Autistic burnout vs depression: What is the difference?

Defining the difference between Autistic burnout and Depression can seem difficult. With many overlapping symptoms and responses, it may blur the lines and make it hard to know what you need to do to move forwards. This can cause confusion as to what the difference is between Autistic burnout vs Depression. Within this blog we will discuss how to tell the differences, through exploring the symptoms, causes, treatment and how to overcome both.

What is Autistic burnout?

Autistic burnout refers to long-term exhaustion and loss of function as a result of chronic life stress and mismatch of expectations without adequate support. To be considered long-term, the exhaustion prevails for typically 3+ months, causing a loss of energy even for simple, routine daily activities. This means there can be a loss of functioning, making life almost impossible to navigate. That's why recognising when you are in burnout by identifying the symptoms is the first step in addressing it.

To know if yourself or someone you know is experiencing autistic burnout, here are some symptoms to look out for:

Physical symptoms

• Sleep issues, fatigue and aches

• Chronic fatigue/ Exhaustion

• Difficulty with self care

• Reduced tolerance to stimulus, such as noise, lighting or others

Emotional symptoms

• Emotional dysregulation

• Frequent meltdown and shutdowns

• Heightened stress and anxiety

Cognitive symptoms

• A loss of skills, such as thinking skills, planning or organising

• Increased sensory overload

• Difficulty focusing and feeling overwhelmed

Autistic burnout can occur for many reasons;

• Masking autistic traits, for example by suppressing autistic behaviours, pretending to be non-autistic, or working very hard to act in a non-autistic way.

• Difficult or unreachable expectations from family, school, work, or society in general.

• Stress from living in a world not set up to accommodate autistic people, for example managing the stress of having to be in noisy environments.

• Life-changes and transitions that are stressful for anyone, for example transitioning from school to work, experiencing a mental health crisis, or the death of someone close.

• Co-occuring conditions, such as mental health problems like depression and anxiety.

• Trauma, experiencing traumatic events or PTSD can contribute to feelings of overwhelming stress.

Now let's discuss depression.

What is depression?

Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. It isn't just feeling down for a short period of time such as a matter of days, but rather a consistent feeling of sadness, numbness or emptiness over weeks or months. This can cause a distrubance to daily life tasks, such as getting out of bed to go to work, or brushing your teeth. Identifying the early signs of depression can help tackle the severity of the symptoms.

To know if yourself or someone you know is experiencing depression, here are some symptoms to look out for:

• Feeling sad, irritable, empty and/or hopeless.

• Losing interest or pleasure in activities you once enjoyed.

• A significant change in appetite (eating much less or more than usual) and/or weight (notable loss or gain unrelated to dieting).

• Sleeping too little or too much.

• Decreased energy or increased tiredness or fatigue

• Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., inability to sit still, pacing, handwringing) or slowed movements or speech that are severe enough to be observable by others.

• Feeling worthless or excessively guilty.

• Difficulty thinking or concentrating, forgetfulness, and/or difficulty making minor decisions.

• Thoughts of death, suicidal ideation, or suicide attempts

Depression can occur for many reasons;

Alcohol and drugs

• When life gets people down, some may cope by drinking too much alcohol or taking drugs. This can result in a spiral of depression as alcohol can lower mood, motivation and lead to a cycle of withdrawal and fatigue

• Cannabis can help you relax, but evidence shows that it can also bring depression, particularly in teenagers

Stressful events

• Most people take time to come to terms with stressful events such as bereavement or relationship breakdown

• When these stressful events occur your risk of becoming depressed increases especially when trying to deal with these problems alone

• During this time, its important to surround yourself with family and friends to help cope

Family history

• If someone in your family has had depression in the past, such as a parent or sibling, its more likely that you'll also develop it

• Severe depression in particular may be partly caused by genes you inherit from your parents

• Depression is usually caused by a combination of triggers such as life events, so having a family history of depression is not always a guarantee you will develop it

Now we understand what depression and autistic burnout are, lets take a look at them together.

How to tell if its Autistic burnout vs depression?

Autistic burnout and Depression have many overlaps, making it difficult to distinguish which one you or someone you know may be facing. There are several factors as to why they look the same.

• Concentration Difficulties: Both conditions frequently cause cognitive issues such as brain fog and trouble with executive functioning, creating the sense that you’re moving through life in slow motion.

• Social Withdrawal: Although social withdrawal is a common symptom of depression, Autistic individuals may also retreat more than usual during burnout. In these cases, however, the withdrawal can serve an adaptive purpose, helping them cope with overwhelming sensory input. In depression, withdrawal is often because of negative thoughts, such as "I can't be bothered; I won't enjoy it anyway; I'm not good enough".

• Fatigue and Loss of Motivation: The intense fatigue and loss of motivation are common to both conditions, making even getting out of bed feel like a monumental effort on some days.

• Sense of Emptiness: Depression is often marked by a profound feeling of emptiness. In burnout, a similar sensation can arise from the inability to engage with personal interests, particularly when those interests are strongly tied to one’s sense of identity.

However, when honing in on the symptoms we can see some clear distinctions between them. Understanding these differences can help choose the appropriate self care and treatment to overcome the symptoms.

Symptoms	Depression	Autistic Burnout
Emotional state	Sadness, Hopelessness	High anxiety, Exhaustion
Cognitive impact	Negative thoughts, Difficulty concentrating	Loss of skills (planning, recall, thinking)
Triggers	Life events, trauma, chemical imbalances	Sensory overload, social expectations, masking
Activity engagement	Anhedonia- Loss of pleasure in previously enjoyable activities	Engagement in interests can alleviate burnout
Duration	Persistent over weeks to months	Occur in cycles, depending on stressors

How to overcome autistic burnout?

Now you understand what Autistic burnout is and how it differs from depression here are 3 top tips for managing burnout symptoms.

1. Traffic light system - you can use some strategies when things are good (i.e. the 'green zone') to prevent burnout from happening; some in the build up to an episode of burnout ('amber') to reduce the impact or stop it escalating; and some when you are in full burnout ('red') to reduce the distress and recovery. You might want to map out which would fit in what zone for you.

2. Acceptance and support – engaging with others who embraced them as they were, without pressure to mask or pretend. This might occur in one-on-one relationships with family or friends, within communities that foster inclusive cultures, or among peers, particularly connecting with other autistic people who could affirm their experiences and provide both practical information and emotional or social support grounded in lived experience.

3. Reduced load – taking time off, more breaks, reducing social activity or other types of more stressful activities.

How to overcome depression?

Now you understand what depression is and how it differs from Autistic burnout here are 3 top tips for managing depressive symptoms.

1. Engaging in self care- Prioritizing yourself and your needs are essential, so creating a self care plan may help reduce depressive symptoms. This can include, writing journals, spending time with people you trust, making a self-care box and slowly reintroducing daily tasks.

2. Increasing positive activities- Depression comes with a loss of motivation and doing less. Gradually increasing the amount of positive activities you do can improve your mood, regardless of how you think you might feel before you do it. Increasing your activity levels in a gradual way, rather than waiting for motivation to come before you do more, can help to boost mood.

3. Challenge negative thinking- Depression makes our thinking more biased towards the negative, such as thinking negatively about yourself, thinking negatively about your mood and enjoyment, and your future. You might also 'ruminate', which is thinking over negative events or negative perspectives from the past, which makes low mood even worse. Catching this and actively questioning the reality of your thoughts can be helpful - for example, what makes you think you are 'not good enough'? What makes you think you are 'good enough'? What would you say to a friend who has the same thought?

4. Speak to a professional- Contacting your GP with your concerns can help grasp the symptoms in its early stages. This can include a referral privately or through the NHS, where you can discuss your symptoms and receive support. This is the stage at which treatment can be introduced, including medication like antidepressants or psychotherapy (CBT).

5. Physical health- Taking care of your health through getting regular exercise can reduce depressive symptoms through the release of endorphins, improving mood altogether. This combined with good amount of sleep and a healthy diet can reduce depressive symptoms.

We hope this has been a helpful introduction to the differences between Autistic burnout and depression as well as their symptoms, definition and recovery. We provide diagnostic assessments for autism in adults, which include looking at and making sense of any episodes of autistic burnout to help you move forwards in the future. We also have other blog posts on autism, such as what to expect in an assessment, and tips for managing ADHD, such as overcoming task paralysis.

If you are interested in direct support for managing autistic burnout and depression, we are soon launching a self-help course - you can join our mailing list below to be the first to hear about this.