Shutdowns. What do they feel like?

Post Reply New Topic

Do you get autistic shutdowns? What do they feel like? What triggers them?
I am asking as I believe (With help from Daniel and others on here) that what I describe as energy loss are likely to be autistic shut downs. If they are, then I have just found the key to 40 years of trying to find out what they are (As I first remember having one when I was seven years old, though I may have had one before that).

I apologise to those of you who have suggested this before and I have been slow to catch on, as I tend to repeat similar threads in different ways to hope to find someone who can explain things in such an angle that I can fully understand as things like this are never easy to describe in an understandable way.
And thank you all for your replies in advance just incase I miss one of you!

To me a shut down is when I can't think or process anything and can't deal with it.

I was expelled from a Catholic seminary because of them. Fluorescent light bulbs are my biggest trigger.

Picture a classroom at a university--doors open, students filing in, bunch of them are men wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts. Those are the seminarians. Then last in comes Yours Truly in a straw boater hat and a thrift-store suit, dragging a hard-sided briefcase full of books, piling the whole mess into a chair at the back. About halfway through the class I'm back there writing, the Prof. is talking, and the whole thing begins to blur. Shutdown procedures are initiated.

My eyes hurt. I can't keep them open.

The clock is moving too slow.

Now the professor's voice is rising and falling on graph-paper waves in an empty world. It's a voice now, not words, and I can't make out a bit of it. "Aristotle" now suggests a mental image more corresponding to the waking definition of "song-sparrow."

My fountain pen has drooped down and the ink is leaking out onto the paper.

The world hums and then goes black.

Someone touches me. "Wake up!"
"I'm not asleep, dammit!" I hiss back. I rub off where they touched me. "And don't you EVER touch me again."

I hate people touching me. I worry if it's because people will think I'm gay. I'm not gay but due to my frumpy 1920s clothes and outdated Victorian ethics and perpetual celibacy and stiff, affected walk I have a visceral fear of being thought of as such. I go back to my room in the dormitory. J. next door is listening to rap music. I can hear it through the walls. I put a cylinder of "Selections from The Mikado" on my old Edison phonograph and crank it up. The thinly scratchy sound drowns out the thumping beat from next door, and halfway through "Three Little Maids from School" I'm loving the music.

Up on the desk the alarm clock is reading that I have to go for a meeting with the clerics. I go, ten minutes late because I forgot to wind the clock. Fr. W. complains about my perpetual "Resting B---h Face."

After dinner I'm back in my room. It's silent. The laundry's piled up for three days. I get a phone call from home and it's a bunch of stuff I try to put on a nice front for everybody but they think I'm faking it all--that all I do or enjoy is a false front, a phony, a way to hide from Reality because I'd be so much happier wearing glorified underwear and playing football and if I didn't stay up late I'd not fall asleep.

I go to bed. The laundry is still there. I wish I had actually gone ahead and shot myself that day I was sixteen, feel bad for thinking something evil like that. On the dresser the alarm clock quits ticking. I am too lethargic to get up and wind it and I narrowly miss chapel at six-thirty next morning.



NOTE! If you want anything approaching a reasonably normal life, fellow Aspies, go and get yourself checked out by a psych. You'll live a lot happier. Also, I wear Gunnar computer glasses constantly now. They're a lifesaver.

Thanks. I am on a list go get checked. I am hoping the length of the waiting list will reduce as they have opened another assessment centre. I don't like waiting a long time. Especially as I wanted a yes or no answer from my doctor. It took me over two years to ask if I had the condition or not...
Something you mentioned... First if all about hearing. I have had that but it is rare and does not last long. I only get it when I have gone into energy loss mode where I am either on the floor or close to being on the floor, and if I try to carry on and pretend it is not happening, I find that my vision starts to go (Dulling until it becomes black) with a loud tinitus type sound from a mid pitch to a low pitch where the pitch lowers as the vision blackens.
Not really knowing what I get was related to a shutdown, for most of my life I have been altering my diet assuming what I get to be allergy related as a doctor many years ago told me it was some sort of allergy.
In recent months (Years) I have been stressed (It is only the last few years I know it is called stress as I am not that good at knowing what I feel). More stressed then before. At the moment I get these shutdowns several times a day though only now and then do I go deep into one. As from the point of first feeling one begin to the point of actually being on the ground waiting to recover is not straight asay, I can look for somewhere to go where I can be alone, but not always as when I last had a part time job they once or twice needed me on the shop floor where I had no escape! I got myself into a bit of trouble as another staff member was trying to give me instructions as I was coming out of one of these where as I couldn't lie down to properly recover, I had to try to work through it and crouch down to make it look like I was doing something with the shelves... The other staff member who was giving me instructions said something, and I had to ask him to repeat it a few times. He then said "Do you understand?" and as I was desperate to recover and wanted not to think for a while I said "Yes" so I didn't have to use my mind as the instructions were just not going in.
After semi recovering where I was in a bit of a drunk state (My walking was a bit all over the place at first) and I went and did the very thing he didn't want me to do, as I was in a semi dream world, as I had gone deep into the energy loss situation which I now believe to be a shut down.
It is only really yesterday that I realized these are shut downs. While they don't normally last long as I find I can delay or reduce the effects of them by eating chocolate or something like that and having a sugary fizzy drink. When I last worked, due to the stresses at work I was almost continually eating these little chocolate sweets... Just to get me through the day, as I was normally working out the back next to the large air conditioning unit. Though I don't like sounds and prefer quiet, I found the constant loud noise of the unit to be a dream. It actually drowned out all other distracting sounds and ir was absolutely bliss, even though it took an hour or so for my ears to come to after leaving the noise at the end of the shift. It was absolute bliss! And though my work normally requires me to listen to sounds like rubbing noises etc whilw I assemble and adjust bicycles, so I now had to concentrate more visibly on what I was doing in the poor light of the warehouse (They do have a little torch to use if one needs to see the shadow side of the bike though holding the torch while making adjustments is not easy!). The other staff there were turning the AC off and putting the radio on so they could work. I was the odd one in that it was radio off, and AC on so I would drown out the voices of customers and staff on the shop floor which is a thin wall.

So the energy loss events I get... They have to be shut downs as for years I habe been tested for other things like diabetis, amenia etc. Nothing else fits. Nothing else makes sense of the symptoms I get. And shutdowns fit.

For me, even laying still in a dark room is hell. I can't think at all, my brain turns into a scrambled whirling mess. If I close my eyes I "see" crazy patterns of colored light with random objects thrown in. My whole body tingles and hums uncomfortably and my spine feels itchy almost. My ears throb and any sound feels like a needle driving in there. I can't talk because my brain is a tornado. Phrases get stuck on a loop for hours at a time and I can't stop them. I can't sleep, eat, interact, everything is out of control. To an outsider though I would be all curled up and unresponsive.

It's like being stuck on WIlly Wonka's boat for an hour or two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s62msrPjSVY

It's like the body becomes one with the state of mind in hiding in a rock.
That's what I think.
Am I wrong?

I've felt this before (what I wrote).

No idea. I don't even know for sure that if what I get could be a shut down. I don't get what Bluesky is describing. CaThar4G... I can't relate to that. I will have to think for a while to try to think of past experiences to see if I relate to it or not.
I can half relate to Borromeo because even though what I get is not quite the same it is almost similar, and League Girl.. When I go deep into energy loss (As I call it) my mind seems closed to the outside world until I start to recover. So maybe CaThar4G... Maybe I do get where you are coming from there.

Thank you all for the replies. The more replies I get the more I can understand if what I get relates or does not relate to a shutdown. I filly understand and expect other peoples experiences to be different and that they will by nature be hard to describe.

For me a meltdown is primarily emotional dysregulation. But a shutdown is sensory overload, like my senses become so powerful I can't filter anything out, and I can hear, see, smell, and touch (not taste) things that no one else is even aware of. I become somewhat slow as a result so it looks like I've "closed" to other people.

Umm. I am coming to a conclusion here. Maybe what I describe has nothing to do with anything related on the autism spectrum and has some other source which is causing it. Umm. I maybe back to square one. Oh gosh. Don't you just hate things like this! Ah well. I am no worse off and I have learnt a bit which can't be a bad thing.

I think I'm going through some sort of shutdown now, but I think it's due to PMT, seasonal depression and not socialising enough. Yes, I get seasonal depression in June because it's the month of the summer solstice and I know that after the 21st the days will become shorter, slowly but surely. I hate the dark. And this weekend I haven't been out the house and I'm feeling rather disconnected, which has also contributed to this temporary depression.

I just feel down lately. All I want to do is watch DVDs, write stories, talk to someone about everything and anything, or sleep. Also I keep feeling easily irritated at human/human-made noises outside, like kids shouting, people talking, doors slamming and car engines starting. And I just feel sensitive. I snapped at my boyfriend for telling me to be quiet while the TV is on. I can't sit still or focus, which is frustrating when I want to focus on my writing. I want to sleep but I've slept so much in the last 2 days that I've now run out of sleepiness.

This probably isn't autism shutdown. I'm just saying how I'm feeling at the moment.

Mountain Goat,

Very likely you are having shutdowns. Autism is a spectrum. I was diagnosed autistic but am likely on the Aspergers' side of things. We all experience life differently as humans, and autism-spectrum disorders make it a little different for each one of us.

Hope it all goes well for you. Diagnosis can be freeing, for then healing can begin. I do not mean cures, but putting autism to work for you in your life.

Wow. I never looked up the official description of an autistic shutdown before tonight. I had no idea that there might be a word for my "stress narcolepsy" as we began to call it in my family. Whenever I was studying for an exam, and often in the exam itself, I would feel overwhelmed and immediately fall asleep. I fell asleep on the ACT, the SAT, and AP English exams. It really negatively impacted my scores to be honest. I never considered whether this is related to ASD, but it makes a lot of sense now to think about it. Maybe.

Thanks Borromeo. I am really puzzled at the moment... Umm. I do have a long wait to be assessed. So you lot are stuck with me for a while yet.... Haha! (Sorry.. I hope no one minds me if I sometimes repeat things to tey to get a clear picture for myself, and I am rather like a terrier who does not give up if I latch onto a subject, until I am satisfied thag I have explored and learnt all I need to learn about it).

Fern... I am really glad what others have put makes sense to you. I am glad that my asking the initial question has opened up possibilities to explain things, and to this effect I say from me a HUGE THANK YOU to all who have replied.

Mountain Goat,

Different shutdowns happen to different people at different times. It sounds like what you are calling "energy loss" IS a shutdown because of that bit about "your mind closes to the outside world until you recover." So likely your brain overdoses on stimuli from whatever's putting it in and then you can't handle it and you shut off.

A meltdown is, like Wrongcitizen said, "primarily emotional dysregulation." Both are very autistic symptoms.

In Guns and Ammo Magazine lately there was a U.S. Marine's experience of getting in a shoot-out with some Afghani soldiers. The report sounded like an autistic shutdown (or, I should say, an autistic showdown?) Gunshots were muffled thuds, distance and space perception was altered, and a few other like symptoms. Neurotypicals experience shutdowns too, but their over-stimulation threshold is much higher than it is for autistics.

caThar4G, I like your description. It doesn't get that bad for me often, unless pure hell is breaking loose. Usually I tend to be more "fight" than "flight" when it gets that bad...

Mountain Goat--I worked in a place like that but there was no AC. The building was a very old car dealership from back in the thirties or forties. It had been converted to a parts store. In the back was an old radio that they kept tuned to the local country station on FM, and country music is obnoxious. I kept turning it off so I could be alone and the icemaker could drown out the noise. Unfortunately there were a lot of wannabe frat-boys living around there bumping bass from their cars, loud mufflers, automobiles backfiring frequently (tuners set the engines up to run rough because it sounds cool) and even a few car crashes. I now have a different job and if that old parts store were on fire and I had water, I'd drink it. Did enjoy learning to fix my old 90s compact car though.

You're probably autistic OP but that's not the worst thing in the world. Remember this--you are probably highly sensitive. Put that to work. They say these days that it's terrible to be "too sensitive" but imagine a Jane Austen novel with a callous boor as the hero, or a Sherlock Holmes story with an ignorant goof living in the house on Baker Street.
No, it's not the worst thing at all.

What I call a shutdown for me is when my mind pretty much withdraws, or, well, shuts down, and I go kind of on "autopilot." For example, in high school I might have one during passing period and have no recollection of actually getting to class, but I did, or I might "wake up" to find myself most of the way to the wrong class. Usually it is sensory overload that triggers them for me.