How My Autism Processes Dramatic Life Changes

On the 1st of April 2025 (April Fools’ Day, which I promise is not a bit) my partner and I were evicted.

Being on the spectrum can present itself in many ways, but arguably the most common trait is a raw dependence on routine and predictability. The stereotype exists for a reason: if an autistic person has a way of doing things, they will do that indefinitely and become distressed when they can’t. My theory is that autism brings an array of sensitivities, sensory and emotional, that are genuinely exhausting to manage. Routine isn’t rigidity for the sake of it; it’s energy preservation. One thing going wrong can cascade into a meltdown. The two things any routine is built on are sleep and where you live. Disturb either and you’re in trouble.

In the UK, good-faith renters don’t have many rights. The TLDR is a clause called section 21: landlords can evict without giving a reason. This isn’t a political piece so I’ll spare you the manifesto, but the context matters. In the UK, if you rent, you can be removed at any time without warning. What I want to talk about is what that upheaval actually did to someone like me.

You’ve probably heard of the Kübler-Ross stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. They’re so embedded in culture that Pixar structured Inside Out around them. During my Music Production degree at Brighton University I even made an EP about grieving a relationship based on them, called Love Labours On, and you will never, ever hear it. The stages aren’t scientific fact, but they’re a useful framework. Humans reach for frameworks when things fall apart because they add narration, and narration adds meaning.

In my experience as both ‘tism-tinged and permanently distracted, I’ve noticed a pattern when large disruptive changes hit. These are my “stages of unwanted environmental shift”™:

1. Incomprehension — confusion and distress at the injustice of the situation
2. Shame — feeling personally responsible for not preventing it
3. Manic proaction — having accepted it, becoming overenthused with possibilities
4. Receding — becoming uncontactable, procrastinating
5. Burnout — overspending energy on step 3; if no solution is found, reverting to step 2
6. Choose — making the right choice makes things better

These are about as scientific as homoeopathy. But knowing I have a flowchart of my own emotional patterns helps me anticipate myself in a crisis. The most useful thing is knowing which actions are likely to burn me out before they do. Also, honestly, if I wrote these in two weeks they’d probably be different; we’re always ourselves, but we’re rarely the same person we are right now. That’s fine. Here’s how they played out:

We had been waiting months for overdue house repairs, so when the email came through I nearly replied “Haha, good one.” No possible way it was real. The timing and the truth of it would just be too unfair.

But it was real. And when that sunk in, the spiral started:

But we agreed with the landlord we’d stay at least another year.
But we agreed not to go to the council about the repairs.
But we gave all the information that was needed.
But we were polite.
But this isn’t what we were told.
But.
But.
BUT.
BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT.

When I was diagnosed with autism in October 2021, I was surprised by how much of the diagnosis focused on the inability to process injustice. I understand it now. You can’t reconcile behaviour like this through logic; you just have to wait until the fire burns out, which took days. During those days I over-ate, didn’t sleep, exercised manically or couldn’t move. Until my brain decided it could move forward, I lived in extremes. My work suffered, I was late to things, I needed autocorrect for words I’d normally spell without thinking.

Since I couldn’t reconcile the injustice, the most compatible way for my brain to process it was to make me responsible. Not injustice: failure. My fault. I was guilty. The spiral from step 1 stretched like a slinky with tainted accountability filling every gap:

• I was too abrasive in the emails
• I let my partner down
• I shouldn’t have made a fuss
• I could’ve fixed the issues myself

This is my least favourite stage because it can go on indefinitely, and I couldn’t make any progress against the actual problem until I stopped tearing myself down. It becomes weirdly addictive and insulating: people leave you alone when you’re doing it, which becomes its own protection. Poke your head out occasionally to signal you’re still sad, collect a bit of sympathy, retreat back into the emotional black hole. And this isn’t just an autism thing; this phase shows up with every minor ADHD screw-up too. You just can’t believe you made a mistake that stupid.

Neurodivergence is often framed as disorder, but you also hear it called a superpower, and I think that’s primarily because of this phase. When neurodivergent people decide they’re going to do something, they do it to a degree that looks neither human nor healthy. Hyper-fixation is the word, but seeing it up close makes that feel insufficient.

I went to 14 house viewings in 48 hours and booked 32. My partner had the car, so I ran to every single one. A smooth 6:10/km pace, not cartoon-style flailing, though that would have added some appreciated cardio. Day one: 18km. Day two: 22km. I sent 52 emails to estate agents, mostly to say “I have two cats, please don’t send me properties that don’t allow cats.” Over 60% of the properties I then viewed didn’t allow cats. This returned me to step 1 (INJUSTICE) multiple times.

If your employee reported the output from step 3, you’d be thrilled. That kind of turnaround would be celebrated. But what if, while doing all of that, they also stopped answering messages and locked their door?

That’s how my immediate circle experienced it. My partner, business partners, friends: they could see me burning the candle at both ends, and every attempt to reach me made me pull back further. The shame from step 2 had bled into the proaction. I got here through the veil of personal responsibility, so I had to solve it alone. If I let someone in and failed, they’d be complicit. By receding, I was helping them. Couldn’t they see that?

But when you cut everyone out, motivation collapses. I’d put up the walls, but in reality I’d stopped being productive. I was probably watching YouTube or overeating, throwing out occasional one-way updates to suggest I was still moving at the same manic pace. Until I couldn’t even do that anymore.

Four days after the email, we’d narrowed it down to three properties. I already didn’t care which one we took. Enthusiasm had become apathy; we started with “must have a balcony for the cats” and ended with “locking front door will do.”

Burnout also meant I prevented anyone else from being productive. I’d attached my meaning to the work I’d already done, so the idea of someone else taking over while I was exhausted became intolerable. I tried to steer everyone toward the options I’d already put on the table, or I just waited until I’d recovered.

This is the step where I’ve done the most damage to relationships in my life. When you’ve burned out, the idea of the world continuing without you is overwhelming, especially when you got there trying to make things right. At 35, I at least recognised when I’d reached it. What happened next was the only thing that mattered.

Option A: Indulge the downward spiral

This is the choice I made throughout most of my life. With neurodivergence, discomfort can become familiar, and it’s easy to confuse familiar with right. Coping mechanisms help us tolerate negative experiences, which creates a sense of control, and control feels like the antidote to situations where we’ve lost it entirely.

Blocking people out, indulging procrastination, avoiding obligations: it all feels justified because at least if you fail this time, it’s on your own terms. But the outcome is bitterness, and the same situations keep coming back. As Einstein reportedly said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Except Einstein didn’t say that. The origin is unclear. The fact that genuinely useful advice can be misattributed is, in a way, the whole point of the other option:

Option B: Move on to greener pastures

It sounds simple. It isn’t, not for neurodivergent people, and especially not in the face of unfair adversity. But it is possible. We can all do it.

When I burned out, my partner knew what it looked like. That evening we went for a two-hour walk. Long enough to be its own activity, out of my head, out of the house, with her. It’s hard to stay in the spiral when someone removes the reins from your white-knuckled hands. My friends know not to add fuel to the fire, so when I was clearly rambling in messages I got memes back.

The next day, fresh heads, we checked Gumtree together and found a place. £300 a month cheaper. Double the size. We signed the contract the following day. Notice the shift from I to we.

My brain is wired to act in specific ways. But I can also choose. I’ll probably never stop going manic or burning out; it’s the flip side of the thing that makes me useful. But knowing what the spiral looks like, and having people around me who know it too, has made my life immeasurably better. When I reach burnout now, I know it means I’ve done what I can, and it’s time to let go. Usually, that’s more than enough.

I wrote the first draft of this from the final days of that apartment. The bitterness did pass, faster than I expected, actually.