A former friend once asked me how I perceived being in love. I replied that it was “a whole lot of unpleasant sensations in the body.” I had not yet been diagnosed, and it amused him a great deal. He had never heard that kind of description before, and my answer was instinctive. I myself think I had indeed never encountered this description elsewhere (I had even researched it thoroughly, like a diligent student, to break it down).
In the collective imagination, an autistic person is someone who is calm, withdrawn, asocial and, for some, exceptionally good at mathematics. Television stereotypes do little to dispel these ideas. Many still have Rain Man in mind, with its autistic character stopping in the middle of the road when the light turns red. The reality, however, is very different. Autism is a spectrum and expresses itself differently in each individual. Following my series of articles describing autism, it is time to produce a summary article addressing it in its full complexity.
A short autistic pause to evoke this time a rocambolesque situation linked to my rigidity regarding rules—especially those in movie theaters—which are nevertheless displayed in huge letters with icons on a blue background in the UGC cinemas I go to, just before the film starts. Namely: avoid talking during the film, put your phone in airplane mode. For some people, these rules are apparently mere suggestions. Some of them did not see the scene I’m about to recount coming.
To begin my series of articles on bipolar disorder episodes, I thought about presenting them to you in chronological order, reflecting their cycle. Hypomania is the first euphoric (or irritable) phase of this condition. It sometimes progresses either into mania (in bipolar disorder type I) or into depression. Hypomania — which can manifest in two drastically different ways — is what we’ll focus on in this article. I’ve experienced a large number of hypomanic episodes that turned me into a production machine, a walking factory.
Over the years, I’ve collected a whole range of quirks — the kind that never show up in diagnostic manuals, yet quietly shape my everyday life. They’ve become part of how I make sense of my autism, and in a way, they’ve even helped confirm that the diagnosis fits. So here starts this series: small autistic misadventures, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes funny, always distinctly mine. I call them my autisticisms — a word I came up with to name these wonderfully awkward, unmistakably autistic oddities… the ones that make me smile (and occasionally other people too).
5 to 8% of autistic people are believed to be affected by bipolar disorder, and yet, this association between the two conditions is rarely mentioned in the literature. When you type “autism and bipolar disorder” into Google, finding a personal account can feel like a challenge. A few years ago, I took part in a podcast on this topic, sharing an experience that was almost unique—especially in France. The idea of a blog exploring both subjects in detail slowly began to form a few weeks ago. A few days later, the project was underway.
This blog is not intended to talk only about autism. From the beginning, when the idea for this project emerged, I hoped to provide a rare and in-depth testimony about two of my conditions: autism and bipolar disorder. Why rare? Simply because I noticed how drastically the literature lacks first-person accounts from people living with both conditions, even though this comorbidity is actually quite common — with bipolar disorder being even more frequent among autistic people than allistic individuals. And in-depth, because I intended to share my experience honestly and without filter through a long series of articles detailing what it means to live with both conditions.
Autistic burnout, in a few words, feels like a long-term complete shutdown. It often follows sensory, emotional, or cognitive overload and usually results from extreme compensation (social masking) that has pushed the autistic person beyond their tolerance threshold. Masking is a constant daily effort, activated the moment the person is interacting or exposed in public.
If shutdown is the implosion, meltdown is the explosion. A visible, loud, and often misunderstood crisis. The stereotype of the autistic person banging their head against a wall is common. For many autistic individuals, this is a real experience — but it is not universal. Still, many autistic people experience these crises to varying degrees and frequencies. A meltdown generates an intense emotional discharge that can leave the autistic person completely drained of energy. After discussing autistic crises more broadly, this article focuses specifically on meltdowns.
Autistic crises are an integral part of life for many autistic people. After discussing them broadly in a previous article, it’s important to describe them in detail, starting with shutdowns, often described as autistic collapse or social withdrawal. A shutdown is also defined as autistic withdrawal, an involuntary response triggered by sensory or emotional overload. Yet the reality goes far beyond simple withdrawal — it is a neurological reaction in autistic individuals, designed to short-circuit an overload the brain perceives as danger.
Florent