First things that shutdown in a partial or a full shutdown?

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For me, as normally they come on me slowly. Not quite gradually, but I can hold them off from going deep for a while... But the first thing I find that a partial shutdown effects is my balance. I start to walk as if I am drunk or have the flu.
What are the first notidable things you find shutting down? Or are your shutdowns rather sudden?

If I'm having to interact with other people, I usually notice it first with speaking and/or following other people's speech. It gets harder and harder to find words, especially names for people and places, and I can't get them out without lots of pauses and repetitions, or start saying things but can't finish my sentences. What happens with hearing speech is really hard to describe - I kind of know that the noises are meant to be words still, and sometimes little bits of meaning come to me, a bit like everyone has suddenly started speaking a foreign language (but also not like that! )

Besides that; the same as you, my co-ordination goes completely wonky, and navigating around gets tricky - as if I can't quite judge the size and arrangement of things in the space around me (and it has been confused with being drunk quite a few times!) I have to be careful with this, because if the shut-down turns into a melt-down, I'm likely to run off, but I won't have a clue where I'm going because nowhere looks familiar any more - I've sometimes ended up miles away.

At the same time, it can be very odd what get's preserved. I've been able to read and write sometimes even though I can't understand people talking. There was one time where I was even able to write myself a note before crashing to bed, but I couldn't read what I'd written (I assumed I had also forgotten how to write; so I gave up on my "scribbling", only to find that I could read it the next morning - it wasn't exactly my best hand-writing, but it was rather a weird surprise!)

Trogluddite! Yay! You're here! I was so concerned that you had dissapeared! So glad to see you back.

Aah, thanks MG - I don't mean to freak anyone out. I don't even really realise that I've left sometimes. It's almost a shut-down kind of thing itself - like the "forum" bit of my brain just wears out until I just can't communicate that way for a bit. I get so introverted sometimes that I'm sure I'll turn myself inside-out one of these days!

Don't turn yourself inside out.

Like Trogluddite, for me it's listening to people. I just can't focus on other people's chatter anymore.

Do you find it worse when more then one person is talking at the same time?

I definitely do. The burble of lots of people talking is one of the most oppressive sounds in the world to me - something I often have to go and hide from so that it doesn't close in around me and set off a shut-down or melt-down. It's the same trying to talk to someone when they've got the TV or radio playing voices in the background, or the sound of it coming through the walls from a neighbours house.

A room full of talking people.