Shutdown Triggers.

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First of all my background. I have been having shutdowns through nearly all my life but until I came on this site, I never knew what they were called even though I have been back and fore to doctors who did not know either, and I found that shutdowns were soo difficult to describe.
(I found putting feelings into words that others could make sense of was not something I could do because what I was trying to describe was lept upon by doctors and others who assumed I was describing something else which was not the same).

So ok. I found out and through doing my own experiements, I have proved to myself several times that my experiences are defiately shutdowns (I can't deny it) and also that they have a cause.

But when I look back to around 40 odd years of having them, somehow in the past, most of the triggers that caused them I did not know until recently because I simply did not know what was going on, and the reason for this is that I was concentrating on the physical effects on me and it just never occurred to me that it was mental and physical.

Physical trigger causes a mental response which has a physical and mental outcome, though the triggers can be both physical and mental depending on what it is or was.

This was a giant leap forward for me. I am not stupid. I am intelligent enough, so why did this take me around 40 years to find out?

I think because I have never heard of shutdowns before I came on this site, and if I happened to see the word autism associated with shutdown, I would in the past (Because of the stereotype reasoning of what autism is) think to myself "It is not that" if I came across the word "Autism" and "Shutdown".

But how could I be soo blind for all these years? And how come I knew so little about the cause for so long? Because I had not heard that smells can cause shutdowns, though I knew I was in an enviroment that happened to have a certain smell when I started to shut down, it was like I did not link the trigger with the outcome? It is why it took me soo long, and it ONLY happened to be reading what others had said in here that I put two and two together.

(No idea what two and two together actually means other then in the context that it is used? Makes four? What does that have to do with anything? Why do we use this phraze? Why am I using a phraze where I do not know where it came from? Uhmmm!)


But anyway...

I am still trying to work out one trigger and I believe I have it. Flickering light.

I know some smells are triggers. I know sudden unexpected decision change is. I know other triggers which I can't think what they were... (it is 03.37hrs (AM)). Stress and anxiety. Yes. That is a trigger! And overthinking is another possible trigger?

But I did not realize it is flickering light... BUT oddly, I can get the flickering light causing a shutdown when cycling but not so much when driving a car. (I am thinking of when I drive or cycle on a sunny day going through trees).

Somehow from triggerpoint to a partial shutdown (And a full shutdown if I can't get out of the trigger zone) is relatively quick when cycling, but if I am driving it happens slow... So slow I can drive a good few miles before I need to pull in to take a break, so somehow physical activity makes the process happen much faster.
I relax a lot when driving which I find useful because if I have had a lot of stress along with shutdowns etc, a long drive will actually calm me down and pull me out of the anxiety along with the essence of shutdown (I call it shutdown daze) where I can be left with a type of foggy daze, where a 40 to 60 mile scenic countryside drive will refresh me.. As long as it does not involve city driving, and it s rare for me to drive through a city).

But anyway.

Does anyone else who has shutdown or meltdown triggers find that it took years to discover the cause? I guess with meltdowns it could be more obvious unless it happens to be a gradual stress build up throughout the day?

I am kind of like you--never really understood I had them and didn't know I had ASD. I have not given it a great deal of thought, but I guess it is really mental exhaustion where my endurance wears out. There seems to be a threshold. And the stress is negative, not simply working hard, but under more of a threat or hostility.

yes, it was not until after I knew about autism and thought I am probably autistic that I began to have "aha" moments. I learned that I have very little ability to process anything in motion/ real time, that leads to no being able to follow action movies, most videos, most real life sports, lectures, plays, tv, and a lot more if they are not very very slow moving with a fixed camera focus. I am lost and distressed otherwise. I figured out that my motion sickness is due to the flickering effect of shadows and light in both video/movies and when riding in any sort of transport (that would include bicycles). The motion is too fast for my brain to process what it sees. I have audio processing problems too, so what I try to hear and understand while my brain watches makes just a mess out of most of my real life experiences. It is NOT my fault for not paying attention, as I was punished for that most of my childhood and much of my adulthood. My vision is corrected with glasses and my hearing tests out better than average, but what my brain does with what it sees and hears is something else. Everything gets lost in there... or most of it. So when I hear about people struggling with things like flashing lights or certain sounds I now wonder if it is not sensory processing struggles. I think it was a huge relief to find out that it is my neurology that is causing problems, and not some bad thing I am doing like not paying attention or being too lazy. Changing my self understanding and knowing the reason for so many of my painful past experiences has been such a help. What a relief!

I am not too bad as long as the TV programme does not keep changing scenes every other second. Some modern programs are like that.

I have always been a very deep thinker but not that fast at thinking. In school I was always behind the rest of the class at writing from the board or trying to keep up while a teacher was dictating. I ended up with soo many notes missing. I kept very quiet to try not to bring attention to it as I found that I was ok in class with a teachers prompting, but at home on my own I could sit there for hours knowing what to do but doing nothing as somehow I would hit a wall and just sit there... I was fine if my Mum prompted me if I hit one of these walls. And it was not through a lack of intelligence as I was above the average which often surprized teachers when they found that out. But my intelligence is not consistant with expectations, as people assume that a deep thinking intelligent person also has a wide range of vocabulary and is quick thinking, and both of these I am not. My vocabulary is limited and I am a slow processor. I am not very slow... But I have really noticed that the intelligent quick thinkers rarely think deep. They are quick surface thinkers. Also they lack the creativive imagination that I have where I can think my way out of problems and circumstances. (I like to be in control and am naturally independent. For me to ask for help is rare).

I am not sure if I will be assessed now that everything is happening with covid and I appreciate the situation everyone is in.

For me, it's people who don't follow the rules and regulations of Covid 19. People who don't care to stand 6 feet apart or follow the arrows in the stores that have them. I have a shutdown when I get home on the days that I see a lot of those people.

The medical cause for shutdowns is stress. So everybody who's stressed can get them. They can be a response to an acute (temporary) stress (for example after a car accident) , or they can be caused by chronic stress(which lasts a long time and which can be caused by many things, including trauma, ptsd, anxiety disorders, bad job or family situation, sensory issues etc...).

Autistic people can have all these types of stressors but generally what leads them to have shutdowns, is sensory stress. it's bright lights for me too: if i enter a room with bright lights, after then minutes i start getting a headache, than my heart starts to beat faster, then i find it hard to breathe, then the pain goes down in my neck, in my shoulders and gradually propagates through all the body, and i fidget a lot to keep myself awake and as way to express stress.

then in that room anything can happen: there could be a lot of noise, a lot of movements, a lot of smells, my could clothes bother me. that alone can make me go into a shutdown. so, there's sometimes lots of sensory information that makes me explode.

or somebody could say something awful to me, and i could go into a shutdown seconds after that. so there could be also an emotional trigger that makes me explode. there can be a million of emotional triggers. it's impossible to know them all for those who have alexithymia. a lot of times i don't even know why i experience a shutdown. we need to listen to our body and figure out what emotions we feel. that way we'll be more able to handle those emotions, with meditation, and they won't let us go into shutdown anymore. peace