Help - Work and Autistic burnout

[IAmADancer]

Hi all

im hoping for some advice as I have searched high and low on the internet for where I stand on this.

I was diagnosed with autism in December and have made my current employer aware of this. We are currently in the middle of a very stressful merger at work and the pressure has been piled on top of me. I’m senior level and this week has been by far the worst week to the point I was crying every day.

Work is chaotic at the moment due to redundancies, lack of company structure or guidance and just a daily onslaught of work that has no structure or clear goals. I have an official report line but I am mainly working for someone else in the business and I’m not sure they have been made aware of my autism. I cannot deal with the mess and chaos, my brain can’t make sense if it all and I’m just shutting down. Home is suffering too as I can’t stand any noise, just my children talking makes me want to scream and hide. My poor husband is still getting his head round my diagnosis and is struggling to know what to do.

I feel like I’m drowning and I’m exhausted due to the constant masking. I am being asked to do things that I am very uncomfortable with and my stress and anxiety is at an all time high. I’m reaching burnout, which I’m frustrated about, as I have been trying really hard to put things in place to manage this as much as possible.

I don’t want to go into work tomorrow, just writing this and putting it on ‘paper’ is making me cry.

Where do I stand legally if I contact my HR team to explain I have hit autistic burnout? Will they let me have time off to reset or do I have no rights? I’m so lost as to what to do.

I dont think the autism diagnosis is particularly relevant, you are suffering from work related stress, ask for an OH referral

Firstly, I'm so sorry to hear about what you're going through, it sounds incredibly tough.
It does sound like you're experiencing autistic burnout as a result of a period of prolonged work stress. The most important thing right now is to prioritise yourself and your needs. One option is to seek an emergency appointment with your GP tomorrow morning and see if they will sign you off work given the impact it's having on your mental health. After that period of time off, you could speak to HR and your manager and do a phased return to work with additional reasonable adjustments in place.
Take care of yourself

Really important here that you express it correctly to your employer:

It's not burnout due to autism - that takes the responsibility away from them and it's all on you

You're suffering stress because you're in a bloody stressful situation at work - many people would also feel stressed and burnt out in the same circumstances, regardless of whether they are autistic or not.

The fact you are autistic may mean the burnout looks different/perhaps lasts longer than it might do for people who aren't

That's the way I say to my employer - I have a condition (not autism by the way) that makes me vulnerable to stress and means I might take longer to recover than other people. But I don't create the stress, that's an external factor - can we set things up in a way that reduces stress as much as possible please? These are the things that would be helpful.

Otherwise you can find people start saying "oh well she'll go off the rails no matter what we do because she has x" and believe me that makes thing much harder.

Hope it goes well - take your time to rest and look after yourself. That's the number one priority.

Autism is covered under the Equality Act 2010- employers are obliged to take it into consideration and make reasonable adjustments, so I think it would be a useful part of a conversation about what you need to work- be that time off or whatever.