How do you feel before you have a meltdown/shutdown?

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Shutdowns...

Shutdowns I get in two forms and one slips into the other if the experience deepens and I can't do anything about it (If I can't remove myself from the trigger or situation that caused it).

Partial shutdowns and full shutdowns.

Partial shutdowns... These can start in two ways. Either kinda peacefully where it is caused by an external trigger like certain smells (Annoyingly some are smells I like) (Actually once a partial shutdown starts and I am in a trigger enviroment I can then be in a panic as I need to remove myself from the enviroment and this can be difficult with things block my way! In the past before I knew the causes of shutdowns I would often end up in a full on shutdown in which I had less panic but I could not do anything about it. As stupid as it seems, it was not until joining this site and my repeatedly asking questions that I came to find out what the shutdowns are and what was causing them. I tried for years and years and years of my life to find out why I kept getting them and I could not describe them in ways in which past doctors would understand. I would start describing and doctors would come out with their own theories which did not fit my experiences and would not listen to me when I told them it was not that ad became annoyed with me because I would not accept their diagnosis which was often nothing like what they had said. I then was labelled (By past doctors) some sort of person who does not have anything wrong and just wants attention which is the complete opposite to who I am as I find visiting doctors traumatic and it is an enviroment that I want to avoid..)

With partial shutdowns, the first things I notice are that my balance is effected and I feel as if I am tipsy (Drunk). It is why I don't drink because I would hate to be drunk and experience a partial or worse still, a full shutdown! My body starts to weaken so I do not have my strength to grip things in my hands or if I am running or cycling (I can't run much these days!) I am like a rechargable Ni-Cad battery that has suddenly dropped in power as it needs a re-charge.
As the shutdown deepens, my body feels heavy like I have just walked out of the sea after a swim... Or rather like wearing a heavy metal suit of armour. Every movement I make takes great physical (And mental?) effort. Just to continue doing whatever task I am trying to do feels like I have to put in at least three times the effort to do it. (During the last burnout I was working part time and apart from my mind jumping back and fore and "Glitching" between masking and unmasking, I was having continual strings of partial shutdowns, one after the next after the next after the next! Every task I was forcing myself to do was hard going. Just a four or five hour shift (The max I could manage 3 days a week as I needed a rest inbetween each shift) felt like I had worked a 15 to 18 hour shift as I was soo exhausted and at night my mind would not shut off as I would be thinking about every detail of the shift and thinking about what I expected on the next shift, but that's the effects of burnout... Like an esculating tsunami that I can't control!)
Now a full on full shutdown for me happens if a partial shutdown deepens and I can't remove myself from the cause.
For example, I once went in to the local hospital for a blood test. The smells are a trigger so I am wondering through long corridors (Corridors that trap me in as the exits are emergency exits only so I am not allowed to use them, so I have a long way to get out of the enviroment... So I am in the daze of a partial shutdown feeling weak etc with a reserved panic due to the corridors shutting me in from escaping the enviroment... And then I have to sit for anything between25 minutes and a few hours (Usually 45 minutes on average) in a crowded room (An enviroment I do not like at all but at least everyone is quiet! If everyone started talking I would not cope with it..) and so due to hating needles, by the time it is my turn to have the blood test, I am fully shutting down!
Now for me to fully shutdown... The experience... Uhmm. It starts with a partial shutdown and carries on beyond that. It deepens. I start to panic because I know what's coming and I realize I can't prevent it as I can't remove myself from the enviroment. It is like there comes a point when a partial shutdown deepens where there is no coming back... I am going into a full on shutdown. Prior to this point, I usually have a little control in that I can stim (Not in public) or I drink a fizzy drink (I can't go near any with artificial sweetners) and besides, it is the sugar going to my brain which helps but even drinking, but even drinking water calms my nurves a bit and calming slightly de-esculates the shutdown if I am stressed), or/and eat chocolate or something like that. I can (Though the most effective way is stimming) hold off or preferably avoid a full shutdown if I have removed myself from the enviroment that has caused it).
Sorry. I will try to explain... I can go into a full on shutdown while having a blood test and once I was stuck in hospital for six hours due to having repeat shutdowns because I am vunerable to having a repeat full shutdown if I have had the first one as it takes time being calm and doing nothing except lying on the floor or preferably on something more convenient to recover from it, and each time I started to pull out of it, the nurse would go through standard coming out of a faint proceedure which involves stimulating the brain by asking questions, and doing this pushes me straight back into a full on shutdown. After a few hours of this, and me only able to say a word at a time inbetween shutdowns (STOP......(shutdown)....... ASKING......... (shutdown)...... ME.......... (shutdown).......... QUESTIONS.........(Shutdown!)......) before eventually after repeating this message over and over a word at a time inbetween shutdowns, she finally got the message after about seven repeats, and I was soo exhausted due to the shutdowns, and soo weak and shaky (Clammy etc) I could not get to even sit up for ages. It took a couple of hours for them to get me to sit up and put me in a chair so they could take me to the A&E department. But that was before I knew what the shutdowns were called. A doctor there came to see me and said it was not fainting and asked if I was on the autism spectrum. I said "I don't think so" because back then I did not know about autism. I was there for six hours that day and I had to force myself to drive when I was not really ready to drive because the car had gone over the six hour parking limit so I could have faced a fine.

Sorry. I am carrying on... What happens to me in a full shutdown other then feeling panic because I have slipped beyond a partial shutdown... I can be calm in a partial shutdown though it depends because anxiety/stress can cause it, so if stressed I am not calm. But a full shutdown. I start loosing the ability to power the limbs of my body. My body goes weak and floppy and I usually have just enough control to flop down to the floor without hurting myself. (So it looks to observers like I am pretending (Pretending to faint?) when I am not).
When I am on the floor or even on the way down if I have not reached the floor (I head to the floor on purpose before I fully shutdown if I feel a full shutdown coming to protect myself from having an uncontrolled fall and to try to make myself comfortable and safe as I have sometimes almost shutdown in the middle of crossing a road), and I hear loud tinitus that starts from a medium pitch and lowers into a low pitch while my eyesight blackens from the top down. I am then stuck on the floor unable to move or see and due to tinitus I can't really hear though sometimes right in the mid point I hear nothing for a moment. Usually not easy to recall the experience due to the panic I am in and it takes ages to recover before I am ready to get up and walk.
I am suddenly hungry after having had a shutdown and need to eat. I am usually shaky and clammy as well. If I don't get to eat, recovery is delayed.... And I am likely to get repeat shutdowns. My body/brain needs food to help pull me out as having a full on shutdown takes a lot out of me.
Just after I start to pull out of a shutdown where I just lie there as if I try to get up before I am ready I go back into another shutdown... So I lie still for a while to recover... But during this time if people talk to me it is like I recognize the language but I can't make sense of the words. It is as if English is a foreign language which I don't know, or I only know the odd few words? I hate people talking to me when I recover and I either say "Yes" to whatever they have asked (Which has got me into trouble as I did not know what I said yes to) to make them go away, or I can be rude to them (Very unlike me) as I need them to go away so I can recover.
Actually if a person is calming and just keeps me company without talking or hardly talking... Just to check I am ok... This gives me a re-assurance and a good feeling which helps me recover, as part of the issue in trying to recover is the fear that strangers will start to try to make a fuss of me which will push me into another shutdown, as I do not want to try to use my brain to talk as it takes great effort..... And I do not want to use my brain to try to work out what someone is saying.....

I am very fortunate in that if I am trying to walk to a safe area to be alone in the outdoors to shutdown in, I am starting to lose control of my body so it looks to others like I am drunk. This is good because people then leave me alone and I get a chance to recover and just lie there while recovering!

Strangely, while I can get partial shutdowns when I drive, driving is calming for me so I have never had a full shutdown when driving. (If I did I would not drive as the thought is scary!) But doing something energetic like cycling, I can fully shutdown because somehow the exercising part... If I don't ease myself off and relax, I can get a full shutdown, but only if I don't pull in and try to carry on through it. Only once had this happen while I had slowed down to about 20 to 25mph (I had been belting it), and I shutdown for a moment and I was slouched down over the handlebars with my arms either side of me near the front wheel, and luckily the bicycle had speed behind it so it stayed upright as the bars were going back and fore in a tank slapping wobble. I managed to recover just enough to hold the bars to gain control, but I could not pull the bakes as I had no strength in my hands, so I had to let the bike drift for a few hundred yards which involved a bit of downhill, and when the bike came to a stop by the curb, I went to put my foot down and my leg would not hold my weight so I was on the floor! Luckily I fell onto the pavement side and not into the road.
But with car driving, the only risk for me is an unexpected traffic jam because the panic of the situation (As if the traffic is not slowly moving I feel hemmed in and claustrophobic) can cause me to shutdown, and the thought that I might be the cause of a new traffic jam will make me also panic! So I will drive 50 or100 miles to avoid a traffic jam. My brother commented once when I drove on a very large loop through country lanes which added an extra half an hour to an hour onto the journey that if I had joined the traffic I would only have aaited 5 or 10 minutes and we would be home by now! Haha! I call it my "Shortcut". He says my shortcuts aren't shortcuts but "Long ways round!"

Sorry. Not explaining feelings during a shutdown. Usually stressed and paniced, but not always. Sometimes I can be calm and get a shutdown. If I am calm I pull out of it quicker and recover quicker as well.

I think I've only had a couple meltdowns, both at times when I was already massively stressed and just one more thing piled on, and I just lost all control. Yelling, fast fast pacing, punched a wall once, that sort of thing. I dissociate during them, and it's a super weird feeling watching myself do that, unable to stop or even modulate it. That sort of thing is incredibly unusual for me. It's happened maybe three times in my adult life, always seemingly out of nowhere, as I didn't know the thing that set me off was going to set me off. The only real thing I remember about them is that feeling of "why am I doing this?" as I watch myself from inside my head. It's such a scary, helpless feeling.
My usual is partial shutdowns. Normally it's my speech, sometimes walking or moving my hands/arms too. There have been moments where I can't do anything but stand there. It starts with a feeling of being "wound too tight," like all my muscles are tensed (even if they aren't) and I will feel a need to get out of the situation. Then the tension is GONE, boom, like a rope snapped or a spring broke, and I get a "falling feeling" in my stomach. My thoughts … I was going to say "slow down" but that's not exactly true. There's a change in character, somehow. It's like my entire "thought process" is different, but it's hard to explain. Maybe it's the same sort of dissociation as with a meltdown, just feels different.
I can't speak at all, I can think of something that I want to say, even want desperately to say, but I can't make my mouth work. I would say "I can't remember how to make my mouth work" but that's not really it, as I don't normally have to expend any sort of extra thought or effort. It's more like it "just doesn't happen" for no easily grasped reason. Like I'm reaching for a light switch that's always been there, just muscle memory reaching, but this time it's just blank wall with no sign there was EVER a light switch there, if that makes sense. I now know what's happening, so it's not as frightening. The first few times it happened, I didn't know anything about any of this, and really worried for a long time after.

The best way I can describe it is “overload,” physical and/or mental. Will typically try to isolate myself as much as possible, cover my ears and try to get away from other people. Even my own thoughts are too much for me to handle. Doesn’t matter if noise is caused by me or not, which is probably a large part of why I’ve never been a screamer or anything. Will feel increasingly dissociated, my body basically switching over to autopilot, is how I describe it. Usually only get shutdowns now, I think I’ve gotten to the point where I can hold off a meltdown until it turns into a shutdown instead, which I usually do because it draws less attention to me, other people often don’t even realize I’m in shutdown since conversations and interactions usually flow around me (rather than incorporating me) anyway.