Burnout Blues
Hey, Miss Becca: My Teen Is in Burnout — What Can I Do?
From: Parent of a burned out teen
I have a question: “I have a 15yr old ASC/SPD/PDA/ARFID child in second burnout and underweight due to overloaded sensory system and fears around everything now - no hygiene ability/can’t leave bedroom let alone the house or travel in a car/just barriers around change/uncertainty and stuck in a severely anxious state. I am no demands and this helps but how can I gently connect and help them with this overthinking and overwhelm to down regulate their system and feel safe enough to make some progress?”
Consultant: Miss Kassie (our interoception guru)
A parent recently reached out to me about her teen who is in such a deep state of nervous system burnout that they can no longer attend school or manage basic self-care tasks like bathing, eating, or brushing their teeth and is experiencing extreme anxiety around what seems like everything. What you’re describing sounds like an urgent state of nervous system collapse. This kind of situation is scary, dangerous, and heartbreaking. And, it’s also more common than you might think, especially for neurodivergent teens.
When we think about wellbeing through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this teen likely has several unmet needs near the bottom of the pyramid (safety, physiological needs, and belonging.) Without those foundational needs being met, higher-order functions like emotional regulation, learning, and social participation simply aren’t accessible.
What Is Nervous System Burnout And How Does This Happen to Children?
Sometimes referred to as autistic burnout (but also relevant for a range of different neurotypes), nervous system burnout is a state where the body and brain have been stuck in survival mode — “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn” — for far too long. For many autistic or otherwise neurodivergent individuals, this happens when their environment continually demands masking, adaptation, and resilience beyond what their nervous system can sustain.
Over time, this depletion leads to nervous system burnout — a state in which both higher and lower-level body and brain functions become impaired. During a state of burnout, we often see:
Difficulty sleeping and/or eating
Trouble sustaining attention
Symptoms of dysautonomia (rapidly changing heart rate or blood pressure)
Impaired digestion and weakened immune system
Difficulty processing information or speaking
Emotional exhaustion and sensory overwhelm
Frequent meltdowns and/or shutdowns
This isn’t laziness or defiance. It is a full-body emergency. It may also present as the nervous system trying to gain control of whatever element of the physical and social environments they possibly can. Food, clothes, hygiene, school attendance, etc.
How Do We Recover from Nervous System Burnout?
Recovery from burnout is not fast, and it’s not linear. And it doesn’t happen on its own simply from removing demands. It often requires the same level of care and attunement you would give to a newborn. The nervous system needs time and safety to rest and rebuild. Imagine a LEGO house that took 15 years to build. Burnout is like a hammer smashing down in the middle displacing most of the pieces. There is nothing that will repair this house and make it functional again other than meticulous, brick by brick reconstruction.
Though it is not always linear, nervous system recovery can be seen in 4 distinct stages. It can look something like this:
Restore Felt Safety
Before anything else can happen, the body needs to believe it is safe. This doesn’t just mean physical safety. It means felt safety. The nervous system must sense consistency, predictability, and acceptance. During this phase, there are some things you can do to help:
Remove unnecessary demands or expectations (academic, social, or therapeutic). - in this case, it sounds like this parent is already doing this. Remember, demands can be more than requests to do a specific thing. Asking a simple question like, “what do you want to eat?” can be perceived as a demand as it expects a response.
Prioritize comfort, rest, and routine. Just as you would nourish and soothe the nervous system of a disorganized baby, you will want to provide soft/low lighting, deep pressure through weighted blankets and/or compression, and gentle rocking or swinging motions. Remember, provide these inputs as opportunities, not demands.
Offer co-regulation through consistent calm presence, gentle neutral voice, and reliable, timely care.
Aim to provide as much predictability as possible. The use of visuals help with this greatly. Calendars, schedules, notes, whatever can be a gentle passive reminder of something upcoming can be very helpful for reducing unnecessary stress.
The goal of phase 1 is not to “get back to school”. It is to get back to baseline.
2. Reconnect Body and Brain
Once the nervous system is no longer in crisis, it can start to return to supporting basic bodily functions and awareness, including sensing internal bodily messages of hunger, thirst, body temperature, need to use the bathroom, etc. This may require some help from an occupational therapist. During this phase, there are some things you can do to help:
Notice bodily cues and help connect them to needs (for example, “I notice your body is shivering. I put a blanket here in case you are cold.) This can be done completely non-verbally by simply making available the tool or support you perceive your child needs in that moment.
Model doing body scans using a tool like the Energy Meter from Autism Level Up.
3. Rebuild Trust and Connection
Once a teen has reconnected their body to their brain and can reliably interpret signals from their body, they will be able to start trusting themselves again, trusting others again, and letting safe and trusted individuals back into their inner circle. In this phase it is important to clearly understand who is a safe and trusted adult and who is a safe and trusted child. It may take some time to restore the caregiver/child relationship after burnout, but if phase 1 and 2 are supported effectively it will be a lot smoother. During this phase, there are some things you can do to help:
Build (or bring back) some special rituals that can take place between you and your child, either in secret from everyone else, or in response to some event or activity. For example, watch a tv show together on the same day each week, or make a secret hand sign that can help you non-verbally express something across a room.
Reserve space and time to engage in restorative sensory experiences together and honor any attempts to communicate wanting or not wanting it.
4. Reclaim Autonomy and Function
Getting through the last 3 stages was a lot of work and thankfully, your child is out of the emergency phase. This 4th phase is the last piece of restoring them to feeling comfortable, confident, and competent in their various roles: as a member of your family, as a student, as a friend, etc. Your child may benefit from therapy to support this work. During this phase, there are some things you can do to help:
Provide simple scripts for self advocacy so that if and when your child feels uncomfortable, they have the words - or the visuals - to help communicate that effectively.
Provide meaningful choices - usually only 2 - to help restore a feeling of control. Only provide choices that can be honored if selected, and always honor their choice.
Encourage self-expression through their preferred media such as art, music, crafting, journaling, etc. Remain neutral and non-judgmental of any and all self-expression. (as long as they are safe)
Use the Energy Meter (or similar tool) to choose the just right amount of a given task that will provide success. If you need to eat but have no energy available for eating, maybe you eat a handful of peanut M&Ms, instead of making and eating a sandwich. If you have no energy available for hygiene tasks, maybe you wipe your face with a wet one in bed, instead of taking a full shower. Stay neutral no matter what extent of a task is attempted. Value each attempt as equal, and as the just right attempt for what their body needs at the time.
This process is not easy or fast, but is incredibly important - dare I say - life saving. It certainly improves quality-of-life. This may be too much for a parent, a school, or a child to tackle on their own. And let’s not forget that when a child is in burnout, it often leads to caregiver burnout as well. The whole family needs support. This is why we recommend a multidisciplinary approach to recovery that involves the parent and family, the school (if applicable) and a combination of an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, and a mental health counselor for holistic and lasting results. The work we do for autistic burnout recovery at The Lark Center draws from a foundation of the social model of disability, attachment theory, trauma-informed care, self-determination theory, interoception work, sensory processing model, polyvagal theory, and the neurodiversity movement.
Please get in touch if you suspect your child, teen, or young adult is in nervous system burnout. The faster they receive appropriate support, the better their long-term outcomes.
