Mountain Goat wrote:
Until fairly recently here in the UK one was taught to never ever talk about anything to do with mental health with ones doctor as there was a very genuine fear of being imprisoned for life in a mental hospital, and it is only because the government is now cash strapped and so tries to avoid admitting anyone into long term care these days along with quite a lot of media attention over the abuse of patients that the situation is changing.
One should also remember that there are still doctors training doctors who are of the generation that denied the existance of autism.
I am not knocking doctors I have seen since I was a teenager onwards, but since my teens onwards I have been back and fore to doctors right up until I came on this site in 2019 in my late 40's with the same complaint where I was describing shutdowns, and not one doctor in all these years was able to even think it had anything to do with autism apart from one brief occasion which was never explained or followed up with, so I think the greatest need is to educate doctors, as when I asked to be assessed and the doctor asked for symptoms, I knew there was a link somehow between meltdowns and shutdowns (I did not know they were called shutdowns) and I described a few of the triggers in detail and asked if my shutdown experiences had anything to do with meltdowns. The doctor said "Definately not" which obviously means that the doctor had never come across autistic shutdowns of the physical kind before. It actually makes me ask "Are shutdowns that effect a person in a physical catatonic way rare?" Time for a new thread me thinks!
It is very odd how someone gets locked up without trial for 15 years simply for having a mental health condition.
Even Schizophrenics who use threatening behavior like waving a knife around shouting in a shopping center. ( something I witnessed once ) possibly don’t get that.
Like forced child adoptions by SS it seems there are certain things in the UK shrouded in secrecy.
People read about it and wonder what’s going on.
In so far as shutdowns or catatonic states are concerned your unlikely to get a proper response from a doctor.
Autism has never really been isolated or explained and can include as comorbid just about anything.
Unless it’s a mini seizure not being picked up? Maybe approach things from there I’ve seen a few educational videos of kids having mini seizures in the middle of play and they go into a catatonic state as you describe for a few min not shaking on the floor like your normal epilepsy.
Seizures and autism go together like cough and covid so would be the first place to look?
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."
- George Bernie Shaw
10 Nov 2021, 8:47 am
