Autistic Comfort

Engaging with your special interest is a great way to regulate your nervous system and relieve stress.

These comforting, joyful, or peaceful things should be recognised and highlighted as self care and coping mechanisms.

Going through and identifying what may sooth you is just as important (if not more) as identifying things that stress you out. Incorporating these good things more into your life, will help you regulate yourself.

Disclaimer: I do not encourage leaning into coping mechanisms involving substance abuse, any addiction, or self harm etc. No judgement to those involved with these coping mechanisms, be kind to yourself. Seeking professional help is likely the best step forward.

If you are able to get help, get help. Whether it be friends, family, a paid service, or a support worker. Take advantage of any and all resources available to you, and don't judge yourself for it.

Of course, not everything is accessible to everyone, but it is worth looking for what is available for you.

I know on high energy days I want to rush through and get everything done while I have energy. But that just leads to overdoing it and crashing.

By making sure to stop myself between tasks and take breaks, I am able to continually evaluate how much energy I have left. As well as if I need a snack or a longer break before the next task.

I can also then tailor my next task to what I can manage. E.g. After a big task I may find I don't have enough energy to finish another big task that day, but I do have enough energy to complete a handful of smaller tasks with breaks. By doing this I'm able to avoid completing depleting my energy and crashing.

Overdoing it doesn't just take a physical toll but also mental and emotional.
Taking a break to meet your needs may feel like it makes a task take longer. But in reality, rushing through only means your needs demand more from you, and in that aftermath, you're not able to do/focus on anything else.

It's difficult to articulate, but as someone dealing with chronic fatigue, I see the extreme reality of the consequences of not pacing myself.

Eventually, a bunch of small changes equals more room to breathe.
If you are able to simplify your life and make things easier for you, I believe it's worth it.

An example of a small change in my life: like many with sensory issues, I dislike mint toothpaste. I'm able to handle it, but on more sensitive sensory days, I would brush my teeth with just water (if I did).
Originally, when i saw different flavoured toothpaste (I use hismile), I thought great, but it's too expensive. I can save money and just deal.
But now I believe my comfort is worth the small extra cost. Instead of pushing through it, now I dont feel resistance to brushing my teeth. It's so much easier to perform this form of self care now.

For me, this extra cost does not affect my finances.

Excellent representation of small things making a difference 👏

I tried to capture visually the difference that accommodations can make. When we go through our days, lots of niggly things that seem small can build up and mean that one more demand can result in overwhelm. With accommodations, things are still there in the background but supports are in place and so the same demand won't have the same impact.

This is highly simplified and of course on different days different factors can have more or less of an impact, but hopefully you find it useful.



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Image description: a 3 panel comic with a brown background. The heading reads ‘Accommodations make a difference’, below the heading text says ‘The ability to do a task can be impacted by many factors. On any given day, the combination that results in overload can be different.
Simple accommodations can increase someone's enjoyment of, or capacity and ability to do, a task.’ The first panel has a scale from 0-100 with different coloured boxes from green at the bottom to red at the top, the boxes in ascending order are: tight clothes, bright lights, multiple noise sources, hunger, strong perfume, didn’t sleep well, need a break, don’t understand task, high pain levels. The top box sits on top about to fill up the scale to 100 – the box says ‘someone asks a question.’ Above this text says: One more task demand or something unexpected could result in overwhelm/ meltdown for this person. Middle panel: a bulleted list says ‘What if the same person has: Taken a break, Had a snack recently, Can wear comfy clothes to work, Has been given clear task demands, Colleagues don't wear strong perfume, Can wear noise cancelling headphones’. Below this are some of the coloured boxes from the first panel all smaller with a spiky circle that says ‘these factors now have less impact.’ Third panel: text at the top says ‘With accommodations in place, the same demand, 'someone asking a question', doesn't have the same impact.’ This is the difference simple accommodations can make. There is the 0-100 scale but now only 3 boxes (bright lights, didn’t sleep well, high pain levels) are filled in, a yellow box (someone asks a question) fits on top and doesn’t cause overwhelm – this is the difference simple accommodations can make.

We don't all have the privilege to let go everything that's contributing to autistic burnout. But even tiny changes can make a difference.

Swapping from in person grocery shopping to delivery, giving yourself permission to eat mainly prepare meals, anything that takes even the tiniest demand away from you can help.

When you're in autistic burnout, the ideals cannot be the goals, survival is.

It helps to know what you are dealing with, even if you are dealing with both.
The link below explains the similarities and differences much better than I could in a post.

Depression treatments often include adding activities you may find enjoyable. Trying to add any demands if you're in autistic burnout can have negative effects.
Likewise, dropping activities and spending time alone can help improve autistic burnout but may worsen depression.
(Simplified explanation)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/neurodivergentinsights.com/misdiagnosis-monday/autistic-burnout-vs-depression%3ffbclid=IwAR3XWT9AHULFl2mpCl-T1VodyOqQBF4T3vz5KlCx_FG9FsqiFxQwXhjGdH0&format=amp

So often we are invalidated when illness, disabilities, or simply hard times are invisible to others. So much so that we start doubting our own experience.
You are valid and your struggles are real.

As much as I would like to be able to prioritise everything, it's simply beyond my and most peoples capacity.

We can't always aim for the ideal and instead aim for manageable survival.

I hope to give others a jumping off points and guidance through their journey.

Meeting a neurodivergent person mean you have met one single neurodivergence person. We are all different