Shutdown questions

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For those that experience shutdown - what usually triggers it?
I was almost at this point last night, and it occurred to me that it seems to be caused by some form of social cue. If I am alone, I don't get shutdown (that I can recall.) It has to be inspired by some kind of social interaction, or an effect of the human social system, that I can't handle. It must involve other people in some way.
Then I wondered about the relationship between shutdown and stress. Is this caused by stress, for all of you, or something else? Is it just what you would consider stressful (which may be very different to "normal" sources of stress) or any kind of stress? Is it caused by a single event, or is it more the end product of a build up of things?
My experience last night was over nothing, just stupid petty things that shouldn't have worried me, but I think it may have been due to a build up I wasn't aware of, and this just pushed me over the edge.
But it did make me highly suspect of my abilities to do anything in future, if I can be almost shut down by something as inconsequential as this was. And I was around others, which was embarrassing.
I'm wondering if autistics prone to shutdown can deal with stress, just can't deal with a build up of same, or with certain kinds of socially based stress?
I don't know, I really don't understand this reflex, when I can be fine in traditionally stressful situations where most people are losing their minds, but can completely shutdown in comparatively minor situations. It doesn't inspire confidence in one's own abilities to cope.
Also this time I had an odd after-effect. The next day and I still feel spaced out and drugged, and my skin is all sensitive. Anyone else get this?

I usually get mine when I feel stressed out or frustrated about something. I also might get them if I'm in a noisy environment. When I was younger I would start crying because of meltdowns, but I don't really have meltdowns in front of other people now.

My shutdowns are a response to overload, be it social, sensory, or both. I will crawl inside my head and it becomes very difficult to focus on anything outside of myself. If possible, I take myself somewhere isolated, dark, and quiet, and it usually takes me half an hour at minimum to come out of it.

Personally, my shutdowns are responses to more long-term low-level stresses.

My meltdown type reactions are to changes, or from feeling unprepared for things, but shutdowns are more a reaction to 'pressures'. Primarily I get them when I'm overwhelmed by a task, such as cleaning and not being able to prioritise and work out what to do, or by being in a crowded place and getting overwhelmed.

I'm exhausted from shutdowns until I next sleep, but I don't think I have any symptoms that continue into new days.

Basically from getting overloaded, like a circuit breaker tripping.

an overload will trigger a shutdown indeed.
i can feel a meltdown coming before it happens, and if i feel like it's reaching a threshold, i will (sometimes deliberately) shutdown instead, to cool off and prevent melting down (which happend a few times, and is scary as all hell)

Mostly arise from social overload where I suddenly find I'm not coping anymore, even I feel like I had been coping fine up until that point. Then something just stops working and I "can't do it" anymore. I withdraw into myself, find myself not speaking or responding much anymore, in the worse cases I can't even remove myself, I just freeze, stare at something as long as it isn't human, my non-responsiveness gets people thinking I'm being a b***h, but I find I'm locked inside myself. It's like being locked inside myself, frozen in that state. It's trance-like in an unpleasant way.

Sometimes it happens after a social event, in the privacy of home, which is preferable because then I can't offend anyone with my non-responsiveness. I find I coped all the way through, saying and doing all the "normal" things, but when I get home I feel zombie like -- instead of even change out of my clothes, settle in for my usual habits, start making my evening meal or whatever, I tend to just sit down on the couch and stare ahead, or put on the TV but pay no attention to it.

Other times I come home and just pace around, agitated and monologuing what I could have said differently.

Either way, I can't seem to just resume whatever I would have been doing after getting home. My evening can be ruined because I just get trapped in this miserable trance of overwhelm. It eventually fades by itself, kind of like a headache sometimes goes away by itself.

I can also get shutdowns from sensory issues -- last bad one for that was when I was on an overcrowded subway train even though I had thought I would be avoiding rush hour (it's 'rush hour' for hours in my city). The sheer loud noise of the train, the fact that it was a long journey -- 40 minutes -- and I was crowded in by people and I'm short so that makes it an even more claustrophobic experience, it all just closed in on me and I found myself curling down physically, and in the frozen trance again. I couldn't look up I just felt in hell from the noise and the proximity and the length of time it was all going on.

Anxiety.

"But it did make me highly suspect of my abilities to do anything in future, if I can be almost shut down by something as inconsequential as this was."

^Yup. It's grand (ie: maddening) when this thought then triggers the very anxiety that causes me to be unable to do something. Then when trying to deal with it, I try to not think of doing things because that makes me think of if I -can- do those things, which then leads to not being able to do that thing. But the solution of 'not thinking about it' ie: avoidance, to avoid the anxiety, creates the other problem of then that I do not do things because I do not think of doing them. I literally get stuck in my head, trapped in bed from this s**t.

This is why I cannot practice avoidance anymore, but must face my anxiety and work on positive/happy ways to reduce it if I am not to be bed ridden.

This is also why socializing for me is so important also. Outward stimulation breaks the cycle naturally. This is why I have clung to boyfriends under a guise of love (semi-known to me only), because I trust them to love me enough so that they won't harm me but I don't trust the vast majority of people. And the degree to which this is an issue for me means that living with the person and spending a lot of time with them, and -not- being alone, naturally and easily solves this problem I have.