Shut downs

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When I feel upset or am having sensory issues I sometimes start to have trouble functioning. I don't think I really show that I'm upset and I don't really have meltdowns around other people like I did when I was little. They can happen a lot though and can last a while. I want to learn how to manage them better because I think it's causing a lot of problems for me. I feel like this will effect any new job I might have or any time that I would need to learn something new. It also causes people to treat me badly and feel sorry for me.

Here are some of the symptoms:

-I start to become more clumsy and awkward
-I don't pay much attention to my surroundings and have trouble seeing things that are in front of me
-I have more trouble figuring things out that are simple and processing information
-My short term memory becomes much worse
-My judgement isn't very good
-I struggle more with looking at others and interacting

WTF!! !!you've just described what's been happening to me this past few days to the very last detail....but I'm better now except for this empty stare that I've been doing lately similar to the times when I was using m3th...I don't know if this is obvious to my co workers though....I hope not...so that was a shut down...I thought the time that I was almost catatonic for three days straight was a shut down...hmmmnnn...maybe it was just extreme mental fatigue after all.... OK now I'm interested...

I've always has shut downs so I can relate to everything you've posted. When I was much younger I would occasionally have meltdowns but it was always at home In front of my parents - never in public because I was brought up to be polite and well-behaved and would've been in so much trouble if I'd have had a tantrum in public.

When I had shut downs at school, my teachers and peers would become very angry and aggressive towards me which would make me withdraw even more. I'd usually end up running into the toilets but the girls would chase after me screaming abuse and banging on the door which would always give me a panic attack and leave me in tears.

The teachers always took their side because they were able to pretend and manipulate whereas I was guileless and just told the truth. As time went by, I had to try harder to make my shut downs less noticeable and because this took up so much mental energy, my school work suffered which created more problems for me.

When I started high school, I'd managed to mask my shut downs quite effectively and everyone thought I was 'just shy'. Even though I underperformed academically, some of my teachers quite liked me because I was so well-behaved.

I'd started to receive a bit of attention from the boys, but because they didn't get the reaction they wanted (flirting), they eventually ignored me. That saved me from being bullied too much by the girls because they didn't consider me a threat.

People aren't as aggressive when I have them, but it seems like a lot of them are less respectful to me than when I'm not having them. Part of it might be the mood that I'm in, but I can tell that I get treated differently. I don't know how obvious it is though. I can still talk and do things, but it's more difficult.

I completely shutdown when my mom died, I was living with my sister, she made everything worse with the way she treated me & make me feel, I'm positive she didn't take her pills, it wasn't right what she called me. I was walking around the house feeling like a zombie.

By the way...how does a shutdown differ from PTSD...?because it feels more post traumatic stress than anything else...

It has been difficult for me to talk today (shut down mode). This morning I learned that one of my favorite vacation spots was on fire, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. So I followed that on the news all day. Then there was the Brazilian soccer team jet crash. And there was yesterday's news about the Ohio State attack. All this bad stuff just begins to take its toll on me. And I am now in shut down mode.

I think with PTSD you have flashbacks.