This is a very strange YouTube video for me and I can't believe I'm going to post it, but I'm going to because this... Like, hey y'all, it's Jess. So today I want to talk about Autistic Burnout. So basically, Burnout for Autistic People is a build up of negative emotions and experiences that are directly due to being Autistic, that result in affecting your mental and physical health. So sometimes it presents as depression, so you feel really tired all the time. You don't really see the point in doing things a lot. You feel misplaced, you feel upset at little things that you feel like you shouldn't be upset at. I'm just not into it today. I'm not into it today. I don't know. I was supposed to be talking about Autistic Burnout and I feel burnt out, so I can't even get up the energy to perform for camera. So this is the real deal here. Autism looks like when your executive functioning is down and when you can't mask anymore, when the coping skills aren't working. What I was saying first, the build up of negative experiences and emotions. It's not like everything is really bad and things just keep getting worse. It's just all these little things that are continually popping up. And they just build and build and build and build and build. And then suddenly you're like, why am I feeling so crappy? And it's because the lighting, if you see the lighting, go dimmer. It's because the sun is going in and out from behind the clouds. And I get seasonal depression in the wintertime because there's not enough sun. And it affected me so badly this past two years that now even just like the sun shine being out and suddenly going behind the clouds, I can feel like this drop in me. Not being able to go out and see people is not too big of a deal for me, but I do feel disconnected from my friends. And maybe that's affecting me a little bit more than I thought. And I do mask for camera because you have this as YouTube, this is making a video, this is performing, this is acting in a way. I make my voice higher and this is my natural voice. I feel like I just feel the grumbliness in my voice. I still mask without realizing it and I still see appropriate ways to mask that I realize. I have to or else I'll just be like this on camera and not be good at doing what I normally do on camera. But sometimes it's just kind of sensory overload of this like it's almost sensory overload of nothing. So just all this nothing just piles on me and I just get more and more like clouded in I guess. And then I just realize I just want to go back to bed. And also like living in a world that does not accommodate to you as an autistic person brings up all of this struggles and all this stuff you always have to deal with all the time. So of course we get burnt out. I feel like if I'm not entering burnout stage right now, I'm just having a really bad off day. But if I am entering burnout then have a minute. The solution is to help fix it or to recover from this. But basically like part of it is embracing like your autistic identity and to do that you have to like make sure that the people around you have lower expectations of you and don't demand as much. And you have to emotionally regulate. I'm going to do like I'm just going to spend today with emotional regulation. I'm just going to put on quite music, take care of my body, take care of myself, do some just like stim toy, time, take some vitamins, drink some water. Do something to make myself feel better. Do something to intentionally treat myself. Another way to fix, not to fix burnout. So your cover for burnout is to get involved in your community. I love you guys so much. I'm so glad that we have the community that we do. And so I'm going to message some of my friends and talk to them about how I'm feeling and stuff. If you have the opportunity for it, go to therapy, talk to a counselor. Even just talk to your parents or a friend or someone who understands you. And that helps a lot. I'm just going to spend today taking it easy and not stressing and worrying about it. Like how perfect is that? I was going to do this whole thing of autistic burnout. And then I just feel completely just like not into it at all. And so I figured why not take advantage of the situation and talk to you guys. I can't even make eye contact with the camera right now. Talk to you guys, show you what it, this is what it is. I don't like to say the bad part about it. It's about the dark side of autism and stuff. But it's just like we're humans. And every different type of brain has stuff that they can handle and stuff that they don't want to handle and stuff that they can't. And so like this is just part of being a human being. So I hope you guys have a better day than I am. It's Monday. Everybody hates Monday. So tomorrow will be better.