Support for possibly autistic DW

[Shesgettingmarriedinthemornin]

Hello, hope this is ok to post...

DW and I have been married for 7 weeks and she has been signed off work for the last two weeks with stress. This is the second time in 18 months that she has been signed off but recently she has started to wonder whether what she is experiencing is autistic burnout. She is extremely anxious and shutdown and starting to connect the dots on which aspects of her life are driving her to feeling like this. Work stress, managing people, wedding interactions with a wide range of people etc. She is now in the process of seeking a diagnosis.

My question is what I can do to help support her at this time. It's tricky as she doesn't have an actual diagnosis at the moment and she is already taking antidepressants. She is beginning work with a therapist too. I'm desperate not to stress her any further but would love to help if I can.

Is it just a waiting game to recover from possible burnout? I have ADHD myself and am very 'solutions' focused so the idea of just waiting it out is a hard one for me but if that's what she needs that's obviously how I'll support her.

Any advice welcome!!

Hopeful bump

The best thing you can do is...go with her on the journey. I'm guessing she'll be spending a lot of her time researching autism and how it relates to her life (autism itself is usually folks' first "official" special interest when they take the first steps).

Learn what you can, and tentatively try to join in with her when she's learning about it and adapting to her new relationship with the world. One of the biggest ways that autistic people show love is to invite you into our special interests - we get excited, and we want to share that excitement. Just don't take it personally if she doesn't, because she's got the added wrinkle of burnout at the moment.

There are practical things which may help, like having a room in the house which can be made dark, quiet and basically give her overworked senses a rest. Mine is my office - I've got acoustic foam tiles in the corners, floor to ceiling, which deadens the room in a really pleasing way and means it can be a refuge; the walls are painted a neutral blue with a slight greyness to it (I've never really learned what these colours are called...), which takes a lot of the glare of white/magnolia walls away. In fact, I've taken great pains to make sure that room has no white surfaces at all.

Above all, though, you're going to have to learn when she needs space and when she needs help. That's not going to be easy for you, but you can always ask. We like direct questions with definitive answers, and we don't respond to subtle hints or open-ended questions. For example...

"Do you need me to leave you alone for some quiet time?" - good
"What do you need from me?" - less good
"I'm going to watch a film, it's probably not one you'd like, but you don't have to watch it with me" - bad

Thanks @ntmdino that's very helpful. I'm definitely asking too many open questions at the moment inc. things like 'how can I help?' That is likely unhelpful in itself. She says she doesn't yet know what her 'safe spaces' would look like but she's doing some work on identifying what feels bad and looking at the opposite of that.

I'm trying to ask very little of her at the moment too so she has that time to rest but carving out a specific space in the house is a good thought too.

Thanks again!

Honestly, just being aware of the fact that you're asking too many open questions is a massive step - a lot of NT people struggle to make that adjustment because they're effectively trying to train decades of typical conversation out of themselves.

For what it's worth, I would never have thought that the acoustic panels in my office would've helped, because the high-frequency sound reflections are present pretty much everywhere in every room you go into - I actually put them up because I was doing some audio work and needed the room to be more accurate. It then became the room in the house where I was most comfortable, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why...I had to take them down when I redecorated, and suddenly I just couldn't concentrate on work any more. Bought some new ones, put them up, and presto!

It really is a suck-it-and-see journey - some things will work, others should work but cause other problems, and some things you just have to avoid.

On a practical level...if she hasn't already, and if she has problems in loud/busy environments, it's worth investing in a good pair of noise-cancelling earbuds. One of my best purchases ever was the Sennheiser Momentum 3 True Wireless set - very pricey, but they're so customisable (with the app) and they let you effectively turn the outside world up and down with the transparent mode. For me, the problem is the number of noise sources at the supermarket or in town, and any NC buds basically reduce that to two sources (left and right), which is much easier to deal with. Along with wearing yellow-tinted shades (mirrored, so nobody can see when I'm not making eye contact), it makes busy sensory environments much easier to manage.