Good And Bad.

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The Good Things And The Bad Things.

The good thing is I am 100% certain I know one of the trigger to the shutdown experience. I am shaky and sweaty (Clammy) as I write this and I have fought off a total shutdown. I am lying on my bed having abandoned the things I was doing.

Now I was starting to work on the car but this in itself was not the main reason why I got into difficulty. I had a ratchet spanner which is worn so I decided if I could get it working again as it is the only one I have to use with the larger sockets that I have. So I went into the barn where the vice was as I needed to use the vice. My brother was working in there and the paint fumes from the white paint got the better of me and I had to come out. I wasn't in there for long!
By the time I got to the house I knew I was partly shutting down and getting close to a full shut down.
Certain paints (Actually certain colours) effect me more then others. The white he was using really effected me! I do get issues when I paint my models, so I have to take it easy so I don't expose myself for too long.

The good thing is that I am now more then 100% certain that smell is a shutdown trigger. It is not just a theory anymore. It is a fact. The good thing is, that I can protect myself so if I start to smell paint fumes I can open all windows and doors etc. I had just been recovering indoors when my nephew brought in the paint brush to clean it, and I went and it is why I ended up trying to get up the stairs while stimming like mad and now lying down. Oh boy! But how come they can work ok in the paint fumes and they don't get issues with it?
Just one niff was enough for me!

Anyway. When I feel less limp so I can stand up without flopping back into limp mode, I am going to grab some crisps and biscuits to help me pull out of it. Uhmm. Just heard a bee or/and a waspy thing come in through the window and I can't do anything about it. Ooh. Its decided to go. Ok. At least I am not clammy any more. The clammy stage has left me.
Ooh. It may not have been a bee. A fly just flew round to check I was ok. It must have been the fly throwing its voice.

Smells can cause afwul overstimulation. I'm prone to chemical fumes, my husband gets meltdowns on "biological" smells. We try to keep our environment fragrance-free.
I hope you will be able to explain the issue to your family and they respect it.

I am not sure if they all realize or believe me, but to be honest, it is something which used to be a mystery to me as to why it was happening. It has been a massive leap forward to know one of the triggers. The first leap forward for me was finding out that it was shutdowns that I was experiencing. Then to realize I had been going through burnout. It was a horrible experience that I have hit a few times but had not been able to explain to doctors or anyone else how I felt in a way that they would understand. (It had been the story of my life in regards to the shutdown experience).
So I am soo greatful to understand what has been happening and what causes the experiences. A massive leap forwards in my life.

I know this. I'm poor at recognizing my own internal states and this was my revelation of the kind:
I high school, on some afternoons, I started feeling like no one loved me.
Then, I noticed, it happened always after I skipped lunch.
I didn't feel hungry. I felt unloved. But hunger was the cause.

For years I didn't make the connection. My Mum mentioned it in the past that I get issues after painting. The thing is that normally, at the time when ones mind starts shutting down, one is not thinking straight to work it out. One goes into survival mode I guess.

Thanks Magz for the replies. Appreciated.

Never had a smell trigger a shutdown - not even sure I've ever had a full-blown shutdown. I put quite a bit of energy into keeping away from any smell I don't like. That might come from working in a laboratory most of my life, so if there was anything smelly then I figured it might be toxic and I'd leave the room. As time went by they got more aware of containing toxic vapours, and made people use fume cupboards a lot more, so it ceased to be much of a problem. I'm rather averse to weird smells anywhere else as well, not trusting the safety of a lot of the modern stuff that a lot of people chuck about with gay abandon.

When I do get trapped with a stink, I think my reactions are fairly normal, though I might be less able to screen it out. It's often hard to differentiate between sensory issues and my enhanced concern about the safety of inhaling nasty stuff. I don't particularly mind the smell of paint as such, or solvents in general, in fact I find a lot of them quite pleasant, but like I say I keep away from them. Like most of us I strongly dislike the smell of most animal faeces, including the human variety, and would likely feel nausea if I couldn't get away from it. I hate it if the smell of wash powder leaks into the kitchen from the washing machine, even the chemical-free stuff, there's something about the humidity and the smell of the soap combined that I just have to get away from. Ditto for bleach, even in trace amounts, and air "fresheners" - even if I trusted those, I suspect I'd still hate them. Don't get me started about that muck the farmers put all over the land. I don't know how they've got the cheek. But it merely puts me in a bad mood if I can't get away from it for a while. Some plastics make me feel a tad sick - there was a new videotape hire shop that had tons of brand new tapes in plastic boxes, and I waited a few weeks before I went in there very much, so that the stink had subsided a bit. Some kinds of herbal tea bother me - not usually the simple traditional ones but the modern weird concoctions. I hate cigar smoke, even in traces, and that makes me feel sick, though not ordinary tobacco smoke, and I like the smell of fresh unburned tobacco.

I think all in all it's the same story as it is for a lot of these triggers for shutdowns and meltdowns - I've always been riddled with mild discomforts such as nausea, overheating, aching and itching, and I've had a strong tendency to avoid as many of the environmental ones as possible so that they don't add to my already uncomfortable state, and I've been determined, stubborn and privileged enough to be fairly successful in my comfort management apart from those innate things I can't quite control, and that might well be why I haven't had all that much trouble with anxiety, depression, shutdowns or meltdowns. Basically I just habitually try hard to make sure people don't mess up my sensitively-organised environment, and what little they do get past the goalie isn't enough to do more than give me a headache or a filthy mood occasionally. No doubt it also explains why I'm so reclusive even though in principle I like company.

It is strange with smells with me. Ooh. Bleach and hospital smells can send me into shutdowns. My Mum cant use bleach in the house without first having me spend a few hours outside so the smell can disperse so I can come back in.
Clothes and carpet shops are also a smell trigger for me.

But what is strange is that my ability to smell is not as good as some people I know, so it is not that my smell itself is hypersensitive in a smelling sort of way. It is more that if I do smell certain smells they trigger a shutdown, and it is not that I don't find the smells unpleasant, as a few smells that are triggers I actually like. So it is not me emotionally reacting. In the same way I can hit farmyard smells or worse and yet they do not trigger me to shutdown. Yet if I had to use bleach on a farm I would be on the floor unable to get up, as bleach is one of the most powerful triggers.
I usually have just enough time to get out of the area before I shut down, so I can recover in a safer enviroment. Worst case scinario is shutting down in the enviroment of the trigger as when I come to I go straight back into another shutdown.

I'm very sensitive to smell, like you are. My sense of smell isn't "better" than most people, but I can get very ill in the presence of any scent, even if it's nice. For example, I have a very hard time with the scent of anything roasting in an oven. Even if it smells good and I would normally want to eat it, I can't be around as it cooks. As a child I got very ill from the aroma of chicken, roast, or turkey in the oven. Most of the time I was so sick with migraines and nausea by the time the meal was ready, I couldn't eat (including Christmas dinners and special occasions). I am still this way now. If someone is making an oven-roasted meal for me I have to arrive at their house when the meal is ready to eat, and not beforehand. The scent of food roasting is just overwhelming, even though I like the smell (if that makes sense).

I'm also sensitive to the smell of chocolate and cocoa. I can't stand either smell and they can make me shut down or be sick in bed for the whole day, again with migraines and nausea but also sensory overload. Yesterday there was a small biscuit with some chocolate in the room with me and I didn't realise for several hours why I felt so sick. In this case it's a bit different because I don't like chocolate or cocoa, but the smell is still debilitating for sensory reasons.

The smell of roses is pretty but I can't tolerate having roses (or most flowers) indoors. People have sent me roses only to be upset when I have to throw them away. When the scent is indoors it's too concentrated and overwhelming. Outdoors in a garden with fresh air I might be able to tolerate it more.

There are other scents that I love and need, and I use them as a stim (e.g., Play Doh and finger paint). I also have a very good memory for scents and I can conjure / remember them at will even from decades before. When I see pictures of myself as a young child I can remember what each article of my clothing smelled like when it was first purchased.

It's weird how our minds process scent. It can definitely cause shutdowns and emotional triggers whether good or bad.

I had a friend who had nearly died from carbon monoxide. Forever after, he was hypersensitive to it. I have never had much sense of smell, or sensitivity to vapors, although I have been cautious when using solvents regularly. I did have hay fever, sometimes very bad, until I learned to drink some nettle tea during the season. The odd thing is that the effect takes five days to begin, but the symptoms are gone within seven.

Interesting what you say about the tea Dear One. I had nettle things to eat a few days ago.

Isabella. You seem very sensitive to smells. Oh cooking... Smells of veg oils cooking can turn on me and make me feel ill. Often I cant eat things that have been cooked in oil. It closes my throat up.

Oh, yeah. I'm OK with most solvents, and gasoline, but can't stand places with much spilled diesel oil (AKA kerosene, lamp oil, jet fuel, heating oil, etc.) If I smell barbecue, I try to hold my breath until I can find fresher air, and if I can't I wash out my nose as soon as possible. I don't conduct funerals in my stomach, and I don't like having a fine coating of abandoned pet in my airways either.