 Oh Jesus, why am I so tired? I mean There's been a lot going on at the moment. I did go to that You know I was shopping my friend earlier, and what's that social event that I wasn't expecting and that fridge downstairs. It's just Man, like it's just it's got this kind of electrical buzz that just it just eats at me every day and I Go to work and there's like that annoying light in the corner that just keeps flickering and You know, I'm not allowed to wear my sensory supports and my earphones and my my shades and stuff indoors It's against company policy. Oh, I just feel like everything's just getting too much and Everyone around me just seems to be doing fine. Why is that? Good day, everybody Thomas in the dressing down coming you today coming you today Coming at you today with another video today. We are talking about Autistic fatigue that feeling of fatigue is something that we all experienced as human beings at some points in our life. Perhaps we have Exerted ourselves too much and found that when we got home We don't have the energy to do all sorts of life things that we said we're gonna do like going to the gym Like you said for new years. I know You self that Today I'm coming at you in my Very fancy dressing down to talk about autistic fatigue. Is it different to the fatigue that everybody experiences? Well, you may be surprised let us get into the caveats for this video to very important caveats Then I'm going to implement on pretty much all of my videos For the time being this will not cover everybody's experiences. Everyone is very individual person very diverse There are variations in their personality experience cultural factors their environment As well as their autistic traits and different neuro divergencies. I'm also not a medical doctor or expert I'm not licensed and so if you come across any advice within this video Or any thing that you're interested in make sure to consult somebody with a few little letters letters next and then you know You need that with those very annoying and consistent caveats out of the way. Let's try to understand Why it might be different in expression this idea of autistic fatigue and also understand the different Contributors to this very very strange phenomenon. Let us start at the beginning sounds like some kind of Storybook children's show kind of esk introduction Welcome kids to autism and fatigue Autistic fatigue is a state of extreme physical emotion or social exhaustion Now you may be thinking yourself That sounds pretty similar to fatigue and you are right the definitions don't seem to deviate very much however The symptoms the signs may look a little bit different and it may be a little bit more intense than usual For most people similar to autistic burnout if you haven't watched the previous video where I covered Autistic burnout the different stages of said burnout and how it impacts people and how to get around it I highly recommend checking out that video But it's similar to burnout, but it's more characterized as the acute version the short-term version Autistic fatigue is something that you might experience for maybe like two three Four days or like a week or something After going really hard at something productivity wise or being exposed to lots of different Sensory social things over a very short time period, but it's less so talking about this idea of autistic burnout which to these long long long spans of time where you're functioning Your mental health Pretty much everything is impaired. This is talking about this little slice of time. It's best characterized by the usual symptoms of fatigue plus overload and Sensory sensitivity it may perhaps look quite different depending on what we struggle with in general If I give this example for myself I do struggle with anxiety and depression meaning that I can have Very very low sort of severe sort of depressive periods now and again and the way that my depression manifests is Typically first in the things that I find the hardest in life due to being autistic and You know the rest kind of follows suit in a sense So like most people might have a more typical way of Their symptoms of expressing and the order at which they do as their functioning decreases Whereas for me the manifestations of me being in a low mental health state tend to look a little bit different because I'm autistic But now that we have sort of a base idea of what exactly autistic fatigue is I know it's not pretty fleshed out at the moment, but we shall get into it with the next slide Which is nothing to do with autistic burnout and just to do a general fatigue Let's talk about some of the possible contributors to general fatigue because Autistic people are humans and humans also experience fatigue. So it's important to factor in General causes of fatigue into this idea of autistic fatigue number one general illness pain specific infections Of course if you're sick, it's gonna have all sorts of systemic effects on you Perhaps decrease your energy levels increase the amount of pain and distraction that you have from from being sick Insomnia, you know sleep is very important to the overall Functioning of a human being if you don't have enough sleep we tend to be a little bit less productive more distracted have high levels of anxiety All those kind of nasty things and if you're not getting hardly any sleep It can really start to impact you long term or short term unhealthy diet and lifestyle now This is a bit of a broad stroke and I have been a part of difference of eating disorder recovery communities and So Seen sort of like body positivity stuff So I understand that you can't necessarily just put the unhealthy label on something without really understanding why But generally if you're not getting sort of a wide diet of a wide variety of diets, and you're typically going for quite calorie dense foods Sugar dense foods, you know white flour all that kind of stuff as well as not really incorporating much Even neat so non-exercise what is neat stand for I know what it is Remember I remember I think it's non-activity associated thermogenesis which basically means like the calories that you burn Sort of like walking somewhere, you know I also have you use of basal metabolic rate Which is just the amount of energy that you require in a day to Function is a human being not necessarily doing anything not so we're walking anywhere Just kind of sat in bed chilling, but along with neat things like walking things like commuting all that kind of stuff There's also like fitness like doing some cardio doing some weights things like that Generally what I find is that if I go for a long period of time eating rubbish and Not going to the gym my energy levels start to plummet Once I get back into the gym. I actually feel even more depleted for like the first week or so, but afterwards it kind of steadily increases my energy levels and All sorts of other lovely lovely things things related to hormonal changes You know if you are if you have a menstrual cycle That could that could be a contributor There are also other other things related to different conditions that people can have Also just natural sort of hormone fluctuations, you know even looking at like guys like testosterone is quite a big Sort of hormone in the male body when you have very very high levels of stress you have a lot of quarters all kind of hanging around in your body and that can sometimes inhibit and Sort of like the the healthy normal your body's healthy normal production of testosterone Pharmaceuticals and substances so obviously if you are on Medications which do sedate you to a certain degree or sort of regulate or anything like anything like that That could be a thing but also even going the other way and you know things like stimulants They could have an impact on feeling fatigue at the end of the day because once they wear off Your body's kind of been working over time your brain's been working over time with all this sort of Excitements and with you need nervous system and so when it comes to the evening you may get even greater Feelings of fatigue it could be stuff related to physical exhaustion. So just hard labor You know perhaps going too hard at the gym emotional exhaustion perhaps interpersonal with friends relationships family As well as mental exhaustion. So if you are spending a lot of time either thinking or trying to solve something or working Those can all be big contributors mental health issues and loneliness are also like Some things that aren't generally like associated with fatigue. I think mental health is because obviously fatigue is quite a common such Symptom of difference on mental health conditions like depression sometimes related to anxiety and also loneliness because they can also be some Quite widespread impacts of not reaching your like needed sort of social interaction with any said like period of time It is quite important Loneliness can can contribute to a lot of negative things in someone's life It's not probably the best thing to say. This is like someone who is Chronically lonely like I was when I was at uni understanding that oh, okay, so I'm not only lonely But now I am affecting my health and longevity and levels of fatigue by Being lonely great. Thanks, Tom Great information that I'm sorry Sorry Executive function let us talk about this because this is a pretty important concept when we talk about fatigue this executive dysfunction is presence in quite a lot of autistic and ADHD is But it can occur with other conditions Particularly depression is like a big one for autistic people. This can be quite a big contributor due to the high energy demand of smaller life tasks So if you have a purpose if you have a job, this would not be considered as that But it's the little things that you have to do for our life whether it be sorting out your like taxes or doing your bills or Cleaning or putting the washing in or making food all of those little sort of life skills that that really do add up and kind of Make your your task list look very chunky Those would be considered to be those sort of smaller life tasks and executive functioning at its basis is a difficulty managing day-to-day tasks and getting things done doesn't mean you can't do something like you don't have the capability or the Intelligence or the skills in order to do something. It's more about looking at it in the long term like are you managing to? Keep on top of the various things that you need to keep on top of as a as an adult human being If not, you might have some form of executive dysfunction, which is pretty common to a lot of autistic people You may even find that Whilst you do get these things done That they very much contribute to your overall levels of fatigue you find yourself constantly sort of Overworked you feel Depleted when you get home when you get home from work and just kind of grind through all the tasks that you need to do But you know, it really does over time start to impact your overall health your sanity or energy levels That could also be a reality executive function is Basically related to how our frontal lobe the frontal lobe in our brain Governs the rest of our brain and body the different processes for autistic people or People in general executive dysfunction could look like issues with planning task initiation time management attention control Metacognitive skills, which I will go on to in the next slide like planning working memory and flexibility It's not really something that I've seen a lot with autistic people But it can be related to perseverance on a certain task as well as self-control, but I tend to see that Being more akin to like the ADHD experience of things autistic people could of course Experienced difficulties with perseverance and self-control. It's just not something that I've heard about a lot From other autistic people. So what about this aspect of metacognition now? I am going into quite heavily into sort of the executive function side of things because it is a really really big difference between Autistic people and allistic people people who aren't autistic This is something that we can struggle with to a greater degree than the neurotypical population But going into this idea of metacognition just to give a little bit more background to this aspect of electricity functioning It's basically the act of thinking about thinking. So it's monitoring and adaptively Controlling cognitive processes within sort of the education kind of work spheres they have isolated some like metacognitive skills like reflection Evaluation planning monitoring personally, I don't feel that my Metacognitive skills are impeded Apart from when looking long-term and managing day-to-day tasks because within a Workplace within a passion within a project. I'm exceptional at this It's only when looking long-term managing lots of small little different things that are a part of my life So we've understood a little bit more about executive functioning and metacognition What are the actual? Contributors to fatigue from executive functioning. What what could these look like? For you if you are experiencing this autistic fatigue This could be difficulty with ordering and managing lots of small different tasks as I said these tasks these things that you have to do tend to be Stored rent-free in your head until you finish said task I know someone in my life who has OCD who has recently talked to me about Their experience of like what they're sort of obsessive thoughts kind of feel like and there is some crossover between autism and OCD For me, I experienced the same thing. It's kind of like Although I have something written down on a task list Perhaps I have like some bullet points of what I need to get done in in the day It's almost like I just can't help myself, but think about everything at once so I have to You know The more things that are on that list the more things that my brain constantly shifts through and recounts and it really gets in The way of me actually getting through them. It's like it kind of overloads my brain. It's It's difficult to just isolate myself into one task and then finish it and then move on to another one without constantly thinking about the other things that I need to get done Which is quite fatiguing over a long period of time when I'm trying to get these things done There can also be this idea of task multiplication, which I heard from another creator called neurodivergen Tea around task branching and they say this idea of task branching is let me think of a good example I've got one. Let's say that I needed to clean the living room. Okay? I have a good. I have a glass table in said living room So when I go to clean things, I might get to a point where I go to that glass table And there are lots of different things on the glass table Some of that stuff might be like books that I need to put away in another room And so I'm like, okay. Well, I might as well get this out of the way So I take the books and I need to get this off the table so I can clean it So I take the books and I go to the other room and I find out that my shelf is full And I'm like, okay. Well, I did say to myself before that I needed to kind of sit through and see which books I need to get rid of so I start looking through them and sort of analyzing like which books do I need Which connect to charity kind of store them somewhere else and so I do that And I like end up on Facebook marketplace saying like well I'm taking pictures of them in pictures that I'm like trying to sell them online and After after all that it's been about an hour and I still haven't cleaned the table. I still haven't cleaned the table This is a side here of task branching or task multiplication very interesting concept hadn't fought a bit that way until I heard it From neurodivergent, but it could be something that you might struggle with. There is also Time prediction quite big contributor, especially in my life This is predicting and assigning Time for certain tasks. If you haven't done a task before if you haven't timed a task before this is the ability to say, okay Look at a piece of work Someone asked you to perhaps review an essay Yeah, and you haven't reviewed an essay in a long time You might struggle to give that an accurate reading you might underestimate or overestimate by quite a large extent Meaning that when you are planning in sort of a daily life circumstance if you are planning your day you may quite significantly Underestimate how much time each thing in your agenda is is taking up you might fill your agenda up to the brim and You get to a point where everything is just consistently pushed back and back and back To the point where you have to chop out a part of your day Or you have to overextend yourself and work into the evening And that can be that can be a lot, you know, it could even get to a point like when it comes to Social aspects of life like my situation my dad that happens quite a bit He says right. I'm gonna come around for 6 p.m We're gonna go to the gym gonna have steak and do all that stuff. He tells me that I'm like, okay, right? So I've got about 45 minutes. I'm like, oh, I can I can get done like the The template for like one of the videos that I'm gonna make in that time. I'm like, okay, cool Obviously cannot in 45 minutes very Much overestimated the speed at which I can do this and this happens in pretty much every single circumstance And even getting to the point where I okay So one asked me how long you're gonna be to get ready to go out to go to the gym and I'll say I'll be 10 minutes It's not 10 minutes. It's like 20 minutes. This is the ideal in my head I'm not assigning the right amount of time for this. I generally don't mean to do it on purpose It just tends to work out that way. It's my brain works at a very slow pace anyway So compared to most people things do take me longer than usual And I think that there is probably an aspect of me not wanting to say, okay I'm gonna be that long because it might annoy the other person but for the most of it, it's really just like a Overestimation of like how fast I can do things. There is also this idea of choice fatigue This is kind of the experience where there is a lot of different correct answers to a certain predicament to a certain problem That you could go with or a lot of different correct answers on options Of choices that you can make. There is no right answer. There's no like black and white. Okay. This is wrong answer This is right answer a lot of it can be right and it really depends on your personal preference and some people with executive dysfunction difficulties can struggle making that decision into a point where you second guess yourself you kind of go over in your brain constantly and You think about what you want to do so much that you spend like a large amount of time thinking about it and stressing yourself up this happens quite a lot for me when I am Debating whether to go to the gym perhaps my work days a bit longer than usual, but I really want to go to the gym But I know that if I don't stick to the usual time that I go It can sometimes cause me quite a bit of stress So I have had a lot of situations where I'm kind of running through choices in my head about whether I'm going to the gym or not And that can happen for like a large amount of time like an hour or so and the longer that I'm thinking about it the more It's kind of pushing me towards one side been in a lot of cases if I was just say, okay, right I'm just gonna go to the gym. It would be all good, but That kind of brain process of weighing up options and considering lots of different angles It can take a long time and it can also drain you quite considerably But what are some of the other executive functioning contributors fatigue? Focusing on the details Something that we are very very good at what most people is are very very good at as autistic people This is this whole idea of perfectionism. This can Really really really eat into your energy supplies. The thing is perfectionism works Somewhat to like a certain degree in some areas of life like in, you know, perhaps if you're an artist like Attention to detail focusing on the details is quite a good thing. It doesn't really matter how fast you get it done Just that you you do it and you do it to a high standard, but in other cases not so much So if we go back to this example of the glass table that I was talking about the reason why I labeled it as being glass It's good glasses Sometimes very difficult to clean like to a standard that I like no matter how many times I go over something with a cloth There's always going to be little pieces of dust on the table there's always going to be like a little smudge from the the Cleaning products that I use on the table and I can spend a lot of time Trying to get rid of a certain smudge on the table Like a ridiculous amount of time to the point where it Impacts my ability to clean other areas of the living room Sometimes I can do it most the time I can but if my executive function is not doing so well my mental health is a bit low I can get really really hyper focused on trying to get that table perfect and It is exhausting even if I managed to sort of move on from it It kind of leaves a feeling of inadequacy in the back of my brain and I continue to think about it That can definitely be a contributor to fatigue And lastly I really want to talk about like a really Big factor that comes into fatigue related to executive function of course and that is energy accounting or spoon fairy Don't know if I've got a spoon on me. That would be pretty cool No spoon Only fork Cuz I had some fish and chips. I do have some toffee peak and roulard left in the fridge I could go get that Maybe later energy accounting or spoon free is basically an eye an idea that that some Autistic people some ADHDers have come up with Which basically visualizes how much energy you have during the day and assigns Different tasks with different spoons different people will have different amounts of spoons and different activities for each person We'll have different costs of spoons. So a Common way that this might occur is You are very very focused at work. You want to be extremely productive. You put a lot of energy. You don't give yourself many breaks During your actual working day to the point where you overreach your daily energy capabilities So much that when you get home you can't do other things you can't Do those sort of small tasks that you need to do the small life tasks that you need to do perhaps you don't even Do things that you enjoy do other hobbies because you are just so tired You're so expended or even if you want to it might take you such a long time to transition Into actually doing that thing that it just kind of screws with your entire day The issue with this as well is is that if you expend yourself so much in like one portion of your day If something unexpected happens interpersonally or in your life In in from any any angle you won't necessarily have the energy in order to to do said thing to fix said thing to actually confront and solve This this kind of new change this new task that has sprung up Which is an issue so it can leave you lead you into a lot of deep water if there's something that comes up That's that you kind of need to fix right now And it's really immediate and it's really urgent you can get into a lot of situations where you might have like a meltdown Or like a panic attack or you're extremely overwhelmed because you just don't have the mental energy Emotional energy the physical energy in order to do that thing because all of your spoons Are being spent at work another aspect of this this idea of expending your spoons is that you may not Be totally aware of the signs of fatigue or all the signs of stress that come To you during your time at work This is exact exacerbated quite heavily by our tendency to hyper-focus on things This idea of autistic inertia where it's hard to get into things But once we're in it train sort of speeds up And it's very hard to stop the train the tasks that we that we engage in the things that we do We don't necessarily always take breaks for them We may get so focused we may get so focused on said task that we ignore our hydration needs our needs for food our need to take breaks to relax to do all sorts of things and We can get to a point where the only thing that really stops us from Focusing so much on this thing is that our anxiety have got such a high level You know, they've surpassed this Autistic inertia this hyper focus and broke into your Conscious mind because the levels of fatigue and anxiety that you're experiencing are just way too much and that that can be an issue Because you pretty much just stopping when you when you're at your max capacity when you're exhausted and not when Would be ideal so that you have energy for the rest of your day Alexa fire mea can also be a fairly fairly big contributor to this Is the idea of not kind of clocking the signs of anxiety and stress and fatigue Then most people would be able to take note of when you relax if I make you tend to have a bit of a higher threshold for noticing Emotions most people might be able to clock when they're about 20-30% anxious maybe take a break go and get some water have some food take a rest Whereas for us it might go up to like 60 70 80 Not even 90% before we actually notice that we're stressed out from what we're doing and that can be an issue Definitely like I've had a lot of situations like that where it is worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and Burnt myself out had a meltdown got overloaded It's not a fun time So we've talked a little bit about the contributors to fatigue from executive function that may look a little bit different For us as autistic people. What about sensory burden something that's a little bit different to Executive function the reason why I turn this century burden is because for a lot of us We can be quite hypersensitive to different things in life that perhaps other individuals Concote with quite well that don't necessarily have as much of an emotional Energy impact on them as it is for us sensory burden can occur in lots of different areas of our life Typically, it's busy sort of public places You know where you might go out to a certain social event talk some friends There might be a lot of noises lights music in the background a lot of people a lot of different sensory things But also at work also different aspects at work uncontrollable Sounds perhaps quite bright overhead lighting all those kind of things can sort of roll up into one and contribute to our sensory burden even to a point where if we go home and Our environment isn't crafted for our sensory system It can also contribute to our sensory burden sensory overload can indeed Have impacts on your energy levels your overall anxiety levels your mental health Your ability to cope with things in the long term if you don't adjust for them one of the reasons for this is if you Lack these kind of sensory adjustments at home in public at work You will be constantly bombarded with this input Which is very over stimulating to your brain and can distract you and can cause all sorts of different Emotional reactions if exposed to enough of it for a certain period of time when I say sensory adjustments I mean little things like changing the hue of your lights putting a dimmer switch on things Switching out electrical appliances that are buzzing. It could be things such as changing the materials That you use for your bedding or for your flaws It could even be having a cluttered space like around you like a visual clutter These could these things can all contribute to like your sensory burden It can also be not using sensory supports and sensory adjustments a little bit different sensory supports You could also call them sensory aids These would be things like sunglasses headphones could be things like soft clothing Stim items earbuds, you know anything that mitigates Environmental stimulation on you, so it's not necessarily changing things at the source, but it's mitigating the impact on you If you don't have the ability to do this at work It's gonna be a problem like if you have those bright overhead lights But you don't have any adjustments that allow you to go somewhere that's not as bright or noisy or sort of open-plan Officy if it's a bit loud at the place that you're socializing out with your friends and you don't move or you don't have Any headphones or earphones to mitigate like the background noise that that can also impact your sensory burden And obviously like if you are engaging in a lot of these social activities these extroverted activities going out to noisy venues being in groups of people walking through the markets and like Sifting through like busy crowds All of this stuff can can very much like imparts your sensory burden and impact the amount of energy that you have over-stimulating you causing all sorts of anxiety and Generally contributing more to fatigue 2000 years later moving on to this idea of social burden You may have realized that I have somewhat changed my attire And this is because when I came to record the first segment of this video I was hit by quite a large wave of Fatigue I noticed that my brain was particularly Increasing in its levels of anxiety and I also felt like The functionality of my brain was not working very well, too So instead of plowing on like I usually do and going for it. I decided to take a little bit Little bit more of a personal look into why I'm doing this video and decided against doing so So here we are a couple of days later ready for the next part of this video Let us talk about this idea of the social battery the social battery is something that everybody has and everybody's capacity everybody's Sort of max charge of this social battery varies from person to person someone who is extroverted Perhaps might have a very very Large capacity for social interaction Whereas someone who might be considered to be a bit more introverted Might be considered to have quite a low Social battery in comparison for autistic people we can often have a much lower social battery than our neurotypical peers I think everyone out there can empathize with the idea of finishing a day of work Which was particularly social heavy and then going to perhaps a social event or a work party or something That's added on to the end of the day with even more socializing having to spend at least like a day or something on your weekend Just to sit be by yourself. Do your own thing reaching this capacity Also does have the potential of eating into your energy supplies of exhausting you in some way Which definitely is a contributor towards fatigue for autistic people it may happen a lot more just because some of the social relationship some of the Social commitments of work the individuals there perhaps might have a bit larger of a social battery And so be a little bit more needy of having more social interaction with you meaning that quite often you might find yourself Typically sort of exhausted in terms of your social battery because of the people that are around you And it's not necessarily saying, okay, these people are eating into your time because quite often we can somewhat I don't know but for myself You know, I'm definitely not opposed and I quite like it when people want to spend time with me communicate with me It's just sometimes I forget to self-advocate for my own space and time over time I have implemented such things as taking like social breaks During those very extroverted activities and also asserting some space from the people around me to make sure that I can Regulate and be by myself So my social battery can recharge as I said work can obviously have variables social and Sensory burdens depending on your workplace and your job Perhaps if you're in a workplace, which there is a lot of extroverted social people who they always want to do things They want to go out on the lunch break for the dinner and sort of go to a restaurant with you or go to for a cafe to get a Coffee you might just be surrounded by a lot of people who like to socialize a lot during work and that can be quite draining but likewise if you have a job, which is very customer focus very Social heavy something like sales something like customer service then you will be I'll be exposed very minorly to social interactions But those social interactions will be so consistent throughout the day that they will definitely make some Dents in your social battery. The last aspect of social burden is really really big one complex social problems, and I don't mean just like The complexity of having a social communication with somebody having a conversation difficult situations Which are very nuanced and perhaps quite emotional such things as Confrontation and interpersonal stressors so confrontation. It could be some difficulty at work with another colleague some difficulty In life with with some some person who has either an issue with you or you have an issue with them and their behavior the interpersonal stressors are definitely quite a big one and that could be sort of related to the Confrontation element But sometimes this might just be a very nuanced emotional topic that you have to kind of wrap your head around as human beings sometimes emotions can be very very complex and there can be situations where We perhaps don't feel like the people around us are making much effort with us Or they don't feel like we're making much effort with them and you have to sort of communicate and reach in agreements on How you can best move forward in that situation These are just examples of course, but when you have to think a lot about social interaction and it takes up a lot of your time to try and Communicates and understand and it empathize that can definitely eat into your social burden, too Let's move on to something perhaps a little bit more nuanced and perhaps a little bit more related to the experience of autistic fatigue as opposed to regular old fatigue Masking and neurotypical expectations Let's talk a little bit about neurotypical expectations first this can be in a lot of highly massed sort of late diagnosed individuals or even anyone to be honest attributing your or attributing personality flaws to difficulties you have Which are different to allistic individuals people who aren't autistic a great example of this is Perhaps you are at an event. You're feeling quite overwhelmed you feel like it's Important for you to network to even make friends or to find some people to do business with or Whatever a lot of the people around you are able to do this pretty well It doesn't really have a well-known. They don't have to take breaks, etc. Etc You find yourself in a very overwhelmed situation and you Sort of tell yourself that it's a bad thing that You're lazy that you're not extroverted or social enough that you're not Any any number of personality traits whereas in reality you are just a different person with a different brain These neurotypical expectations can go a bit further. They can reach into Different aspects of your life. You have this concept called hustle culture Which I think impacts us all to some degree and this is Generally content surrounding sort of productivity. I did watch a very interesting video Recently which went into the impact of like this whole culture around work I think like a Significant sort of majority portion of individuals put productivity high on their list of importance Which is crazy and these are things surpassing, you know things like social interaction And love and family and things like that Productivity seem to be placed very very high on people's sort of hierarchy of needs when you're autistic And you're consuming a piece of content perhaps someone saying What you should achieve at a certain point in your life? What are the things that adults should do perhaps coming in from? Family or friends of making judgments about where you are in life all of that stuff I think for most people it could it could apply But for us our life path tends to deviate quite a bit We tend to have things which we are very very good at and we progress very very fast in and other things which we can struggle with and A lot of the things that we can struggle with Do in my experience tend to be things related to like life progression to life skills to sort of getting your life organized and and Sort of staged and progressed in a certain way some people do this very well Particularly sort of high-masking individuals that I've met But quite often these are not things that we particularly want they're not particularly things that we Find valuable that help us, you know, you could take the example of perhaps getting a car It's kind of like Expected by a lot of parents and perhaps a lot of society that in order to be an adult then you must have a car Whereas you might just find that in your specific Circumstance that you just don't need one like people might say well you can go out and go on you know group trips with people And it's like well if everybody has a car then Where's the issue that and then if you want to go out somewhere close to you you can commute on a bike You can walk you can get a bus if you need to go somewhere further you can get a train generally like It's a it's a it's a good thing and it's a valuable sort of asset to you, but it's not necessarily like So life-changing that affects every single area of your life in a negative way There's definitely other ways of doing it You might find the the whole act of driving the costs of driving and upkeep and all of that to be way too much considering like What you actually need from life how you need to get around in life I think it's important when we are consuming content from other people or We see that people are judging us for different aspects of our life or People give us advice about Different stages that we should should meet in life at a certain age that we temper it a little bit a lot of this Content tends to be geared towards the mainstream crowd Meaning that they don't really consider the fact that you're disabled They don't consider the fact that you're autistic that you have different needs. They have different struggles and All sorts of different things like that making sure that you don't take it as like or you're being lazy is Quite an important thing. It's like It's not necessarily that you have a personality trait that makes you lazy It just means that when it comes to certain areas of life that you just struggle a bit more and you need Perhaps a little bit more support, but that's not really something that people Use as sort of like a caveat to this type of content because it's to a mainstream audience Trying to meet these expectations that people put on us can be extremely extremely exhausting Because we quite often Overreach and try to meet these expectations to our detriment, you know, perhaps it eats into our energy supplies To a very ridiculous degree even though it's not something that we Internally feel like would be good for us Perhaps we have a role model that we see in the media or a content creator who are like I we want to I want to be like this and You kind of constantly shaming yourself for not meeting the expectations that this person is kind of Presenting and in just the way that they live their life tempering your expectations and creating your own expectations Goal path the way that you want to progress is definitely the best way of going about this and that includes talk a conversation with other people or conversation yourself about what you need and what you're good at and trying to craft a path which is ideal for you without exhausting you to To try and meet these expectations that other people are putting on to you There is also a very key component of masking and I won't go into what masking is too much I did do a video which you can check out at the end of this It's in my autism University Playlist if you want to go check out what musky is But it's basically an aspect of social camouflage and social camouflage is the act of hiding The fact that you're different. So as an autistic person, you try to Hide your autistic traits you try to seem like you're not autistic and now there are there are some very clear positives in terms of like Avoiding negative circumstances, perhaps doing a bit well in those very heavy social-based jobs But it just come with a hefty amount of negative Effects, especially in the long term particularly around energy, but also self-identity The reason why the energy aspects can be quite significant is that quite often you don't Self-advocate for your needs for yourself because you're trying to hide your needs because your needs are different your needs are Typically not the needs of other people So you don't tend to self-advocate as much as you should do in order to sort of protect your own energy supplies You know good example Friends invited you to their birthday, you know, you really want to go to that birthday But for the for the entire week, you're at like a couple of work events and you know that you're gonna be Extremely exhausted perhaps if you were on mast and you weren't masking you might say hey look I've had a lot of social things having to this week like I'm autistic I struggle with the constant social demands I Don't really feel able to come or at least I don't feel able to come for a long time Maybe like an hour or something just say hi or before the party You might not do that if you're masking because you don't want people to Identify that you're different and then you have these needs There is also the aspect of when you are actually socializing with people socializing can be quite exhausting in itself You know when we're talking about social battery but it's also sort of increasingly more exhausting when you're masking because the aspects of masking of monitoring yourself monitoring others Changing your outward appearance making sure that you sort of compensate in lots of different areas and sort of assimilate in other areas That can be somewhat multiplicative like it increases the overall energy map energy demand of that social interaction for me One of the biggest benefits of me on masking is that I can socialize more my social battery is a lot better because I'm not constantly trying to Shift the way that I speak or where that I appear and express and behave In order to fit these sort of neurotypical kind of Allistic expectations on how you should converse with another human being the self-identity issues can also be a really really big thing As I said when I was talking about self advocacy quite often a lot of autistic people who go through long periods of their time on this earth masking find that they feel almost very fake and They don't really have a grasp on who they are. They look in the mirror They look in the mirror. They don't really see themselves reflected back It's kind of an almost dissociating sort of existential experience That is something, you know that can obviously like impact your emotional state Maybe not so much when it comes to like overall fatigue but I think in the long term it can can definitely cause some Significant sort of mental health issues if that is so consistent you never drop in the mask You're masking around Everyone in your life that you love and care about even if it's at work You're masking if you're at home. You're masking if you're around your parents. You're masking significant of you're masking It's so exhausting and it's it's really something but I highly recommend trying to take a look at and seeing in what Areas you can unmask a big aspect of masking which is a little bit more noticeable to most people is this idea of like stim suppression An autistic stimming. It's kind of these repetitive movements that we do Or repetitive sort of vocalizations or noises that we do in order to self-regulate I have done a post recently on autistic stimming sort of the different categories that people can have You have ones that most people do like tap their leg and bite their nails These are things that like everybody does not just autistic people, but we also have ones which are stereotypically a bit more Seen as like an autistic stimming We call these big stems, you know the ones that everybody does the kind of these little stems But if you're stopping yourself from having these little stems doing these big stems Throughout the day you are very very You're not you're not meeting your sensory needs. The reason why we have these is to self-regulate And quite often we can find Emotional regulation to be quite difficult as autistic people. So removing this very key aspect in regulating ourselves Throughout the day is definitely going to impact the amount of fatigue that we feel We don't really have the opportunity to sort of allow these emotions to regulate ourselves And so the fatigue kind of keeps building if you don't stare my highly recommends looking at like sensory profiles Checking out different things that other people do trying different things I've got a lot of resources around sort of sensory systems and stimming I highly recommend you check those out because once you get some really solid stems that really help you out You will see a pretty marked difference in your ability to sort of Regulate and sort of cope on a daily basis. So we've covered all of the Particular factors that I wanted to cover sort of the different categories. I suppose There is also some general factors that I do want to point to one which is lack of routine now as autistic people OCD individuals also also really benefit and desire this we really Feel better when we have a consistent reading We have an idea of what the day is going to pan out like it doesn't necessarily have to be like a weekly schedule Monopoly schedule but knowing what we're doing and when and what time generally helps us stay a lot more Regulated I find for myself when I don't have a routine that my anxiety tends to peak quite a bit I usually find myself moving out of the routine because I get bored and I want some kind of novel experience And I want to do things differently and I don't want to be sort of caged in by myself on what I can do in life But not having a routine is Definitely very sort of detrimental to my overall energy because it's like I'm always thinking about what I need to do next and I'm always Uncertain about what's going to happen and at what time I'm doing what son over time although it's a very minor sort of feeling It can definitely add up one tip that I highly recommend if you are like me and you like trying new things and novel things But you also find this routine to be quite Regulating and sort of safe block up some time Routinely schedule some time in your day or in your week or in your month to not have any reading Sounds a bit strange Does work quite well actually That's one of my big tips there There's also these large routine changes and these are very very big contributors to meltdowns Personally, I don't struggle too much with routine changes To a certain extent so usually I can handle One sort of small routine change or two sort of small routine changes It's only when a feeling of uncertainty comes Into into my body in my brain That I tend to become a bit dysregulated tend to have more of a Likelihood of having a meltdown or a shutdown or feeling overwhelmed or feeling petite and that's when Things change back and forth constantly and I kind of have in my head that I'm going to do something Someone gives me you know says or can we change this? I'm like, oh sure and then someone's like, oh, can we just change this again? I'm sorry. Okay, sure. Well then again. I'm like Is it what are we gonna change? I don't have a Certain idea. It's like everything's just changing. I don't feel safe. I don't feel like anything's certain It's very anxiety-provoking for me. I think there is definitely like a myth I think for a lot of Autistic adults that that we can't cope with any routine changes But especially when they're very very consistent or they're very large routine changes Like we're changing a massive part of our sort of daily routine or a weekly routine that can definitely be a factor towards Disregulating is a lot more and causing a lot more fatigue sort of during that time as well the next factor is Multiple and time-bound transitions. What do I mean? Transitions are basically the times between things that you're doing. So if a routine was the actual things that you're doing and what time The transitions are the spaces in between the things that you're doing autistic people tend to struggle When it comes to transitioning mostly because we have a very monotropic brain meaning that we can spend a lot of time sort of Getting into a certain task so much so that we kind of build up this this sense of autistic inertia where our sort of train Starts very slow. It's quite hard to get into it. But once we are into it, it's very difficult to stop and For most people people can transition quite quickly from one thing to another or in a very sort of short period of time But for us trying to make ourselves transition too quickly Can definitely spike our levels of anxiety and overwhelm and if there were a lot of those these situations Throughout the day and the very very short transitions We don't give ourselves a lot of time to Stop what we're doing kind of wind down and then start something else It can have a lot of sort of detriment detrimental impacts on like our overall Mental health our overall fatigue even it's very very exhausting. It's one of the worst things about Life for me. So on the on a daily basis It's going from like working to going to the gym to coming back from the gym and eating and then Doing my hygiene stuff then going to bed or doing a bit more work and then Stopping work and then going to bed is those transitions the more that these transitions add up in my brain and the shorter You know, the more time bound these transitions are the more difficult I can find it to sort of Keep my energy levels high and also keep my anxiety levels low. The last thing is definitely Something a little perhaps a bit related but not directly related fatigue in some ways this is that this idea of interception and a lot of autistic people can struggle with interception meaning that we find it quite hard to notice or Be aware of our levels of hunger our levels of thirst our Need to sort of do any sort of bodily need it can even be our sense of temperature in some cases It's very different or autistic person to autistic person just because of our differences and the variation in our sensory profiles but if you struggle to keep yourself hydrated on a regular basis and Keep food coming into you. It's it's gonna be quite quite a large sort of contributed fatigue Like if you're working all day, and you're not eating or drinking you're not giving yourself You're not giving your body the things that it needs to be a stable level of functioning. This is why I have things like this I Sometimes when I'm in the midst of autistic inertia, and I'm sort of Not wanting to transition from one thing to another. I find finding it really hard. I can sometimes Not go down and get myself a drink or not be aware that I need to drink So if I have something like a four liter bottle of juice or four liter bottle of water It makes that a lot easier in the long term There can be lots of little different hacks like that that you can do if perhaps if you struggle to get get some Food into you you might want to consider In the morning when you sort of get up and you get some food To bring some extra snacks with you not necessary to eat on the spot But just to keep next to you just in case you feel the need to eat or you remember to eat And you haven't eaten for a long time. There's little things that you can do and it's obviously going to be very individual Person to person, but it's definitely something to pay attention to When it comes to like your fatigue during the day if you're finding yourself at the end of the day Having like a hurt the stomach that hurts or having like a headache Even though you've not really done anything Like particularly sort of headache inducing it may be that you're quite Dehydrated that you perhaps need to eat a bit more to keep your energy levels up possibly It's happened to me quite a lot of times still continues to happen to me if I don't keep on top of it Could be a very significant factor in that so what about dealing with fatigue The thing is because of the individual variation There is no real sort of right answer to how you can deal with the fatigue There are some things that I would suggest and that could be things like interrogating some stimming understanding your sensory profile Taking social and sensory breaks when you're at work or when you're at a social event establishing a routine of course and making sure to Adjust your transition window so they're not too quick and they're not you know Perhaps try to minimize the amount of transitions that you have during the day by sort of trunking your work Up into little sections rather than sort of covering like three things at once in a day That's been quite helpful for me Of course if you are struggling with mental illness and you find that this fatigue is very long-standing there is definitely like an Importance there of going to see a psychologist or going to see a doctor Especially if you're struggling with things like depression and anxiety any kind of mental illness That can come with fatigue It's definitely a good idea to check in with a professional and of course if you can ask for or you know consider getting some support for your executive functioning consider Finding new ways to sort of save your spoons for the end of the day to make sure that you can cope With sort of wild unpredictable things in your life. I'd highly recommend sort of using some of the slides to think about the things that you struggle with and try to Mitigate some of those triggers of fatigue or sort of support yourself in different ways Everyone's sources of fatigue and brains are very very different So isolate Understands and adjust for the sources of fatigue in your own life and over time like if you make these small changes like one by one You will eventually find that you like the frequency at which you have So these bouts of fatigue or the frequency at which you have Burnouts will tend to drop off quite significantly, but that's this is over time and There is obviously going to be some trial and error changing little things over another and you want to try and change Small things at once. You don't want to try and change lots of different things multiple different things because that's just gonna Throw your routine up really like it's just gonna it's gonna make life a little bit more uncertain than usual I mean very enough if you can handle that and that's good for you, but for me One or two things that tends to be like a good sort of manageable Amount of changes to make to my life So I hope you have enjoyed this video and if you have please make sure to like subscribe Consider becoming a member to get early access to videos badges all of that lovely stuff and Comment down below. What is your experience with fatigue? What are the things that have helped you? I would really like to know and if you are interested in watching some more content by me consider watching this video It's a good top rated No source of bias here watch the video