Autism and the Overload of Choice: Decision-Making Hell in a World of Too Much

Surviving in a World Drowning in Choices: How to Stay Afloat

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

Choice is supposed to be king. Pick your poison — 67 brands of cereal, 24 streaming apps, a million ways to waste an hour on your phone. The world’s a buffet, and we’re all meant to dig in, right? Except, if you’re autistic like me, that buffet is less of a feast and more of a sensory chokehold — a kaleidoscope of options that spins until you’re dizzy, paralysed, and wondering why no one else sees the room’s on fire. Decision-making isn’t freedom; it’s a gauntlet.

Take a small, seemingly insignificant thing from last month: I needed a water fountain for my cat, Zoe. She has a classy habit of slurping from the toilet bowl — apparently, tap water is beneath her, but porcelain is five-star. My daughter, the world’s #1 cat expert, told me that cats prefer moving water because, in the wild, it’s generally safer than stagnant water. “You should get a water fountain,” she said. Simple, right? Well… SO wrong!

First, I spent hours Googling — flow rates, noise levels, filter costs, materials — until I had a top five. Then, even more hours slicing through reviews, weighing pros and cons like I was choosing a kidney donor, not a cat gadget. I finally picked The One: a sleek, quiet, stainless steel, square-shaped fountain (because I don’t like round stuff!) with solid reviews. After staring at the checkout screen for 20 minutes, I finally hit “buy” and — boom! — instant regret. What if it’s too loud? Too big? What if the cat doesn’t like it?

It’s a $55 water fountain, not a life sentence, but my brain treated it like the apocalypse. Now, scale that up to booking a flight or — God help me — moving house, and you’ve got an “end-of-the-world-by-meteorite-strike” scenario in three acts.

This isn’t quirky indecision. It’s autistic choice overload. As a 2002 study by Schwartz et al. (2002) showed, too many options impair decision-making for everyone, increasing anxiety and fatigue. But for autistic folks, it’s way — way! — worse. Why? Because under stress, when we’re dysregulated, our executive functioning turns into a tangled mess — think air traffic control on a stormy day.

Luke et al. (2015) found that autistic people experience heightened “option overload” in both social and practical contexts, often becoming overwhelmed by uncertainty and sensory noise. One participant described decision-making as feeling “locked up and overloaded with pictures coming in all at once.”

Let’s talk travel. Let’s book a hypothetical trip — three days away, nothing wild. Sounds fun, right? Unless you’re autistic and start drowning in tabs: flights (cheap or direct?), hotels (quiet or central?), train backups (what if the plane’s late?). You might spend a week researching, cross-referencing, and second-guessing until you’re a stimming wreck, flapping at your desk while your cat judges you, blinking in disdain, no longer even interested in your computer mouse. Finally, you pick a flight, cancel it two hours later, pick another, and still land at the airport convinced you’ve screwed it up…

Brosnan et al. (2019) found that autistic brains are hyper-activated during decision tasks, analysing every angle instead of relying on quick intuition. While this leads to more consistent choices, it also results in significantly slower decision-making. It’s a mentally exhausting process, so we often want to make a decision once and for all to avoid the energy loss. No wonder we prefer to stay home and stick to our routines—every single choice feels like climbing Mount Everest.

Another study on autistic adults (2021) shows that cortisol levels increase during decision-making in autism, raising the risk of making mistakes. I think we intuitively know this, which is why we tend to create systems in our lives: we don’t want to climb Everest every time we have to decide what to eat, what to wear, or how to fill the dishwasher — nor make mistakes.

How about moving house? That’s the boss level nightmare. Two years ago, I relocated… 500 meters (0.3 miles) away from my former flat. In theory, it was the easiest move ever: I didn’t have to search for a place; it was handed to me. The new neighbourhood was as familiar as it gets— not only close to my old one but also in the Brussels University area, where I studied. And yet, I spent the three months leading up to the actual move in a paradoxical state of both functional freeze and hyperactivity. I organised every single object I owned in my head a million times. I also tried to figure out the best routes to the supermarket, the organic food shop, the park for the dogs, the bus stops, the bookstore. In short, I mentally relocated a thousand times before actually moving. And when it was finally time to pack and press the ‘action’ button, I had to struggle against exhaustion from all the overthinking—and a major case of autistic inertia.

Another issue that’s all too familiar for autistic people is decision-making regret. Because we tend to rely less on emotional and interoceptive cues — the gut feeling — and more on logic than allistics when making decisions, we don’t always know whether we made the right choice for us. Instead of feeling the normal post-decision satisfaction, we end up trapped in a loop of second-guessing:

"Maybe I should have chosen Portugal instead of Spain. Or Italy? No… definitely Greece! Oh no, these holidays will suck big time. I’m an idiot."

This long, post-decision doubt can be exhausting. Every choice—big or small—gets replayed and re-evaluated over and over, making it difficult to simply move on.

Interestingly, making decisions at work or on behalf of others can feel easier. Since we approach decision-making with pure logic, gathering every bit of data we can to reach the most optimal option — without the emotional weight of personal uncertainty — it is actually very satisfying. We tend to approach every decision as if we were engineers designing a bridge, methodically analysing every variable. That’s the reason why when we have to make decisions about our personal life, especially when it involves feelings, we may feel totally lost. As an example, I had an autistic patient who was trying to decide whether he should propose to her girlfriend. He actually came to my office with his computer and showed me the spreadsheets he had designed in order to make his decision. It didn’t occur to him that he could instead… follow his heart!

Another issue I noticed, is prioritising. Whether it’s picking a holiday destination, choosing a water fountain for the cat, or moving house, everything gets treated with the same level of intensity, engagement, and sometimes, a sense of urgency. Every choice becomes a high-stakes challenge.

“Just choose!” they say, like it’s flipping a coin, like it’s not important. But for us, it is. The cat’s fountain? I researched it like a PhD thesis because failure isn’t abstract — it’s a sensory crash, a budget bust, a ‘you idiot’ echoing in my skull. Moving? One wrong call, and I’m stuck in a hellhole of regret I can’t escape. Travel? Pick the wrong flight, and I’m masking through a panic attack at 30,000 feet.

This is autistic life: constantly navigating a million forks in the road. I believe that the rise in adult autism diagnoses and the increasing need for support may be partly due to the sheer volume of choices we face daily. A century ago, if someone needed a shirt or a dress, they had to either make it themselves or have it tailor-made. Sure, they had to choose the fabric, colour, and style, but once they had it, they wore it until it was worn out. Breakfast was bread, bacon, and eggs — no need to choose between hundreds of possibilities. In short, life was much simpler and therefore, more autism-friendly. And I’m pretty sure that autistic people back then didn’t experience as many co-occurring issues like high anxiety levels or autistic burnouts.

Since we don’t have a time machine to send us back to a simpler, calmer, choice-free past, what’s the fix? Well, in an ideal world: no more choices, please! But since we can’t change the world, structure is the next best thing.

Defining clear, limited frameworks may help reduce the mental load, the stress, the anxiety. The idea is to start with very narrow boundaries. For example, the cat fountain has to be stainless steel, should cost between $50 and $55, and I get exactly one hour to research, choose, and buy. It’s not a foolproof strategy — and of course, I could “cheat” — but at least it rigs the game a little.

Here are some tips that might help:

Predefine Your Limits

Before diving into a decision, set strict boundaries. Limit your options (e.g., only consider two or three choices), timebox your research, and stick to predefined criteria. The more constraints, the less mental overload.

Outsource When Possible

If decision-making drains you, let someone you trust weigh in. Whether it’s a friend giving you a shortlist or a website’s "best pick" recommendation, external input can break the paralysis.

Use Default Decisions

If a choice comes up repeatedly, create a default response. Same breakfast every morning? Standardised travel checklist? The less you reinvent the wheel, the easier life becomes.

Prioritise Energy Over Perfection

Sometimes, the "best" choice isn’t worth the cognitive toll. If an option meets your basic needs, it’s good enough. Remind yourself: a 90% good decision now is better than a 100% perfect one that never happens.

Ultimately, we can’t escape a world drowning in options, but we can hack our way through it. Simplify where you can, automate when possible, and don’t let perfection hijack your peace.

Your nervous system will thank you!

Zoe the cat, in her DIY favorite box. So far she hasn’t even acknowledged the fountain … So much for my fountain PhD !