Autistic Burnout To Autistic Psychosis 

I am autistic (also diagnosed with OCD and CPTSD), and my autistic burnouts can absolutely lead to mental health crises. For a long time I thought that it was some form of psychosis (it has definitely felt akin to it at its worst), but I think a lot of mine is severe intrusive thoughts that come with my OCD-that for some reason get triggered when I’m deep in a major burnout. In the past year, I also started experiencing false memory OCD, and that made it all the more terrifying. I really appreciate your honest and open videos. You are so right that this is still such a taboo topic and it is nice to hear that I’m not alone in these fluctuations in mental health. Edit: it may be worth noting/exploring that several mental health diagnoses are comorbid/co-occurring with autism. This includes ADHD, OCD, and bipolar disorder to my knowledge

I’ve never commented on a youtube video in my life but I had to for this one! I can *completely* relate to these patterns of thoughts, and they’re so scary and feel so real/ out of control. I know another comment already said this, but I wanted to also say that in my experience it also turned out to be OCD! Non-stereotypical OCD patterns are so easily missed by doctors. In my case the app NOCD has helped me so tremendously. I’m sorry you’ve been dealing with this, and whatever it turns out to be, I wish you the best of luck!!

Well I just finished bawling my God damn eyes out. Four years ago I experienced an "extreme mental health event". I got diagnosed with this that and the other but nothing really felt like it fit. Doctor after doctor. First the docs gave up then I did. This made me do a Google and I cannot fracking believe this. I was just diagnosed autistic a year ago. So much makes sense. You have said you're not perfect (cause like duh no one is) and I never want to put anyone on a pedestal so I want to be clear: you just making this video alone and me just coming across it has shifted my view of myself in literal minutes. I have been living with anxiety for YEARS thinking there is just think evil think lurking in me (I don't want to imply mental illness is evil lurking, it's just how it felt internally since I could not name it.) That I'm hiding it from myself but I swear I'm not and the thought loop goes on. Now to have this explanation? Well that's not anything evil, that's just my body sending off alarm signals. Just like any other disorder. Just my brain doing a brain. Thank you for being you Dana. Keep on trucking. Love from the Midwest us of a.

Holy sh*t. Autistic psychosis is probably a description to certain situations I’ve been in, too.

Dana, thanks for this video: what you're presenting here is very important. Once again, we see how far behind mental health research is. In 2006, a very similar thing happened to me (this was 16 years before my own diagnosis). I thought members of my family were plotting against me and accusing me of various crimes. I was also seeing and hearing things that were not real. The logical part of my brain knew this wasn't genuine, but my emotional response was pure terror. I eventually came out of it, but it took me a few years to "cleanse" my brain and learn to think straight again. Purely for myself, I would call it severe dissociation, rather psychosis, because I could recognise the real from the unreal. The mental health services were very dismissive towards me as well. Colin

I have diaries from the 1970s where I was so CRAZY. I put the diary on disk, and it was so disturbing to read, that I just deleted the worst entries from the file. I think I've developed more "mental hygiene" since then so I don't go to those places anymore. I saved one written section of the diary (that was really bad) just to remind me of where I've been. I haven't read it for years, and have no desire to do so.

The irrational beliefs you mention sound a LOT like they could be OCD actually! Like I know for a fact that I closed the window, I clearly remember doing it 2 minutes ago, but my brain still tells me I forgot. I'm convinced but I'm not. OCD is a super common comorbidity with autism, especially when there's also trauma in the mix, and it can be about quite literally anything one could possibly feel anxious or uncomfortable or unsettled about, not just the typical themes portrayed in media! Especially this "I did X random thing or thought X kind of thought and somehow caused Y to happen" is a super typical theme, often referred to as magical thinking OCD. Definitely worth looking into if you haven't already, as someone with episodic bouts of OCD (who also gets them more frequently in times of stress and burnout!) you've described it better than I've ever heard without naming it lol.

This is scarily relatable - Dana, thank you for speaking out about your experiences.

Highly relatable. I was once on a ladder painting my house. My husband was away about to drive home. I got this sudden sense of dread that something horrible was going to happen. So I started praying nonstop for protection for my family. I went inside, went on Facebook, and found a man in our church had been killed when his tractor flipped on him. It happened while I was praying, and I was immediately convinced it was my fault. My family was kept safe, so another husband, father, son was killed. It has been 13 years, and I still feel like it was my fault. I KNOW I had nothing to do with it, but I still FEEL like it was my fault. Such things have happened over and over from childhood on. And while I KNOW my thoughts on such things aren't true, I still feel like they are true and it alters how I live and function. There are others, not as drastic, where I KNOW something not to be true, but still have thoughts as if it is.

My 1st comment was removed😢 Just saying thank you for articulating so well and how grateful to you I am , you've been a great help these past few weeks

Mental healthcare seems very much to be a matter of getting lucky in the UK. I've had so many terrible experiences I just don't bother any more. 💚

I remember listening to this story from Rotten Mango about a schizophrenic family, where there were many kids and a lot of them, after a point, started getting diagnosed with schizophrenia after some kind of extreme stressful event. And I don't remember exactly what it was called, but from what I understood, a lot of the siblings had hallucinations and delusions to one degree or another, but most of them understood they weren't real. Only a couple of them were 100% convinced they were real. And that differentiation in diagnosis has a name that I don't remember Now I'm not saying that's what it is, or that it has to do with schizophrenia at all, I'm just bringing it up to say that... what kind of people are these doctors? You tell them something extreme like that and they go "well if you don't believe it you're fine"? So if a person is hallucinating a bunch of disturbing stuff or has violent intrusive thoughts, it's okay as long as they don't believe they are real? That's so effed up, sometimes it feels like nobody cares. As for it being a function of autism that's not mentioned often... I believe it. I mean autistic adults are so understudied, it wouldn't surprise me. I myself haven't had extreme things like believing I harmed someone, but I do have weird, sticky thoughts that make no sense and are hard to shake once they are in. And I haven't been through the kind of stress you have. It would be nice to not be dismissed left and right all the time, but I kind of get it. We really aren't equipped as a society to take care of everyone. That's why self diagnosis and finding answers through the internet and through community is so important, because for many of us, you might not get a chance to be evaluated and helped by a professional and it would be a shame to be able to get comfort in other ways and not utilize it because it's not considered valid.

scarily relatable, but makes me feel so much better, hearing people experiencing same things i do just makes me feel so much more normal ,you know?

I agree, there need to be more research on psychosis in general, but also how it relates to the mental health and experiences of autistic people. The symptoms exist on a severity spectrum. Knowing that your thoughts are irrational is a sign of it starting. Not sure why our society sits and watches to see if it gets more severe or resolves itself with time/less stress. There seems to be a real lack of comprehension about psychosis symptoms in general and what it’s like to experience them. My partner’s psychiatrist finally found them a med that stopped them hearing voices and she was sure that now my partner would be ready to go back to work. Um, no. The meds didn’t help with the paranoia or agoraphobia or stress intolerance. Hearing voices was one piece of the much larger can’t-maintain-employment/struggling to survive puzzle. Your symptoms should have been a clear sign you at LEAST need a good therapist to help you cope and give you someone safe to lean on.

I experienced similar thought patterns from 8-12ish years old. I had the same sorts of thoughts of being spied on and accidentally killing people with my thoughts. I knew it wasn't real, but it FELT so real. Even when you aren't actively distressed by the thoughts, the feeling of two parts of your brain disagreeing is deeply uncomfortable. I wish I could describe it.

I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression then BPD then Bipolar and had episodes of psychosis before working out (on my own) that I was likely Autistic then got myself referred for a diagnosis. I now have a diagnosis of ASD and ADHD. They removed my bipolar diagnosis but kept the BPD/EUPD diagnosis on! I wasted so many years trying to get help but ending up on every drug that big pharma have made for mental health issues that never helped but made me worse. I dont recommend the psych drugs, im surprised im still alive after all i went through while trying to get help! My psychosis was similar to what you describe but with the help of illegal drugs it would sometimes become more real/seem real to me when most of the time i had been aware it wasnt normal/real.

Thank you for this. 10 years ago I lost my brother the same week I found out I was pregnant and this tiny little pixel thought said I killed him because I got pregnant, I created life so clearly destroyed his. When child was born things got worse when, like you, I was fearful of being alone and watched by child and mental health crisis got involved etc, they said it was PND but with "a bit of psychosis" but I knew it was all absolutely ridiculous, but it didn't make it go away. It's come and gone since, always comes when I'm really stressed, sleep deprived and in a "depressive episode/burnout". Drs have never wanted to treat the psychosis part because they've always been like "but you know it's not real" and that's true, but antidepressants and cbt, which is all I get offered instead, makes zero difference. URGH. Love your videos

Just pointless speaking to people who do not understand autism im just now back from a meeting at my child school,she is autistic and been bullied everyday and the amount of the gaslighting the teacher was doing is really scary I was really thinking that they are trying to tell my chikd she is delusional and imagining things she isna child for the love of God, its unbelievable !!

Covid was the weirdest experience and it's unsurprising to hear everyone had an adverse reaction in one way or the other. I agree with lots of people in the comments suggesting it might be worth investigating the possibility of OCD. There's elements of magical thinking ocd to you experiences which I can relate to. thanks again for sharing so candidly

Hi Dana! So I can relate too, and this is not an advertisement I swear 😂. Blindboy Boatclub is an autistic podcaster, artist. He talks about his experience with dissociation and paranoid beliefs. He has heaps of stories about this on his podcast. He also after goes through how he has these mad thoughts, and then how he works his way out of them. This has helped me a lot. He has a recent story about how he thought these evangelists were serial killers, but they were just trying to give home a lift home 😂 If you wanna, you might want to Google specific mental health episodes because his topics vary widely.

it me, too. moderate-to-severe burnout leads to psychosis for me, inevitably.

I had this kind of thing when I was a kid. I was convinced there was poison in drinks my mother gave me. Obviously there wasn't and I kind of knew and there was no reason to assume otherwise. But still it felt like it. Another similar thing was with my then-girlfriend a few years back. She sometimes out of nowhere was CONVINCED something bad had happened for example to her Ex, and she HAD to check. There never actually was anything, unsurprisingly. She does not have autism though, but was diagnosed with borderline and depression.

Whenever my partner has been too stressed for too long, they get thoughts like that. It seems to be a sign that, like, you’re really being pushed past your limit, but life goes on anyway so your brain has to find some way to accommodate itself. I would imagine that, autistic or not, there is a stress response pattern that increases in severity as we feel less safe and our life experiences further exceed our capacity to cope. Like, stress level one is having a negative emotion as a reaction to a negative experience. But when those emotions become pervasive, we move into a different… zone? that we call “depression” or generalized anxiety or complex grief. And there are additional levels from there: dissociation to varying degrees (not feeling real, the world not feeling real, your memories not feeling like yours, etc). And then how strongly do those experiences impact you - because there seems to be a point where people know reality, even if their thoughts challenge it, and then there is a point that people no longer can decipher what reality is. When my partner has lost their grip on reality, there have always been big issues in reality that are intolerable. Like, you can see a way out of a bad situation, but you have no choice but to grind on for a few more months or indefinitely before you can afford to make the change you need. Or there seems to be nothing you can do to be taken seriously by a doctor and you just have to wait to run into a doctor that doesn’t think you’re crazy, which who knows when that’ll happen, meanwhile your daily experience is incomprehensibly insufferable.

I'm 53 have lived live with a diagnosis of extreme anxiety and depression now since a long hospital stay they are saying I might be autistic, people around me saying I was psychotic which was very scary, hospital disagreed with that.

I had a completely different experience with lockdown. I was working as normal and loved the quiet buses and the sound and smells of nature. On opening up I switched to cycling, I couldn’t handle the people! Still have problems, but time in nature helps, the nerve damage in my left arm doesn’t help but the challenge it has given suits me! I need a challenge! As regards the mental health issues sit on top of the neurodivergence. Best part of 40 years of depression and anxiety and 10 minutes with a psychiatrist who specialised in neurodivergence and a working diagnosis of Asperger’s. Fast tracked for the diagnosis after that! They need to be tackled differently from the neurotypical approach.

We have to identify it, to resolve it. People who dont want labels are just stupid.

Thanks for sharing your experience, I'm sure it's very helpful to many. I don't have an official asd diagnosis, I did get tested over 20 years ago, and they said I was not autistic, for really dumb reasons that can be refuted now. Instead, I was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder with the likelihood I'll either unalive in a few years, or develop full schizophrenia. I can't deny that I lived heavily in a fantasy world since I was a toddler, that I felt imperative to believe for the sake of surviving myself. I was able to shed that fantasy world almost 10 years ago now, and I can tell you, I'm not not about to develop full schizophrenia and for better or worse, I'm still here at 47. I feel that schizotypal is another word for trauma ridden autistic person. I'm seeking reassessment now, and let's pray they see it how virtually everyone who knows me including asd folk do, that I'm autistic. I think many afab/females are completely misdiagnosed, especially back then. They have 0 ability to use critical thinking about why some of these things are happening to a person, they look at the surface results and with their fancy letters, proclaim you that. Like you, I knew the fantasies and magical thinking weren't real, I'm not stupid, and certainly not delusional or psychotic, even if I had experiences that mirrored those things. I'm on disability, you mentioned in another vid about how it's almost impossible to hold a job- I'm that, even though I'm not lazy. I've developed more coping mechanisms as I got older, though the system might unalive me in the end. It's super hard to be different

This is so relatable that its scary i thought i gaslight myself into bring scitzofranic and it was the placebo effect because it is so rare and only comes with prolonged periods of intense stress but i dont know how to even describe it other than pure paronia and delusional thoughts similar to that cat thing u hit the nail on the head and this video is very important

I don't think I've experienced this but from my observations of a friend of mine and patients I've encountered, autistics that have comorbid OCD are more likely to have some psychotic tendencies. When i was a junior doctor in psychiatry last spring this doctor who worked with autistic people said that often risperidon or quetiapin (mild antipsychotics) can be beneficial for autistic people who are in severe depression or have a lot of anxiety. I was confused, but it really did seem to work!

I'd never heard of this :o I think I've had simalar thought patterns but logic grounds me typically so never really thought of it as a issue

I think what you are describing is similar to intrusive thoughts which are often highly irrational. The person who has these knows the thoughts don't make any sense (a key difference from a psychotic person who insists their beliefs are true) but the thoughts still trouble them and affect their behaviour. These thoughts can even have an almost supernatural aspect where a person believes some "force" will make their actions have these extraordinary effects. I often have beliefs that if I don't act in a particular way something bad, maybe even awful, will happen to me at some future point, vastly in excess of what I've done. I know this makes no sense but "to be on the safe side" I follow the action or ritual. This is really a form of OCD with superstitious aspects. I suppose we have to defy and challenge the thoughts rather than letting them control our behaviour but it's hard to do so.

Personally, I got diagnosed with psychotic depression after already having an autism diagnosis. However, my ease getting this diagnosis was probably due to A) my Ma being a doctor B) the fact we are an upper middle class family and C) I was really really feckin ill

I'm autistic and have been delusional since childhood. Sometimes it's worse than others. Sometimes it's connected to my OCD. I am always aware on some level that the thoughts are not true and not rational. I always have "insight" into my delusions. The closest thing is Delusional Disorder but I agree with you that I think it's just because I'm autistic, and there's something going on with autism and delusional thinking that hasn't been studied enough yet.

Interesting, I can relate very much. Always KNEW that certain events I clearly could not have influenced were actually caused by me. I attributed it to my upbringing - my parents were extremely religious, part of a cult and esoteric, so relating events to non-visible stuff somehow made sense. But I KNOW it is not real, it just doesn't make sense. But still to this point I have these thoughts. I think you are right, part of this could be caused by autism.

Relatable 😩

i have surveillance paranoia. because ive had that as part of my brainwashing that is needed to keep me held down in life. no professional ive ever spoken to can deal with me talking about mind control issues. they just dont want to go near it. not saying that is what it is for you. but thats what youre description reminds me about me.

Well damn if we're talking these goddamn intrusive thoughts, I have some. I am paranoid, I am aware of that, and I saw that paranoia is part of Autism symptoms BUT I GOOGLED AND I CAN'T FIND WHY (I saw it on one of these circle diagrams). So, ever since I was a kid I've been convinced that someone is looking into my bathroom through the vent hole. I've moved placed many times. My brain is still convinced of that but I know that it's all in my head. Also, about people being reborn as someone else: recently in my larger family 4 new kids have been born (now I have 4 nieces and nephews) and I am pretty much convinced that 3 out of 4 are our reborn grandpas and a grandma (and the other one is the reborn someone from my cousin's husband's family). I know it's silly, and I don't truly believe it, but that's what my brain is telling me. EDIT, to add: I also absolutely believed that I'd somehow manifested someone's death, yeah. Maybe ND people are just super aware of the faults in their thoughts, that could be my explanation. And we take it seriously, while some other people would just laugh at their own strange thoughts or never even notice them... But as the psychologists (who talk about OCD) say, thoughts are just thoughts. They do not characterize who we are, only our reation to them kinda does. My other explanation would be that one of my parents is a narcissist, and they have magic thinking, and maybe they inadvertently teach that to their kids. Because I know for a fact that I used to believe that "someone got the thing I wanted because they had plotted against me", but it was all bull*hit and it was a pattern I learned from my parent and had to actively unlearn.

Omg I clicked so fast. Literally me

It's so difficult to tell what is autism and what os not. Leaves me rather confused. Much research is needed.

doctors should study the human brain neurotypical and neurodivergent and mental health, also study it before they become one. Living the world we live in they should know.

2:57 I want to start by saying I am NOT a doctor. This is NOT medical advice. What you're describing makes me think of what I've read about OCD.

12:59 I'm not a doctor. I would highly suggest reading up on OCD though, because what you are describing sounds like what I have read about that condition.

Burn out.... is another level, for sure. Thank you for sharing your experiences. 🫶

Theres not really a new diagnosis when dealing with wonky wiring in your brain..... theyre all just like conditions intertwined with the one big diagnosis.💞

Is it more irrational thoughts with anxiety?

I enjoy your rough area accent.

I experienced this as Well! I felt like I murdered my step-dad when he died last year, because I did not stop smoking like I had promised, and the last thing he did before having a heart attack was smoke a cigarette. Naturally it must have been God/the Universe that killed him in that Way because I did not stop smoking. Smoking and drinking alcohol is still so hard for me. I feel dizzy and Think that I Will die or atleast become Very sick and have to have surgery. I get massive panic attacks because of theese things. Had the same with unhealthy food so my safe food was no longer safe. I feel so sorry for anyone experiencing this type of thing.