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Expectations outweigh abilities

This theme appeared more often, and more dominantly, than any others throughout the corpus. Our conceptual model is an attempt to summarize the attributions described by participants and social media writers as funneling into the tipping point where expectations outweighed abilities and autistic burnout occurred. In other words, autistic burnout occurred when the persons felt what they needed to do became more than what was able to do given the combination of their existing resources, the cumulative load they were carrying, and their ability to replenish resources or access support. As one participant explained: “Don't expect us to keep operating at above-peak level. We're like a light sedan car that's driven like a semi diesel hauler…we burn out when over-done.”