Sunburned and Burned Out: Summer’s Unspoken Pressures

What appears effortless for some often masks unspoken challenges.

As summer arrives, so does the annual invitation to be "summer-ready." 

I wait all year for summer. The lighter mornings, the warmth on my skin, the quiet hum of beach days after months of cold. But while summer offers a change of pace, for some Autistic and ADHD individuals, it can also bring its own set of pressures and challenges.

The warmer days beckon you to wear uncomfortable clothes that expose parts of you that have been quite happily hibernating since last year. Combine this with the changeability of the Great British Weather, and summer can end up tying us up in knots. The unpredictability of it all can be exhausting, especially when your body’s thermostat never quite syncs with everyone else’s. The whole battle between “too hot” and “too cold” feels like a never-ending tug-of-war with no winning side.

Then there’s the social side of summer: the expectation to say yes, to be more available, to socialise more. Masking often becomes more intense in summer, where small talk stretches longer into the lighter evenings, spontaneous plans crop up, and the assumption is that everyone loves the heat, everyone loves the crowds, and everyone thrives in the summer buzz. That isn’t true for everyone. Social battery drainage is real, and burnout lurks around the corner. 

And then there’s tanning. The expectation that summer should bring a sun-kissed glow seems almost unquestioned. It's an unspoken rule that even though we get fewer sunny days than Norway, we should magically have tanned skin from the moment we break out the Bermudas.

In my late teens and twenties, I firmly believed that being tanned looked “better”. This was at odds with reality because my natural complexion was, and is, akin to Casper the Friendly Ghost. When I went to teach in China at 21, I arrived looking for fake tan in the shops. To my surprise, there was no such product to be found; the opposite, in fact. The beauty products on the shelves had skin bleaching agents. I remember trying to wrap my head around the concept that being tanned was not a good look here, and the more pale you are, the better. I just had to let people see the pale milk bottle legs that I was born with… good God. To top it off, the affectionate name my students gave me was Bai He, which meant “white lily” in Mandarin. To my chagrin, my paleness was a defining feature to others. 

The idea that beauty in summer is about being bronzed, carefree, and conforming to unattainable body ideals like the infamous thigh gap, is deeply ingrained. Beauty standards are social constructs, we know this - yet their messages still stick. The need to become an ideal version of ourselves can become prioritised over our physiological needs, such as nutrition, health and comfort. For Autistic women, comfort doesn’t always align with aesthetic expectations, yet we still feel the pressure to meet them. And forgoing those three pillars of health can send us down the path to burnout.

And yet! There exists the pressure to effectively erase ourselves and have no lumps or bumps. (Are you even wearing your bikini top the right way round this year?). Culture has always shaped body image, and fashion marketing has long relied on subliminal messaging around body shame. When Protein World coined “Beach Body Ready”, it wasn’t anything new. They simply branded body shame explicitly as a product. That takes some chutzpah. 

Shame can make us do all sorts of things. Body shame is linked to higher body ‘surveillance’, lower body satisfaction, and lower psychological well-being at home. It reinforces patterns of self-criticism and distress that can impact how we function on a daily basis, particularly in our food choices. 

I use the word “choices” lightly, as for many, it isn’t a choice. For some Autistic people who have internalised these messages, they have the added task of meeting beauty standards while dealing with food sensitivities and other ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) symptoms. Cooper and Dryden (2016) were partly right when they said “our attitude towards food, eating behaviours and body image are deeply idiosyncratic” - sure, but add ARFID as another layer of complexity, and you’ve started to scratch the surface.

The way we think about body image has evolved over time. Early definitions, like Schilder’s (1935), focused on how the body appears to us. Later, Slade (1988) expanded this to include our thoughts and emotions about different body parts, and soon enough Rosen (1995) emphasised how these perceptions influence our behaviour. Ultimately, body image is a boiling pot of physical perception, emotions, and behaviours. Come the summer, for those already with poor body image and low self-esteem, the pressure to bottle all that up and present a different image can be jarring. Crippling, even.

But summer doesn’t just demand aesthetic perfection, it demands energy. Beyond the push to look effortlessly tanned, we’re also busy juggling the sheer joy of a cheeky beach BBQ, festivals and those lovely long, light evenings, with the very real risk of burnout. For neurodivergent women, summer is a careful balance - a time to enjoy it in all its glory, while navigating sensory overload and relentless expectations. It’s a season that challenges us to care for ourselves, ensuring that the moments of radiance aren’t overshadowed by exhaustion.

And now when I wear my shorts, pale milk bottles on full display, it’s not just self-care - it’s an act of defiance. A refusal to let outdated beauty expectations dictate what I should look like, an unapologetic reclaiming of comfort over conformity. My body exists exactly as it is: without explanation, without permission, without needing to be anything other than mine. 

If you’re wanting to enjoy your summer but feeling burned out or carrying the weight of expectations, you’re not alone. I offer tailored counselling, providing an inclusive and respectful environment where you can explore challenges like these and reconnect with your authentic self. If you’d like to chat about finding balance and embracing this summer in a way that works for you, get in touch.