non-verbal following shutdown

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I had a HUGE meltdown today, followed by one of the biggest shutdowns I've ever experienced. Now I am non-verbal. I don't know how long it will last, but I just feel as though I *can't* talk right now. I haven't spoken in almost two hours, and even if I try to squeeze out a word, it doesn't come. I've felt like I was possibly going non-verbal before, but it's never actually happened. Has this happened to anyone else or am I just losing my mind?!?!

I understand exactly what your talking about...it happens to all of us....what triggered the meltdown?

Yes I have had meltdowns so severe I just couldn't speak for a while afterwards.

It was building up for days with a few minor meltdowns over the last week. I think the final bit tonight was a very unexpected change in my routine that I didn't like.

How long does the non-verbal period generally last for you?

your writing doesn't look nonverbal.

2 hours isn't a very long time.

It has lasted up to 3 hours and then I become minimally verbal saying very little short responses

Huh?? Writing and speaking are not the same thing. I know how to type (I also know how to speak--I just can't right now). There are many non-verbal autistic people that have been non-verbal their entire lives and write very coherently, no different from you or me.

I tend to lose speech in shutdowns. It tends to not be very long, but it does tend to happen regularly. I tend to regain speech not long after a shutdown ends - for me it tends to be about a half hour after, but its taken a few hours before.

I'd expect you to have your speech back by the morning though.

It's happened to me, too. It hasn't happened for years, so I'm not sure how long it takes before I can speak again.

Usually I just partially lose the ability to speak. I can get out a word or two, but not the ones I want to say, and I can't get them out clearly (they come out slurred and/or stuttered). When this happens, it seems to take several hours before my ordinary speech comes back.

Writing and speaking are two different skills. They don't use the same part of the brain - when I lose speech (which is somewhat frequently) I can usually still write, and I've only lost writing a couple of times during/after a shutdown.

Littlelily613,

I lose speech after shutdowns a few times a month - sometimes more frequently. A couple weeks ago I lost speech three days in a row and lost writing on one of those days. I've started a couple of threads about it, and others have as well. Here's what I can find right offhand:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt148895.html
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt183281.html

I can't find the thread I actually started on losing speech, nor can I seem to find SuperTrouper's thread on similar.

Here's a thread you started where the topic came up.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt175159.html

This does happen to other people.

Do you think they are more closely coupled in some people or maybe the other way around, de-coupled in others? The reason I say is that when writing (ignoring the mechanics of pen to paper/fingers to keyboard) I must engage the same part of my brain as I use for speech. I cannot imagine it any other way: As I think through the words I wish to write I can almost hear it and I feel an urge to actually speak those thoughts, as in my jaw, tongue and lips want to move.

Yes, I experiences it too that I loose my speech, especially in a shutdown-situation. I had it already as a child. The longest lost of speech took two days. Sometimes it is just a couple hours.
Is there a correlation to or is it "selective mutism". I read that once you got dx with autism, selective mutism is not getting dx anymore, but I just wonder if the loose of speech in a shutdown-situation is the same thing.
Is there a higher prevalence of selective mutism in autistic people than in neurotypic people?

Selective mutism is about not speaking in a specific place but the person can speak somewhere they feel more comfortable in. Losing speech in a shutdown has less to do with anxiety but is just a reaction when everything becomes so overloaded. You can lose the ability to talk with migraines and seizures and stroke but selective mutism is due to severe anxiety. You can still have the ability to talk but in a shutdown it's like you don't know if you will ever be able to talk again.
With me it's like motor fatigue and I get it in my limbs as well. So I can't talk and can't move any limbs at all.

My writing also tends to regress. Sometimes it doesn't but most times it does.

Thank you for your answer.
I guess, I display both.

-shutdown coming from internal or external overload and I am also unable to move, often close my eyes.
-not being able to speak because of anxiety in certain circumstances or with certain people.
-severe speech-delay (because my mind cannot make words up anymore) because of overload or anxiety and mixing languages in my head or start pronouncing words wrong.
When I go to my psychologist, I have to take the train and I often get very overloaded by that. So when I am there, I often cannot speak anymore and do very strong stims. But I am also anxious, though I like her, because I have to face someone and talk and talk about "feelings" and I find it very hard to do. Sometimes I need 30 minutes until I am able to talk again. She knows now that she cannot ask me "How are you?", because it makes me mute, because I do not know how to answer it.

I think they're related processes. Sometimes I feel like writing things out or talking to myself is a way to take things from one part of my brain and make them accessible to another part. I sometimes say what I'm typing as I'm typing it, but this is not as common as thinking out loud when I can't type.

But I find my ability to express myself in writing far exceeds my ability to express myself verbally, and my ability to actually write down what I want to communicate exceeds my ability to say it.

This kind of reminds me of what happens to me during speech shutdowns: http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/med532/Broca.htm