Demi Burnett Shares How Going Alcohol-Free Led to Her Autism Diagnosis (Exclusive)

Demi Burnett is looking back on how much her life has changed in the two years since she stopped drinking alcohol. The Bachelor alum, 28, opened up to PopCulture.com about ditching drinking and gaining new self-understanding with an autism diagnosis in a new interview, revealing that she never thought she would get to where she is today.

Recently having celebrated two years without alcohol, Burnett said she initially thought it would be "impossible" to quit drinking. "Whenever I was drinking, I couldn't picture my life without it and it just seemed so impossible. It seemed so far away," she told PopCulture. While there is "a little bit of grieving" the time the reality personality feels like she's lost due to alcohol, Burnett says it's "weirdly been easy" to follow through with her decision to stop drinking. 

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"I just kind of have a rule to myself, 'I don't drink,' so I don't ever even consider drinking. My brain just doesn't even allow those thoughts," she explained. "But that's where I'm at right now. I never know if that could change. And everyone's journey is different with it, and I know it can be really difficult. And I know that alcohol, it can feel like it's doing so many good things for you. So I do miss the way that it took away some anxiety for me – self-medicating with it, but [there's] the risk of my health deteriorating and I know what it'll do to me."

Six months into life without alcohol, Burnett had another huge revelation about her mental health, suddenly recalling a time in college in which she suspected she was autistic. Her suspicions were quickly shot down by her loved ones at the time, which Burnett attributes now to a far less extensive cultural understanding of autism a decade ago. "I felt really stupid and I was like, "Okay, well, I'm never going to say that to anyone again,'" she recalled. "But I just started partying."

The Bachelor in Paradise alum used alcohol to self-medicate for years, drinking to cover up social anxiety and "shame" she had about feeling misunderstood and out of place. But once she stopped drinking, everything "clicked," and she began looking into psychological evaluation. Eventually, after a long and expensive process, Burnett was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (pathological demand avoidance sub-type) and PTSD – a diagnosis that opened up a whole new world of understanding and self-acceptance. 

"[It's] understanding that none of those things were bad qualities that I had and that there's nothing wrong with them," said Burnett, who now uses Loop earplugs and dark sunglasses to help her self-regulate instead of alcohol. "It's the way I'm interpreting and it's processing experience in the world, [which] makes it to where I don't see anything wrong with them. So I no longer am having the shame associated with them. So, there's no need to drink there."

Burnett's past two years have been both freeing and "very lonely," she admits to PopCulture. "While all this self-acceptance and freeing myself and letting myself unmask and be my true self, it's hard to do that with other people, because you subconsciously want to mask in front of people," the Bachelor Nation star continued. "Taking all this time by yourself, it can be very lonely. And then once you are ready to try to be around people again, maybe your friends are moved on from you and they're in different chapters of their lives – nothing malicious, but it's lonely."

Self-compassion has also opened a new feeling of compassion for others as well. "It is a magical, beautiful thing that we're able to find the compassion for ourselves and see, 'Hey, I'm not just some terrible person. This is why this happened.' And then you can see that in everyone else," Burnett explained, adding, "Understanding yourself makes you have compassion not only for yourself but consequently so much more compassion for everyone else. It's hard to stay mad at anyone anymore."