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I was a senior prefect during High School. I badly wanted to be Head Girl, but when it came to the interview for the role, my very Catholic Head Teacher, at my very Catholic secondary, clocked that I had never been confirmed. Damn, I thought. My plan to be the perfect student had been scuppered. What an idiot I had been, I thought. I made a mental note to never let this happen again.

If you had asked me why I wanted to be Head Girl, or why I wanted to go to university, or why I wanted a high paid job, the answer, deep down would have been simple:

• I want to achieve everything I am capable of and more, so you will have less of a reason to criticise me and you will be less likely to find out that I am odd.

• These are all achievements that people say you should try to attain. I don’t want to step out of line. I also don’t want to rock the boat. If I do as I am told, then I will blend in.

• If I am to be perceived, I want to control it so you see me in the most positive light possible. I can control this through overachieving.

As a child, overachieving became my armour. Every A grade, every certificate, every mention in assembly. Overachieving gave me an identity when I really did not have one of my own. It was something positive to distract people with and stop them noticing my odd behaviour. Overachieving was also what little ol’ autistic me thought was the whole point of education - to ‘max out’ and achieve as much as possible, to hit all the goals set out for you academically. Else, why bother?

Overachieving, as sickening as it sounds, was easy for me in the beginning, because I am hyperlexic. As a kid, I was a preciously early reader and one of those that was deemed a ‘pleasure to have in class’ (so many of us late diagnosed autistic folks heard this when they were kids).

I am naturally curious about everything (a polite term for those of us who are nosey). I love learning, and I became quite good at taking exams. I felt that you were simply following instructions when taking an exam - memorise as much of the revision as possible, then regurgitate it onto the page in a logical order. Simple. It also helped greatly to attend relatively small schools. I was the typical big fish in a small pond for a long time, and this made my achievements stand out.

Of course, overachieving in school leads to negative attention. Swot, geek, nerd, I heard them all day every day and yet I didn’t really mind so much. At least this attention was given to me because, in their own way, the bullies were referring to my abilities. It was words like weirdo, and stronger slurs that I won’t repeat here, which clearly referred to my neurodivergence and really cut me to the bone.

The bullies were never my worst enemy, I was. I set the bar for myself higher and higher. No one ever told me to do this, not even the school, and certainly not my family. It took years to work out why I kept on moving the goal posts until I burned out for the first time whilst at university. I was using my old ability to overachieve as a mask.

I never stopped to think if I actually wanted any of this. Did I really need to achieve an A in GCSE French, or was I doing it because it made me look good and gave me a sense of self? Genuinely, I think if I would have had the common sense to know in advance that in order to be Head Girl at a Catholic School, you needed to be confirmed, then I would have gone to the church and acquired a new middle name, just to be given the title of Head Girl. Atheism be damned, I want your approval!

I could not overachieve forever. I’m not Stephen Hawking. I burned myself out revising for my GCSEs. I got very good grades. Then it was a downward spiral from there.

Setting the bar higher the older I became, and subsequently not meeting the bar, flung me into depression as I experienced feelings of inadequacy that I had never felt before. It meant I lost my ability to mask.

University was a challenge for me. I was never kind to myself. I punished myself for not doing well in exams anymore. I tried to get involved with university societies, and I tried to have a social life, and I tried to get good grades, all the things you’re ‘supposed to do’, and it all proved far too much for me to handle.

I burned out good and proper after university. This pattern of burnout and overstretching myself went on for ten years. Rinse and repeat.

The Embers of Autistic Burnout - by Ren Riley

Coming out of the other side, really fucking slowly. Plus, a realisation.

Looking back, it is so clear that my drive to not just try my best but to be the best came from having a taste of this feeling as a child. As I had not put any effort into primary school, and because this praise gave me a positive identity, I clung on for dear life to my capability for overachieving. The positive reinforcement I received from adults that I was doing the right thing only made things worse. I had an addiction to validation from others that I desperately needed to cure. In some ways I still do (why am I writing this Substack, for example?).

I see other people, usually women, girls, non-binary folks and trans men, who fit this pattern as well and I wonder to myself ‘Have you burned out yet? If not, when will you burn out?’ It can’t have been just me. I am convinced that behind so many of these seemingly perfect, straight-A students is neurodivergence that they are consciously or subconsciously running away from.

I have a joke with my friends. People have always referred to me as a Type-A personality. I now say that the ‘A’ stands for ‘Autism’…

Thanks so much for reading. If you have any comments or feedback, let me know in the comments. If you’d like to support me, you can buy me a coffee here and help me to reach my goal of £50 to buy Scrivener - software that I am using to write my first novel:

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Until next time,

Ren