You aren’t broken, and neither is your brain. If you lived in a world designed for minds like ours, you wouldn’t be constantly be doing things that deplete you and lead to Autistic “symptoms”, like Autistic Burnout. You’re a person who’s been told you're driving an automatic, when it turns out you’ve actually been driving a stick shift all this time. That’s great news - because you can learn how to drive a different kind of car. This article is a good place to start. Read on to learn more, and start noticing, reframing, recovering from, and even preventing Autistic Burnout.

This is the best language I’ve ever found to distinguish between what I talk about as “feel good/turning off” activities and “feel good about yourself/battery-charging” activities: self-soothing vs. self-care - including that both activity types can only truly exist in the context of community and structural care. Check it out!

So I belong to a secret girl group in New York City, and last week one of our members asked for advice on a hot topic for creatives: "How do you get inspired/motivated to do creative or health-related things when you work a day job?" She's totally right; trying to stay focused and creative when you're working a day job – especially if it's unrelated to your passion or you, *ahem*, f*cking hate it – can feel epic on a walking-this-ring-to-Mordor level.