Since realizing I’m autistic I have had a few big areas of skill regression that have really concerned me. Mainly sensory sensitivity leading to overstimulation, and just total exhaustion after any kind of social activity leading to a deep sense of need to be alone for a long time, like many many days in order to recover.
I think about this a lot about what it means because I used to mask everything so much that I could go all school semester passing as a normal human, just quirky. Then during break I would get sick and fall apart like my body was just waiting for permission to take a break.
Summers were always a time of much deeper depression and I think about it now as burnout. But I always pulled myself back together to perform the requisite behaviors.
Now I have given myself permission to give myself accommodations with regards to sensory overload and recovery after socializing, I recognize it better and understand more what I’m feeling. But that makes it seem like it’s there * more *