Suffering from Autistic Burnout?
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Break free from Autistic Burnout and live an authentic life, free from the exhaustion of constant masking. A step-by-step online programme, developed by an Autistic Clinical Psychologist, to help you reclaim your energy, advocate for your needs and stop burning out - for good.
Authenticity is the ONLY online community programme on Autistic Burnout taught by an Autistic Clinical Psychologist
“Extensive knowledge of Autistic Burnout. I now have tools I can use again and again”
“Dr Alice has an extensive experience and knowledge in working with people in autistic burnout. She has provided me with a toolbox that I now can use in the future to keep a balance, or to rise out of burnout, in the case it happens again”
(Anonymous testimonial from past client)
As a late-realised, high-masking adult your Autistic Burnout may have defined you up until now. But it doesn’t have to define the rest of your life.
If you identify as someone who has been masking most of their life - only realising you are Autistic long into adulthood - its likely you’ve been doing huge amounts of mental gymnastics since your first day at school in order to “fit in” And the toll that takes? Burnout. Whether you’re heading towards your first or have had too many to count. Autistic Burnout is the price many of us pay for years of masking our true selves It can impact your work, causing you to take extended periods of sick leave for stress and exhaustion. It can deplete your day-to-day life, with little energy left over after completing social activities. And it can leave you blaming yourself, wondering why you can’t just be like everyone else.
Your Autism can be a source of many strengths. But only if you learn the right way to work with it.
Up until now, you’ve been working against it. And it’s probably been showing up in multiple areas.
If you relate to many of the below, I made Authenticity for you.
Do you...
- Have lengthy periods of spirit-crushing exhaustion?
- Get intensely irritated by the relentless whirring of the bathroom extractor fan?
- Feel like you’re working twice as hard to do half as much as everyone else?
- Feel drained after talking to the supermarket cashier?
- Feel like your body is falling apart (literally or figuratively)?
- Worry that, deep down, you are fundamentally flawed?
- Fantasize about being seriously injured so you could lay in a hospital bed doing nothing?
- Wish you had the energy to enjoy your family?
- Dream of having the time to do things you actually want to do?
It’s no wonder you’ve been stuck in fight-or-flight mode your whole life
These are all classic signs of a lifetime masking, of being invalidated, of not having our needs met, and being exposed to high levels of stress for too long.
All of this gets to change when you take steps to not only understand your unique strengths and needs, but celebrate them.
What if you could rest in a way that actually replenished you, so you could wake up with the energy to enjoy your day, knowing exactly how to meet your needs, and feeling truly connected to yourself and others?
How empowering would it be to feel able to say no, or make adjustments to social events so that you can protect your energy? Getting so in touch with what your body needs to be healthy that you even feel inspired to pick up your craft/research projects again?
This is possible — and it’s what Authenticity was designed to help you achieve.
I’ve helped thousands of late-realised high-masking Autistic people break the cycle of Autistic Burnout.
The key difference between the people who thrive and those who end up back in Autistic Burnout is that the ones who thrive learn how to:
- Know what they need and how to get it
- Be wise, kind and strong with themselves
- Celebrate their unique identity and aspirations
You can learn these skills too. That’s exactly what I want to teach you. You can get started right now (see below)
Thrive as your Authentic Autistic Self. A self-paced, bite-sized online programme and community for late-realised, high masking Autistic Adults
How it Works
On demand bite-sized video lessons
12 Modules broken down into short (2-15 minute) lessons for you to watch whenever suits you
Access to Dr Alice Nicholls and a Community
An online community where you can ask questions and get support from Dr Alice Nicholls 4 days a week
Fillable PDF Worksheets
On demand bite-sized video lessons
Process the content of the videos and apply your learning using the fillable (or printable) PDF worksheets
The Details
12 Modules:
1. Understand and Plan: Get to grips with what’s going on and what you can do about it.
Learn exactly what Autistic Burnout is, what causes it and how to create your own bespoke plan to get out of it and stop the cycle repeating.
2. Learning from your History: Amplify your own existing wisdom.
Identify what has helped and hindered you in the past so you can use your previous experiences to enhance your life now and in the future.
3. Stressors and Soothers: Curate a toolkit of simple and effective strategies.
Expand your knowledge of what helps you to thrive so you can start enhancing your daily life right now.
4. Measuring and Recording: Find a way of measuring your burnout that actually makes sense to you.
Identify and measure incremental changes in your level of burnout for testing out whether something has made it better or worse.
5. Meeting Basic and Sensory Needs: Engage with what your body needs.
Learn what your body is trying to tell you and how to give it what it needs.
6. Energy Accounting: Learn how to manage your energy so it doesn’t manage you.
Use a simple mathematical technique to visualise and budget your energy so you can save for what really matters to you.
7. Social Demands: Mask less. connect more.
Understand the complex relationship between masking, safety and connection so you can maintain safe boundaries and enhance nourishing relationships.
8. Calming the Inner Critic: Embody self compassion.
Shift your internal voice from crticisim to compassion without sacrificing your values.
9. Values and Identity: Uncover who you really are without the Autistic Burnout.
Clarify what really matters and who you really are so you can be more authentically you.
10. Shame and Overcompensation: Dismantle internalised ableism.
Discover the function of shame and how to embrace who you are without sacrifcing your safety
11. Advocacy and Adjustments: Ask for what you need in order to flourish.
Know how to ask others for what you need at home, work and with organisations.
12. Create an Authentic Living Plan: Pull together everything you have learned so you can thrive as your authentic autistic self.
Plus Dr Alice Nicholls and the Community:
- Supportive online discussion forum with other late-realised, high-masking Autistic Adults
- Regular opportunities to ask questions and seek support from Dr Alice Nicholls
- Weekly goal setting and accountability (optional)
- Twice-weekly check-ins where you are invited to rate your level of burnout and identify what is helping vs what is not helping
- Two office hours a week (3 weeks per month) where Dr Alice Nicholls is live in the chat for a discussion in real time.
- Monthly co-working sessions with our peer support worker
One Course: Two Options
“Life Changing”
“If you or someone you know is burned out Dr Alice Nicholls has the knowledge, the process & the support needed to turn it around. You won’t regret it, just sign up & show up. She will lead you through it step by step. There is hope. This programme is life changing”
(Anonymous testimonial from previous member)
We can’t change the world but we can change our little bit of it
I’m Doctor Alice Nicholls, I am a late-diagnosed recovering-high-masking , HCPC registered Autistic Clinical Psychologist specialising in Autistic Burnout. It’s my mission to create a safe, neuro-affirmative haven for Autistic people to be their authentic selves, understand their needs, develop self-compassion and connect with what’s really important to them. I have been working with Autistic adults for over 20 years. I provide online resources to the Autistic Community, have over 10,000 people on my mailing list, occasionally speak at conferences and have been featured in Vogue and The Guardian. I live in Kent, U.K. with my three neurodivergent children and I enjoy crotchet, piano, karate and yoga.
