend to say.

Anyway, don't give up. Try to find friend groups of other neurodivergent people who will let you be yourself. Try to find Autism specialists who will see people of your age group and not just children (assuming you aren't). Basically, do everything possible to avoid any neurotypical people who are not willing to accommodate your needs. It's a disability not because there's something wrong with us exactly, but because the majority refuse to accommodate our needs, just like cities that refuse to install sidewalk ramps are not accommodating people with mobility issues to participate in society.

Just my 2 cents of course and it's not perfect and not easy to do, especially if you don't live in a city, but it has improved my life significantly to do those things.

There you go! A free way to break the circle :)

And if you find a way to do these walks in the nature and make them long-ish, that would work even better. Like, aim for making them more physically exhausting than mentally (well, in the safe range, of course). Being dead tired usually helps staying away from being tired of being dead inside — tried it myself ;)

I totally understand the feeling, communicating and expressing as 3 separate processes. For me, when I'm feeling something, I can't think. And when I'm thinking, I can't feel.

Often that means that when I'm unconsciously stressed, I can't do any work/admin because I can't keep anything in my head. And when I manage to focus on something, I can't feel anything. Not even thirst or hunger.

So talking about how I feel is very difficult, because I can't feel it while talking. Writing is easier, but still very much constrained.

I'll try to put your prompts for journalling somewhere, I think it would be good to ask myself those questions for each thing I remember and write down. Now the question is how to remember to check the prompts!

Yeah, I would very much like to get into something nice, but that requires money, and that requires working, and that requires me feeling well. So it's almost like a circular deadlock.

I also didn't try much, so I don't really know what I would like. I'm very ok with boring things though. I think because I'm always tense, even walking feels pretty intense, never boring.

That's very true. What I find helpful is trying to do some exercises that are fun for me. Like, for example if plain walking or running is boring and unbearable, then maybe something like rollerblading or skateboarding might be more fun. Or maybe the other way around :)

The tricky part here is to force yourself to try it at least once (and better twice), and also try to choose something that doesn't burn a hole in your wallet (like skiing, for example) — the guilt of not doing something you paid shit ton of money for enough doesn't help either :)

It might help to have a prompt template of sorts for every day to remind you of exactly what it is you need to journal.

Questions like "What did I do?", "Who did I interact with?", and "what did we talk about?" To start, but also "how did I feel about that?". Or maybe for each event you talk about, end it with an emoji.

I find that feeling, communicating, and expressing are 3 separate processes for me. Feeling is mostly done when I am alone, with the time and space to do so. Communicating is what i do when I recognize a reason for other people in my life to know what I'm feeling. Expressing is hard, usually more about adding some non-verbal communication to help the allistic people around me receive the message I am trying to send rather than anything I am doing for my own sake. It's part of the masking/camouflaging.

I'm not sure of your location but acupuncturists do indeed take patients on pro bono from time to time and in my home town there was an acupuncture school. No offense but your condition would probably be seen as something very interesting or intriguing for someone to treat. Not your average runny nose so to speak.

Now on to mediation, It's quite a deep and involved world with its own practitioners at different levels of understanding and skills not unlike the world of music.. There's the person learning their first instrument and there is Eddie Van Halen and Yo-Yo Ma so to speak.

Many find breath work good as it really engages the body in a release aka somatic healing. There's sound bath meditation, Yin yoga, Hatha, Ashtanga, Kundalini and so on. I personally see yoga as a mixture of exercise, meditation, and spiritual practice and different forms have different levels of those three.

If for instance you really engage with group mindfulness meditation then something like your local Buddhist temple may be a good fit. Personally I would envision this like a journey and exploration to new and foreign lands but lands of experience and understandings.

As for money, it is unfortunately a barrier to some things but there's also means without money. I've donated massage (since it's one of my main skills) for other treatment. I've donated my time, as in volunteer work and so on. In this world there's a lot of people not so concerned by money, but more so the fair exchange of energy as well as practitioners who indeed donate their time and skills for charity to the world.

Apparently there is a word for it too: Animotophobia