Melt Down vs Shut down

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What does a melt down look like in public vs at home?

What does a shut down look like in public vs at home?

What does a shut down look like in comparison to a melt down?

Is shut down an official autism term? or is it something coined?

Does a melt down have to be explosive and loud? And if it's quite, doesn't that make it a shut down? Is a shut down just a type of melt down? =/

I've never had a meltdown in public, so I can't answer that.

A shut down in public compared to a shut down at home, however, Is just a matter of who is around. My mother gets embarassed when I have shut downs in public, where at home, she's just trying to make the situation better. It's the norm.

I do know that meltdowns are more dramatic, and often end with a little chaos and destruction.

What does a melt down look like in public vs at home?


The same, increased stimming, vocal stimming maybe, pacing, aggression, irritability, hypersensetivity increased.

What does a shut down look like in public vs at home?

The same, limpness, often mute or very quiet, sensory hyposensetivity, a "white noise" in your head or no thoughts at all, internal monologue ceases

Is shut down an official autism term? or is it something coined?

It's not official, but it's recognised by professionals as real.

Does a melt down have to be explosive and loud? And if it's quite, doesn't that make it a shut down? Is a shut down just a type of melt down?

A shut down is like an overloaded meltdown, and inside meltdown. a meltdown is a very very bright light, a shutdown is a light that got so bright that it shorted out and now everything is dark.

I've had both of these before. I hate meltdowns, it's like you want to fight the emotions that are there, but they win and you explode.

Shutdown happens for me when way too much goes on, usually something bad, at the same time. I call it "brain goes bye bye".

The only time my hypersensitivity increases is when I have a psychosis episode. Someone has actually suggested to me before I wasn't really psychotic, I had a bad meltdown, but yeah, it included delusions so I don't know, but my hearing was so loud during this time, that if that is normal autistic hearing I don't know how people could live.

This is interesting, I had a freakout last week and I didn't know what it was. Looking back at it was a meltdown, I freaked out about exams and flipped out. I'm never agressive but I got very angry and was panicked :S

No idea about meltdowns.

I don't know if what happens to me would qualify as a shutdown, but it seems pretty close. My mind goes blank, the stuff people are saying ceases to go in, I cease to respond, and I just don't know how to describe it at the time, or what to do about it.....I just want to get away, but no doubt doing that would annoy somebody, so I don't usually. It feels like paralysis in the brain.

This sounds exactly like what I do when someone's talking something at me that I don't want to respond to. Usually something to do with relationships or emotions. All the muscles in my face go slack, so I'm not showing what I'm feeling, and I kind of zone out and stare into the middle distance and don't react to anything. When the topic of conversation is changed, I come back.

Sounds like the one....I don't notice any face muscle changes though. And I might not "come back" until I've got away from the source of the trouble.

But I suspect everybody does it to some extent.....if I remember right, it's normal for a child to switch off if you nag him. My shutdowns might just be a normal habit acquired during childhood. What makes Aspie shutdowns different to that?

I havent had anything that sounds like a meltdown for a while, but a year ago I was writing a paper and I couldnt tell if what I was writing was really mine because a teacher had read out a paper on the same topic...
Anyways, I was burnt out, had spent 2 hrs in social interaction (play practice) and about halfway through that paper I just completely burnt out. I was sobbing, felt overwhelmed, cursed the play, the assignment, anything. I hated it. I just felt so overwhelmed and exhausted I just snapped.

I've never been one to get angry or aggressive with other people (that they know about...blare rap music outside my bedroom window and I will pray that you die) but when I really freak out I'll tend to do something like repeat the same phrase over and over, or rock or do some other kind of repetitive motion (like run my fingers through my hair over and over again really quickly) or just outright curl up in a ball. the big thing is repeating words or phrases to myself or sometimes just murmuring nonsense. the cadence matters more than the meaning of the words usually, so sometimes it's snatches of poetry but usually it's just random. I don't know if this counts as either a shut down or a meltdown but it happens all the time.

I'm only going to respond to the comparison part.

Shut downs usually consist of curling up into a ball and rocking, or hiding under something. Talking is no longer used, vocal stimming is sometimes. Shut downs are a little bit like compressing the anger instead. I vocal stim VERY often, though. Meltdowns consist of expressing the emotions, and sometimes they end up destructive. People that don't know what it is may think that it is a tantrum, which is very irritating, and not correct.

I don't really have "melt-downs" any more although I did when I was a teenager, and they were just where something would happen that would cause so much emotion, like anger or frustration, that I just couldn't deal with it, so I'd go into irrational screaming destruction mode and I'd find it very hard to calm down.

These days if something freaks me out or I have emotions I can't deal with I will go into a "shut-down" which might just be zoning out and staring into space and being quite unresponsive, or on a kind of "automatic pilot" or zombie-mode as I call it, where I'm still functioning but I'm not really there if that makes sense, like I kind of retreat into my head and my body carries on without me for a bit. If it's really bad then I find myself unable to actually talk at all which is very difficult. I'm generally fine once I've had some time at home on my own though

The terms aren't used consistently.

In general, a meltdown and shutdown seem to involve the same internal process, but a meltdown tends to involve yelling and acting out, while a shutdown involves inability to act. But I've also heard meltdown used for both states.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's so hard when people think it's a tantrum. It's bad enough that you have to go through the meltdown and then you have to deal with the feelings of people thinking you are having a tantrum. I hate that.