Abstract
Autistic burnout is typically defined as chronic exhaustion with functional impacts on everyday life. It appears common across work, study, and relationships, yet its emotional and relational dimensions remain underexamined. To document lived experiences of autistic burnout among autistic adults and to identify emotional and relational processes (e.g. shame and masking) that may shape onset, maintenance, and recovery. Eleven autistic adults participated in semi-structured interviews or written responses conducted online between July 2023 and November 2024. Data were analysed using template analysis, combining a priori codes from prior research with inductive coding. Participants described profound exhaustion, sensory overload, and executive dysfunction that disrupted daily life. A prominent emergent theme was shame, which shaped interpretations of functional limits, masking efforts, and help-seeking. Many reported dual-masking, concealing both autistic traits and signs of burnout, which intensified strain, delayed recognition, and undermined recovery. Withdrawal and “gentle re-engagement” through low-demand, people-adjacent activities were described as recovery strategies. Autistic burnout involves physical and cognitive challenges alongside relational and emotional processes that can precipitate and sustain it and complicate recovery. Shame and masking shape how burnout is interpreted and disclosed, underscoring the need for shame-aware, low-demand supports.
Lay Abstract
Autistic burnout is a period of overwhelming exhaustion and reduced ability to cope with everyday life. Although autistic people have spoken about burnout for many years, there is still little research describing what it actually feels like. In this study, 11 autistic adults shared their experiences of burnout through online interviews or written responses. We analysed their words to look for common patterns and individual differences. Participants described extreme tiredness, difficulty starting and completing everyday tasks, and increased sensitivity to noise, light, or smells. Many withdrew from friends, family, or work to protect their limited energy. A key pattern was shame, feeling embarrassed, inadequate, or like a burden, which shaped how people made sense of their burnout and whether they felt able to ask for help. Several described “dual-masking,” meaning they hid both their autistic traits and the signs of burnout itself. This added pressure often made burnout last longer and delayed access to support. Recovery was often slow. Gentle steps, such as spending quiet time near others without having to talk (“people-adjacent” activities), helped them reconnect without pressure. These findings suggest that supportive environments, where autistic people feel safe to be themselves, may reduce the impact and length of burnout episodes.
Introduction
Autistic burnout, described by autistic people in online communities since 2008, remains underexplored in scholarly literature (Mantzalas et al., 2022). Studies have worked to consolidate its definition through diverse methodologies, including thematic analysis, grounded Delphi methods, mixed methods, and content analysis (Cage & McManemy, 2022; Clarey et al., 2025; Higgins et al., 2021; Phung et al., 2021; Raymaker et al., 2020). However, beyond definition, broader-lived-experience processes remain underdeveloped; this study advances the field by centring autistic voices and examining burnout in daily life. Research has paid far less attention to the emotional, relational, and identity-related processes that contribute to the onset, maintenance, or resolution of autistic burnout. The present study addressed this gap by examining these processes as they unfold in everyday contexts.
Autistic burnout is commonly described as an autism-specific state of chronic stress and reduced functioning arising from a sustained mismatch between demands and available supports. Several core features consistently recur across lived-experience accounts. Chronic exhaustion consistently emerges, reported by autistic adults and children as young as eight (Phung et al., 2021) and repeatedly highlighted in online accounts (Clarey et al., 2025). Impaired functioning, including self-care challenges, memory lapses, and communication difficulties, further characterises burnout (Higgins et al., 2021; Mantzalas et al., 2022; Raymaker et al., 2020). Masking, the suppression of autistic traits, functions as both a precipitating and perpetuating feature of autistic burnout, increasing cumulative stress beforehand and intensifying demands on coping resources once burnout has begun. This pattern is often associated with increased stimming, heightened sensory sensitivity, and reduced social engagement (Mantzalas et al., 2022; Raymaker et al., 2020).
Building on this, sensory processing difficulties intensify before and during burnout. Stimuli such as sound, light, and temperature become overwhelming and demand complex coping strategies (Higgins et al., 2021; Raymaker et al., 2020). Emotional lability, including irritability, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, commonly accompanies these changes (Mantzalas et al., 2022; Phung et al., 2021). Environmental barriers compound these experiences: Discrimination, stigma, and neurotypical norms consistently harm wellbeing (Clarey et al., 2025; Raymaker et al., 2020). As reported in studies cited here, many autistic people leave jobs, reduce study, or withdraw socially during burnout periods.
In this context, recovery strategies warrant attention; unfortunately, recovery research remains limited and exploratory. Reported strategies include social withdrawal, increased stimming, sensory reduction, and stress management (Higgins et al., 2021; Raymaker et al., 2020). Reduced masking is often cited as restorative (Arnold et al., 2023) though some findings suggest loss of masking may itself signal burnout (Mantzalas et al., 2022). Despite these nuances, evidence indicates that environments fostering authentic expression aid recovery (Clarey et al., 2025; Raymaker et al., 2020).
A recent systematic review synthesising 48 studies and approximately 4,000 autistic people confirmed exhaustion, functional loss, sensory and social overwhelming, and camouflaging as core features, while noting that emotional and identity-level dimensions of burnout remain underexamined (Ali et al., 2025). Methodological limitations persist across the literature, including small and gender-skewed samples and the absence of a standard case definition (Ali et al., 2025; Jahandideh et al., 2025)
To address some of these gaps, the present study examines lived-experience processes, including emotional, relational, and identity dynamics such as shame and masking, that precipitate autistic burnout, sustain its course, and support restoration. In this context, we refer to shame as an affective and identity-related response characterised by feelings of inadequacy or defectiveness, which is conceptually related to but distinct from internalised stigma which is the cognitive adoption of negative societal messages about autism. By using qualitative interviews with an underrepresented, younger, male-leaning sample and analysing data using template analysis (Brooks & King, 2012), this study enriches our understanding of how autistic burnout is experienced and managed in everyday life.
Method
Qualitative Approach and Research Paradigm
This study used an exploratory descriptive qualitative design within a critical realist paradigm, which treats autistic burnout as real while recognising that accounts are shaped by social and linguistic context. Data were analysed using template analysis (Brooks et al., 2015; King, 2012), combining a priori codes from existing research with inductive coding to incorporate emergent themes.
Positionality Statement
The research team comprised both autistic and non-autistic researchers with diverse personal, academic, and professional backgrounds relevant to autistic burnout. Autistic members contributed lived experience of masking, sensory overwhelm, and burnout-like states, which informed our reflexive awareness of how autistic people make sense of their experiences. Non-autistic members contributed complementary perspectives grounded in qualitative methodology and autism research.
Our collective stance draws from critical realism and neurodiversity-affirming perspectives. We view autistic burnout as both materially experienced and socially shaped, emerging at the intersection of chronic stressors, contextual demands, and identity-related processes. This orientation guided our attention to relational, emotional, and interpretive dynamics—such as shame, visibility threat, and masking—as situated experiences rather than personal deficits. Throughout the study, we engaged in reflexive dialogue about how our identities, experiences, and disciplinary training shaped analytic decisions and interpretive emphasis.
Researcher Characteristics and Reflexivity
All interviewers had prior experience conducting qualitative interviews with autistic participants and were familiar with communication preferences, sensory needs, and rapport-building practices that support comfort and safety. Interviews were conducted flexibly and in a participant-led manner, allowing pacing adjustments, camera-off participation, and extended response time where needed.
All members of the team had previously published in the autistic burnout field. This grounding provided a strong conceptual foundation for template analysis and informed our sensitivity to the nuances of burnout, masking, and relational dynamics. Reflexive discussions and memoing throughout the analysis documented assumptions, examined interpretive influence, and supported transparency in analytic decision-making. These reflexive processes helped ensure that interpretations remained closely tethered to participants’ accounts rather than researcher expectations.
Context
All interviews were conducted online to allow participation from autistic adults living in different English-speaking countries and to maintain confidentiality. Participants chose between synchronous Zoom interviews and asynchronous written responses. Optional accommodations, such as camera-off participation, breaks, flexible scheduling, or skipping questions, reduced participation barriers and supported a participant-led process.
Sampling Strategy
Purposive and snowball sampling through moderated online autistic communities, including social media groups (e.g. Facebook), autistic-specific forums, and smaller private peer-led spaces with administrator permissions, helped to recruit autistic adults with experience of autistic burnout. These communities were selected because they are frequented by autistic adults discussing lived experiences, and moderators confirm group authenticity. Inclusion criteria were: (a) aged 18 or greater; (b) self-identifying as autistic, formally diagnosed or not; and (c) self-reported experience of autistic burnout. This was defined briefly in the recruitment materials. Eligibility was determined through the demographic questionnaire completed prior to scheduling an interview; no additional screening stage was used. Recruitment stopped when further interviews yielded no changes to the template structure and existing themes were well supported across cases. In line with Sandelowski (1995), a small, information-rich sample was chosen to support in-depth, case-oriented analysis of lived experience.
Ethical Issues Pertaining to Human Subjects
Ethical approval was granted by the host institution human research ethics committee. Participants received detailed study information and provided written informed consent to both the interviews and publication of data.
Data-Collection Methods
A demographic questionnaire was completed online before interviews. Semi-structured interviews followed a common guide. A copy of the interview questions is attached in Appendix 1. Most participants chose video interviews or phone calls, two provided written responses, and two provided supplementary materials (e.g. journals) to elaborate on their experiences. Data were collected between June 2023 and November 2024.
Because recruitment occurred online, several procedural safeguards were used to minimise the risk of inauthentic participation. The multi-step process (expression of interest, consent, demographic questionnaire, and scheduling) required sustained engagement, which typically deters low-effort or fraudulent responses. During interviews, researchers attended to the coherence and experiential depth of accounts and their consistency with demographic information; no transcripts raised concerns about fabrication. Recruitment took place in moderated autistic communities with administrator permission.
Participants
Eleven autistic adults participated, six male, five female, aged 19–56 years (M = 28.27, SD = 9.65). Ten (91%) had formal diagnoses; one self-identified without formal diagnosis. Co-occurring conditions, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, depression, social anxiety disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder, were reported by half. Information about diagnostic status and co-occurring conditions was obtained through the pre-interview demographic questionnaire and confirmed during the interviews. Participants resided predominantly in Australia, distributed across several states and territories, with a smaller number from other English-speaking countries. All interviews were conducted online to enable participation across these locations. Two participants identified with culturally and/or linguistically minority backgrounds relative their country of residence. Most participants (81%) held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Compared with prior interview-based studies on autistic burnout (e.g. Higgins et al., 2021; Raymaker et al., 2020), this sample was younger and included a higher proportion of male participants, offering a demographically distinct perspective.
Data Processing
Interviews were transcribed verbatim, verified against recordings, and de-identified. Interview durations ranged from 32 min to 86 min (M = 44 min). Transcripts, written responses, and supplementary materials were imported into NVivo 14 (Lumivero, 2023) for systematic coding. Transcripts were read in multiple passes for familiarisation, and initial codes were applied iteratively. Reflexive notes captured analytic decisions and maintained transparency.
Data Analysis
Template analysis followed King’s five-step process: (a) familiarisation; (b) preliminary coding; (c) organising codes into a hierarchical template; (d) iterative refinement; and (e) final application. The initial a priori template, adapted from existing autistic burnout work (Clarey et al., 2025), served as a sensitising framework. New codes were added inductively, and definitions were revised when data segments did not fit existing categories. Two coders initially independently analysed 30% of the data and compared interpretations, using discussion to refine code definitions and the template. Consistent with guidance for template analysis, we did not calculate inter-coder reliability, prioritising interpretive consensus, transparency, and credibility checks over agreement coefficients. Decisions to edit, split, or merge codes were guided by recurring analytic considerations, including conceptual clarity, distinctiveness of meaning, and consistency across participants. Edits were used when code definitions required refinement; splits were applied when sub-patterns emerged within broader codes; and merge occurred when two codes captured overlapping concepts. These decisions were discussed within the research team and documented through reflexive memos in line with recommendations for template analysis. After three refinement cycles, we developed a hierarchical template with parent and child themes, assigning sub-themes to the child level when they represented distinct, recurrent patterns within a broader organising concept. The interview schedule, codebooks, and documentation of template evolution are available via the Open Science Framework (OSF; see Data Availability Statement).
Rigour and Trustworthiness
To ensure rigour, analyst triangulation involved three researchers in coding and theme development. Reflexive memoing after interviews challenged assumptions and recorded insights. An audit trail documented coding decisions and thematic revisions, and a negative case analysis tested theme robustness. These strategies enhanced credibility, transparency, and confirmability.
Results
The analysis identified one superordinate theme, shame, as an organising force in autistic burnout, supported by four parent themes: shame and functional collapse, shame-driven dual-masking, shame and the disconnected self, and shame and the struggle to be seen. Themes were structured hierarchically with linked child themes to reflect relationships among experiences. Analytically, shame operated as a self-evaluative process through which participants interpreted their functional limits and social interactions, often framing difficulties as personal shortcomings or failures. While related to internalised stigma, which involves absorbing societal beliefs about autism, shame in this context reflected the emotionally charged and identity-level meaning participants attributed to those experiences. Within this framework, shame shaped participants’ interpretations of exhaustion, masking, withdrawal, and help-seeking. Quotations were minimally edited for readability, with ellipses indicating omitted words, and brackets indicating insertions. Pseudonyms are used for all participants. The theme hierarchy of the four parent themes and linked sub-themes is presented in Figure 1. Illustrative examples and codes within the sub-themes are presented in Table 1.
Themes and sub-themes.
llustrative examples and codes within sub-themes.
Additional examples and associated codes are presented in Table 1.
Shame and Functional Collapse
We use functional collapse to describe concurrent somatic, cognitive, and emotional disruptions that constrain day-to-day functioning. Across somatic accounts, exhaustion was the dominant physical manifestation. Chloe [25, F] described a worsening baseline fatigue: “I’m kind of always tired . . . it starts to get worse . . . I get more and more exhausted, and I can’t catch up on rest.” Lauren [32, F] emphasised initiation difficulties: “There’s just no gas in the tank . . . if you stop, you won’t be able to start again.” Ryan [34, M] noted the exhaustion-insomnia loop: “I feel exhausted . . . but I’m also sleepless at night.” This pattern compounded daytime impairment. Participants often interpreted these functional limits through a lens of negative self-judgement, describing exhaustion as evidence of personal failure, which amplified shame and avoidance. Lisa [56, F] shared her experience: “I just thought that everything I did was wrong. If my house was messy, it’s because I’m a terrible person. Not because I have executive dysfunction or I’m tangling with something.” Across accounts, exhaustion was the most salient somatic experience during autistic burnout.
Participants also described heightened sensory reactivity during autistic burnout, particularly in auditory and chemosensory domains. Reports of sound intolerance, altered taste, and reduced tolerance for sensory change were also commonly linked to task avoidance and withdrawal. Darius [25, M] described chemosensory changes: “I do not get the actual taste of food . . . I lose my sense of taste.” Chloe [24, F] noted escalating sound sensitivity: “I am sensitive to noise . . . unable to handle louder noises.” Taylor [26, F] linked misophonia triggers to reduced tolerance in social settings: “Lip smacking, sniffing, chewing . . . I cannot”. These shifts often precipitated avoidance of shared meals and group environments.
Another common disruption described by participants was to executive functions like planning, initiation, sequencing, working memory, and sustained attention, with most accounts emphasising initiation and sequencing failure. These executive disruptions translated to skipped hygiene routines, delayed meal preparation, unpaid bills, and abandoned multi-step tasks. Initiation failures were frequently followed by sequencing errors, for example, beginning chores but stalling midstream due to forgotten steps. Taylor [26, F] linked sensory overload to self-care deterioration: “That loss of personal care . . . showering irritation . . . all the different smells.” She framed this as an initiation barrier that compounded fatigue. Madison [22, F] described an erosion of compensatory strategies: “It feels like a loss of skills . . . I can’t mask anymore . . . I’m not good at planning or sticking to my routine.” Her account suggests a loss of capacity rather than a deliberate choice to unmask. Across accounts, sensory overload and cumulative fatigue appeared to undermine executive function, producing functional deterioration in daily routines.
Many participants shared experiencing rapid shifts in affect, heightened irritability, and difficulty down-regulating after stressors. Anger was the most described affective state in participants’ accounts, often surfacing in response to sensory triggers, social misunderstandings, or perceived performance failures. Lauren [32, F] shared “it was distress tolerance versus shutdown . . . either glitter bomb or faraday box . . . there was no in-between.” She framed these swings as giving her abrupt state shifts that disrupted work and home routines. Matthew [25, M] reported irritability over minor provocations that escalated interpersonal tension at home, which he then avoided by withdrawing to his room. Malik [25, M] and Ethan [23, M] both described anger, followed by self-reproach. These episodes were often interpreted as evidence of moral failure, which intensified shame and reduced their willingness to seek support. Anger precipitated interpersonal strain, which participants perceived as letting others down. Although anger predominated experiences, participants also described anxiety spikes, sensory-driven overwhelm, and periods of low mood that reduced motivation to re-engage with routines.
As part of their burnout experience, participants commonly shared experiencing apathy. Chloe [24, F] described marked initiation difficulty: “I do not want to wake up . . . I do not want to do anything.” She framed this as a global loss of drive that stalled both work and personal routines. Taylor [26, F] emphasised task-initiation barriers that delayed leaving bed and work attendance, consistent with apathy-driven action paralysis rather than preference. Madison [22, F] noted reduced engagement in her special interests. She interpreted this decline as a signal of worsening burnout rather than shifting preferences. Loss of motivation was common across accounts, most evident in self-care, household tasks, and paid work. Intensity varied by day and context.
Participants’ accounts of emotional shifts during burnout included features that overlap phenomenologically with depression, such as low mood, reduced motivation, and withdrawal. However, several participants’ lived experience of depression explicitly distinguished from their burnout episodes, describing them as arising from sensory, cognitive, and masking-related overload rather than the persistent low mood characteristic of their depressive episodes. We report these distinctions as participants understood them and do not make diagnostic claims about differentiating autistic burnout from depression.
Together, executive and emotional disruptions were appraised through a self-critical lens, with shame sustaining withdrawal and compounding functional loss. Shame was most often linked to missed obligations, visible loss of control during sensory overwhelm, and perceived failures to meet others’ expectations. Taylor [26, F] reported “I would fly off the handle . . . and then be overwhelmed with shame.” She framed this as a sequence of reactive anger, followed by self-reproach. Shame was also shared as a common emotion for most participants in relation to difficulties completing daily living tasks such as hygiene, meal preparation, and social interactions. Participants interpreted this as letting others down. Jayden [19, M] spoke of his self-reproach: “. . . just generally made my self-loathing . . . a lot more heightened for me.” Malik [25, M] shared a similar self-reproach: “I feel like I’m fighting my own demons or my own self.” Across these accounts, self-critical interpretations of functional limits intensified shame, which in turn reinforced withdrawal and reduced willingness to seek support. Across accounts, shame intertwined with emotional dysregulation and shifts in self-image, increasing masking and social withdrawal; together with apathy-related initiation failures, this self-critical feedback loop sustained withdrawal and deepened functional loss.
Shame-Driven Dual-Masking
Participants described increasing the effort to mask during autistic burnout and, in parallel, made efforts to hide the burnout itself. We use the term dual-masking to mean these simultaneous attempts to camouflage autistic traits and to conceal signs of burnout. Current accounts portray masking as both a contributor to burnout and a factor increasingly difficult to sustain during it (Higgins et al., 2021; Mantzalas et al., 2022; Raymaker et al., 2020). This aligns with Pyszkowska et al.’s (2025) description of masking as a “two-edged sword,” where the effort to maintain social acceptability intensifies exhaustion, identity strain, and emotional burden. Their review also highlights how masking is often driven by fear of negative evaluation, a dynamic consistent with the shame-based self-appraisals that underpinned dual-masking in the present study. Consistent with this, participants described trying harder to mask in public settings, even as their capacity to sustain masking diminished. Malik [25, M] described escalating masking demands: “. . . it develops so much . . . its worst for me.” He framed this as compensating for increasing visibility of traits at work. Chloe [24, F] described a work-to-home seesaw, where increased masking at work meant there was “nothing left” afterward, amplifying evening withdrawal. Taylor [26, F] described a felt increase in trait visibility during burnout and a simultaneous push to “mask three times harder,” indicating greater effort despite reduced tolerance for social performance.
As part of this dual-masking, participants describe performing neurotypical social cues and behaviours while also downplaying or hiding burnout effects. Examples shared included forced cheerfulness, suppressing mentions of fatigue or sensory overwhelm, avoiding accommodations, or attributing difficulties to neutral causes. Lauren [32, F] described amplifying socially acceptable behaviours at work despite aversion: “. . . mask harder and be more personable, even though it’s the last thing I want to be doing.” She associated this behaviour with rapid depletion and delayed recovery. This finding extends prior reports of compromised masking during burnout by highlighting participants’ simultaneous efforts to conceal both autistic traits and burnout effects. Participants described substantial mental effort and sustained self-monitoring to manage both forms of concealment. Many accounts linked dual-masking with intensified shame, especially when efforts to maintain performance faltered in public or professional settings. Shame, often experienced as fraudulence after mask slippage, commonly precipitated withdrawal. For example, Lisa [56, F] said “I couldn’t mask anymore and I flipped out in a dentist’s chair,” after which she isolated for a period out of shame.
We distinguish burnout-specific shame from broader autism-related stigma. In this sample, it was tied to visible functional change and often followed mask slippage, prompting increased masking and withdrawal. Several participants reported feeling like a burden and noted that continued masking during burnout depleted coping and appeared to prolong episodes. Taken together, dual-masking functioned as a short-term survival tactic that, by delaying disclosure and accommodation, could maintain burnout.
Shame and the Disconnected Self
We use disconnected self to denote identity loss and social disconnection, that is, feeling unlike one’s usual self and doubting one’s value, alongside withdrawal and reduced belonging. Participants also linked these experiences to an increase in shame during burnout periods. Building on masking findings, participants described increased withdrawal across work, family, friends, and intimate relationships, often to conserve energy after high-effort social performance. Matthew [25, M] reported “I shut off my phone . . . I feel out of place . . . I don’t feel normal anymore . . . I choose to stay away from them [other people].” He framed his withdrawal as being due to perceived stigmatisation of his autistic traits and current burnout state. Darius [25, M] spoke of self-isolation: “I keep my distance from others and my neighbours . . . I don’t communicate as usual . . . I just lock myself inside.” He reported this was to avoid social interactions that required heavy masking. Ryan [34, M] and Ethan [19, M] both shared periods of isolation lasting days while in burnout. Participants commonly interpreted these episodes as further evidence of moral failure, carrying an additional burden of adverse self-judgement. This self-criticism in turn contributed to a cycle of avoidance and low self-worth.
Education and employment were frequently disrupted and included reduced attendance, missed deadlines, and turning down opportunities. Malik [25, M] shared “. . . it has impacted my work quite a bit. I sometimes have to lie . . . I can’t tell my management the truth.” He described concealing burnout to avoid judgement. Ryan [34, M] reported losing income, “I had to turn down opportunities to make money,” impacting his self-esteem and professional standing. Madison [22, F] noted that shifting to online university during COVID lockdowns reduced her engagement in content, “. . . so I was like winging it . . . not watching anything,” attributing this to burnout, not the format. These professional and academic challenges often left participants feeling inadequate or dishonest, and their inability to meet external expectations contributed to internalised shame and self-blame.
Strains at work and university often spilled into close relationships, especially when communication about burnout was difficult. Chloe [24, F] shared
since this diagnosis is recent, I’ve talked a lot about it with my mum, but not so much with my dad . . . and these periods of burnout has affected my relationship with him . . . getting him to understand what I’m going through is not easy . . . we are not the same people.
She reported that her shame stemmed from failed communication and feeling both “too much” and “not enough” simultaneously. Across accounts, participants explained feeling like they were disappointing others, linking this to increased shame and withdrawal, creating a loop that made re-engagement harder.
Relationship strains extended beyond family to friends and casual contacts, reinforcing the shame-withdrawal loop. Matthew [25, M] said “. . . perhaps we’ve talked a bit . . . then I experience burnout . . . I’m not the person you were with yesterday . . . and I can’t force it . . . it has really affected me socially.” He expressed feeling that his inability to guarantee consistency impacted his ability to maintain friendships. Ethan [19, M] shared “it generally interrupts my ability to like, properly maintain relationships,” which he attributed to feeling driven to social retreat. Participants shared that withdrawal was used to conserve energy and to spare others from what they perceived as inadequacy or emotional volatility. They described shame and distancing as a self-reinforcing feedback loop, where feeling ashamed prompted pulling back. Across accounts, social withdrawal and relationship strain appeared across settings and were linked to reduced day-to-day engagement. Participants often traced shifting availability and miscommunication to not meeting others’ expectations, reinforcing shame and withdrawal.
Shame and the Struggle to Be Seen
We use the term struggle to be seen to mean a wish to limit visibility and scrutiny; participants linked this wish to shame arising during autistic burnout. They described this experience as a drive to not be perceived. This wish to avoid visibility went beyond social withdrawal. Participants described avoiding shared spaces, speaking less, minimising visible stimming, and controlling emotional expression, all to avoid being seen as different, broken, or a burden to others. There was an acknowledgement that shame was associated with increased efforts to hide both autistic traits and burnout effects, that is, dual-masking, now described as a visibility strategy. Chloe [24, F] said “if anybody else notices this stuff, or say, ‘oh, you look like you’re not doing so well’ . . . you go, no, I’m fine, I’m tired.” Regardless of the setting, many participants reported that pretending to be ok felt easier than being a burden or risking judgement. Darius [25, M] identified “People have noticed . . . I tell them nothing is wrong . . . I don’t want to give my burden to anyone.”
Several participants reported that masking felt automatic rather than occasional. Others reported that shame reduced their willingness to be perceived, which in turn lead them to limit visibility. This shame-based invisibility also impacted participants’ identity and self-worth. Participants described avoiding daily hygiene practices, inability to engage in routines, and neglecting special interests, which they described as behaviours that were usually grounding. Lauren [32, F] observed that she had “no interest in usual hobbies,” similarly Chloe [24, F] shared “I just didn’t want to pursue any hobbies.” These patterns seemed driven by an inability to prioritise self during burnout. Several participants experienced these lapses in functioning as personal failure rather than physical limits, lowering self-esteem, intensifying shame, and driving further withdrawal.
A common thread shared by participants was related to not wanting to talk about their burnout while experiencing it. They attributed this to the shame of being seen struggling. Malik [25, M] said “I prefer that we just remain silent and talk about it later . . . when I’m a bit ok,” identifying that he felt shame at not coping and worked to avoid embarrassment. Darius [25, M] explained that disclosure depended on trust: “I tell them nothing is wrong . . . I don’t want to be a burden . . . but if she [his girlfriend] asks me directly . . . I will say yes or no.” Participants described discomfort with attention or evaluation during burnout. This discomfort aligned with the section’s focus on visibility. Ryan [34, M] was very clear that he would not want to be asked if he was in burnout, stating, “I am someone who keeps saying ‘I am okay’ even when I know all is not well,” and that only careful questioning from his therapist would get him to open up. Participants linked reluctance to disclose to worries about being seen as “too much” or “not coping,” and several noted reduced willingness to seek support due to shame. Shame silenced support-seeking and reinforced emotional invisibility, shaping when and how participants connected with others.
This drive to avoid visibility during burnout prompted strategic withdrawal, with participants seeking spaces where they could exist unobserved and free from performance demands. Two principal patterns emerged: solitary self-soothing and planned alone time. Taylor [26, F] said “I don’t leave the house . . . weighted blankets . . . I watch things I’ve watched before,” which she identified as predictable, low-demand activities. Ethan [19, M] noted “Lots of me time . . . watching TV and playing games helps me relax,” describing intentional downtime on his own as necessary. Several participants identified stepping away from employment for short periods, which they say helped them cope. Chloe [24, F] shared “I’d leave a job . . . take a month or two off,” describing deliberate breaks as necessary for recovery. Lauren [32, F] stated “there was no point . . . {so} walking out, it was just for one day . . . then my doctor . . . gave me a month.” She described this time off as necessary for recovery. Analytically, time away reduced demands and enabled partial recovery, while seclusion and rest made day-to-day coping manageable.
We use the term gentle re-engagement to describe participants’ gradual return to social contexts and public spaces with minimal interaction. Participants often engaged in “people-adjacent activities,” meaning they were near others without interacting. Such people-adjacent activities served as a stepping stone towards usual interpersonal interactions. These activities were described as ways to experience presence without performance and connection without vulnerability, thereby minimising shame-laden interactions. Malik [25, M] shared “I just need to go to a park and sit, not with people, just near them,” while Madison [22, F] added “so I can just say I’m putting my headphones on and I sit there . . . I’m still in the presence of them, but I don’t have to engage.” These examples show that proximity without interaction offered a tolerable bridge back to public spaces. Gentle re-engagement and people-adjacent activities let participants feel connected without overwhelm. Participants shared that coping involved lowering demands and then testing proximity without performance. They linked these steps to a quieter sense of shame and greater capacity to re-engage with their usual lives.
Discussion
This study deepens understanding of autistic burnout by revealing shame as a central organising force shaping interpretations, behaviours, identity, relationships, and support-seeking. Shame did not operate as a core feature of autistic burnout, such as exhaustion or sensory sensitivity, but as a pervasive relational appraisal that coloured how participants experienced and interpreted their difficulties. Within this framework, shame influenced how participants experienced and interpreted exhaustion, masking, and identity. However, shame was not the only factor shaping recognition or interpretation of burnout; participants also described uncertainty, misattribution, and difficulty interpreting internal cues, which complicated the process of identifying burnout before it escalated. Recognising shame as a relational and interpretive process that can precipitate or sustain burnout has implications for developing assessment approaches and supports that reduce visibility threats and performance demands.
Consistent with existing definitions, exhaustion was a pre-eminent experience (Higgins et al., 2021; Mantzalas et al., 2022; Raymaker et al., 2020). Participants also reported heightened sensory sensitivities during burnout often surpassing baseline difficulties and impairing executive function. These escalations disrupted self-care, communication, and daily functioning, reinforcing prior findings that burnout exerts pervasive, cross-domain effects, with few areas of functioning unaffected (Clarey et al., 2025; Higgins et al., 2021; Jahandideh et al., 2025; Mantzalas et al., 2022; Phung et al., 2021; Raymaker et al., 2020). Ali et al.’s (2025) systematic review corroborated these features across qualitative and quantitative designs, while also documenting the camouflaging feedback loop as a structural feature whose shame-based mechanisms the present study elaborates.
Although previous research acknowledged emotional dysregulation (Higgins et al., 2021; Raymaker et al., 2020), participants here emphasised its severity and the added layer of shame, linked to emotional lability, self-image, masking breakdown, and isolating behaviours. This aligns with broader evidence of stigma in autistic lives (Turnock et al., 2022) yet suggests burnout amplifies and recontextualises that shame. These shame cycles were most evident in participants’ descriptions of dual-masking.
Dual-Masking and Identity Disruption
Participants described dual-masking, concealing both autistic traits and burnout symptoms, as uniquely depleting. This can be framed as a visibility threat response: To reduce the risk of stigma, participants expended cognitive and emotional resources managing two simultaneous concealments. Conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) highlights how this relentless self-regulation depleted energy reserves and blocked replenishment through rest or authentic disclosure. These patterns also align with broader cumulative-stress perspectives, including allostatic load models in which chronic, repeated demands erode coping capacity over time (Guidi et al., 2021) and diathesis-stress accounts that position autistic neurobiology and cognitive-affective profiles as potential vulnerabilities when combined with ongoing environmental and relational stressors (McCutcheon, 2006). Although the present qualitative study cannot test these mechanisms directly, participants’ accounts illustrate how dual-masking may operate as one such cumulative stressor within the broader trajectory of autistic burnout.
Recent work conceptualises masking as a response to autism stigma (Turnock et al., 2022), and identity-based models show how stigma drives concealment, intensifying distress (Rivera & Bennetto, 2023). Empirical findings confirm that higher perceived stigma predicts more masking, while stronger autistic identity predicts greater openness and reduced concealment (Alaghband-Rad et al., 2023). Ali et al. (2025) document the camouflaging feedback loop structurally, describing how burnout erodes masking capacity, increases autistic visibility, and intensifies the pressure to conceal. The present study extends this by suggesting shame as its affective engine, with mask slippage interpreted as fraudulence or moral failure even as the capacity to sustain performance diminished. In this study, dual-masking appeared to intensify participants’ cognitive and emotional load, suggesting layered pressures that extend existing understandings of how masking operates within autistic burnout, while acknowledging that whether these domains exert additive, synergistic, or overlapping effects remains an open empirical question. Recent quantitative evidence supports this link, with burnout-exhaustion shown to partly mediate the relationship between masking and depression in autistic adults (Benatov et al., 2025).
Our data suggests that the unique weight of dual-masking lies not only in its energetic cost but also in its shame dynamics. Each concealment attempt appeared to reaffirm participants’ sense that both their underlying identity and their visible struggles were unacceptable. This cycle deepened shame, destabilised self-image, and fuelled withdrawal. In this way, dual-masking emerges not as a causal mechanism but as a relational and identity-based process that may intensity burnout severity and sustain its course by delaying help-seeking. If dual-masking contributed to the maintenance of burnout through concealment, participants’ accounts also indicated that recognition and disclosure were shaped by shame and visibility threat.
Recognition and Relational Context
Recognition of burnout was often delayed or resisted. Many participants described concealing difficulties until they could retrospectively reframe them or denying problems outright. These patterns align with disclosure decision-making models (Chaudoir & Quinn, 2010), which emphasise that disclosure is calibrated against anticipated risk and relational safety. Shame appeared to amplify these thresholds, heightening the perceived danger of being seen as incompetent, weak, or “too autistic.” In this way, disclosure was not simply a matter of recognising need but of navigating whether visibility could be tolerated without further loss of self-esteem.
Trust, by contrast, lowered the bar for disclosure. What participants referred to as “gentle, trusted enquiry” can be understood through motivational interviewing micro-skills; low-demand prompts, affirmations, and reflective listening. These relational strategies reduced perceived scrutiny, giving participants permission to acknowledge difficulties without triggering shame escalation. Thus, participants’ accounts suggest that burnout recognition functioned less as a clinical checklist and more as a relational process shaped by visibility threat, where the stance of another person could either reinforce concealment or create safer conditions for disclosure.
Participants also highlighted subtle indicators of concealed burnout that became visible in relational contexts. Dual-masking efforts often showed up as a disproportionate effort to hold it all together across multiple domains, leaving people depleted yet determined not to be seen struggling. Shame-laden self-talk framed exhaustion as laziness or inadequacy, reinforcing internal barriers to seeking help. Others engaged in what they described as people-adjacent activities, staying physically present but disengaged, while some withdrew abruptly from social or occupational settings when maintaining the mask was no longer possible. These patterns offer potential behavioural markers for clinicians, educators, and peers to notice, provided they are interpreted through a non-judgemental, shame-aware lens. This convergence with Ali et al.’s (2025) finding that being trusted, accepted, and seen functions as a protective factor lends cross-methodological weight to the relational conditions for recovery.
Implications for Practice and Research
These findings deepen current understandings of autistic burnout by foregrounding shame’s relational and identity effects alongside established features such as exhaustion and impaired functioning. As such, assessment should incorporate shame-related markers, such as visibility threat, dual-masking, reluctance to disclose, and shame-laden self-talk, alongside behavioural indicators of withdrawal and executive difficulties.
The relational and identity processes highlighted in this study represent one constellation of pathways through autistic burnout, rather than an exhaustive model. Participants’ accounts indicate that shame and dual-masking can precipitate and sustain burnout for some individuals, but autistic burnout may also arise through pathways where masking is minimal. Environmental, sensory, cognitive, or contextual demands may exceed coping capacity independent of identity concealment, and interactions between external stressors and intrinsic factors, such as autism-related differences in stress physiology, may also contribute. These alternative pathways were not the focus of the present study but remain consistent with broader theoretical accounts of autistic burnout as a multifactorial and heterogeneous experience. Delineating how these diverse pathways interact, and for whom particular mechanisms predominate, is an important direction for future research.
In practice, supports should not only reduce scrutiny and performance demands but also embed low-pressure, shame-aware contact points. This includes pre-agreed check-ins framed as opportunities rather than obligations, low-scrutiny appointment formats such as video-off or asynchronous options, and people-adjacent arrangements that allow presence without pressure. Planning structured off-ramps from work or study, and training clinicians in shame-aware enquiry skills, can lower disclosure thresholds and buffer burnout severity. While the present study did not evaluate specific psychological interventions, approaches that support emotional regulation or help individuals respond differently to shame-laden self-appraisals may complement these contextual supports in some settings.
For research, priorities include testing whether dual-masking predicts burnout duration and severity, developing and validating brief measures for visibility threat, shame-driven concealment, and the energy cost of masking. Capturing within-person dynamics through qualitative diaries and ecological momentary assessment could illuminate how shame and concealment fluctuate across contexts. Longitudinal work across education, work, and healthcare settings can examine how shame-aware interventions shift burnout trajectories, reducing both severity and recurrence.
Limitations and Future Directions
Several limitations constrain definitive conclusions. The self-selected sample, recruited largely through online communities, limits transferability. Although younger and more male-represented than prior samples, cultural and linguistic diversity remained narrow. The presence of some retrospective accounts introduced temporal positioning bias: participants’ current perspectives may have reshaped memories of shame, withdrawal, or recovery. Template analysis balanced deductive and inductive coding, but interpretations were shaped by the research team’s positionality. Including autistic and non-autistic researchers mitigated bias, and while reflexivity helped, it could not fully eliminate this. Future work should broaden samples across community and clinical settings, use prospective designs (e.g. diaries or ecological momentary assessment), and develop measures of shame-related concealment, visibility threat, and dual-masking to test links with burnout severity and duration.
Footnotes
Appendix 1
The following interview questions were those approved by the human research ethics committee and used verbatim during data collection. Prompts were used flexibly to support participant-led elaboration, but no questions were added or removed during interviews.
Ethical Considerations
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of The University of Southern Queensland (ethics code: ETH2023-0041) on May 31, 2023. All participants provided written informed consent prior to enrolment in the study. This research was conducted ethically in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.
Consent for Publication
All participants provided informed consent for publication of their interview transcripts.
Author Contributions
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship awarded to Megan Clarey.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
Due to the sensitive and identifiable nature of qualitative interview data, full transcripts cannot be shared. De-identified research materials, including the interview schedule, initial and final codebooks, and analytic documentation, are available via the Open Science Framework (OSF) at 
. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.