How do you recover from a shutdown?

Post Reply New Topic

Based on this link from another user (I've just read this) http://www.shutdownsandstressinautism.c ... Autism.pdf it seems that many AS adults have shutdowns too.

If you ever experience one let's say at work or at school (with unsuspecting co-workers or colleagues who have no idea how much they are stressing you)...what do you do in those moments?

Do you excuse yourself from the room/meeting?

Do you refuse to talk and answer questions?

Do you feel unable to talk, exhausted, sleepy, wanting the stress to end NOW?

Do you feel like a deer in the headlights?

Do you feel confused, dizzy, insecure, shakey or anything else?

Do you have trouble doing stimple things that normally wouldn't even make you THINK about them?

Do you feel completely weak (mentally and physically)?



HOW DO YOU RECOVER QUICKLY?


***I wonder what the chemistry behing the shutdown is...I mean are levels of some chemicals in the brain changing?

If recovery is needed, first make sure no power cords are loose. After that check for and repair corrupt files then defrag the hard drive.

Whenever I have a shutdown, my first reaction is to try and get out of the situation as quickly as possible. If it's a situation where I can just excuse myself and go home, that's best. If I can't leave entirely, then I say that I have to use the bathroom and then spend a few minutes in there just getting control of myself. In the worst-case scenario where I cannot leave at all, like if I'm in the middle of a speech, I just try to finish what I'm doing as quickly as possible so I can then excuse myself.

As for recovering, I find that the really best thing is sleep. Shutdowns make me feel very weak/tired, and sleeping lets me completely recover. If it's in the middle of the day, then just lying down in a quiet place can help me even if I don't actually fall asleep. Getting away from other people so I can calm down is really the most important thing.

I read the article in your link. Interesting. Quite a severe reaction.

Personally I never have anything so severe. I'm not sure if the following is related or not or is perhaps ADHD related:

If I ever have a task to do that requires a lot of thought, but I don't really want to do it because it is not interesting then an internal dialogue runs along the lines of:

I've got to do this.
I don't want to.
I must do it.
Stare at task - mind becomes a brick wall and refuses to comply.
Deadline getting closer.
Stress and anxiety getting worse.
Repeat previous conflicting dialogue several times.
... then I feel drained, drowsy and often fall asleep.

At a previous job falling asleep at my desk wasn't uncommon in such circumstances. I wasn't tired initially - just the stress seemed to knock me out for a while. Now while I work from home I just stretch out on the sofa for 10 minutes for a doze. Sometimes that allows me to tackle the job then. Bit weird and I don't know if it is related to the autistic shutdown described in the article or not.

Certain types of background music sometimes help to get my mind soothed and able to do stuff I don't like.

For me, when I have had a bad shutdown, usually after a meltdown, I am very quite, and don't move, the longest was for 12 hours. It is like a shock to my system when I am shutdown, but I have only had it happen a couple of times

Wow, this happens to me fairly frequently too. Worst is when it happens in the middle fo a timed test.

I get this a lot as well. I didnt know other people experienced this too. Thanks for sharing

at least with am,it shows as abnormal brain wave activity when they happen under an EEG,am have just got results back today from a two day EEG in april,they were trying to understand what was happening when am have meltdowns and shutdowns and to get better tailored meds added to the pile,near the end of the letter,Dr Rog says 'the conclusions were that the EEG was abnormal showing focal slow waves and some sharp waves over the right mid anterior temporal area' -that included both meltdown and shutdown stages,as am usually have both of them together,and am understand nothing of what his letter said despite staff trying to translate it,have got an appointment again soon and he will explain it all there.
it would be good if more auties and aspies who get meltdowns and/or shutdowns could have them under EEGs to,as there is definitely physical? differences in them,would be good to get more and more awareness of them and remove the belief that they are tantrums,messing about or challenging behavior.

am have daily severe meltdowns and full shutdowns even though have been medicated for years,the most profound shutdown symptom am have is am lose use of legs completely,am have no use from the waist down and have to be carried or drag self with elbows or wrists everywhere [staff have been trying to get am a wheel chair but the managers excuse to not allow one is she doesnt want am to 'look physically disabled', yet she allows another resident here a wheel chair when she only uses it when her legs are tired-she can actually walk when her legs are tired when am cant,its completely paralising].

edit

Last edited by Sorenna on 31 May 2008, 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's funny, today I was thinking, hey maybe I'm getting carried away with all this aspie stuff before I'm actually diagnosed, then I read this. This is exactly what happens to me. I was really relieved to read TallyMan's description:

I've got to do this.
I don't want to.
I must do it.
Stare at task - mind becomes a brick wall and refuses to comply.
Deadline getting closer.
Stress and anxiety getting worse.
Repeat previous conflicting dialogue several times.
... then I feel drained, drowsy and often fall asleep.

I thought I was just a lazy person. I do this over stupid things like making lunch, or going out to the shops. Or phoning people. I don't have a big problem with those things, but I still have to get my head around actually STARTING them. It's too much.

I had a shutdown a week or so ago. I think I get small seizures - my heart pumps a load of adrenaline, my head fuzzes electricity and my arms jerk around. Looks great in social situations. Anyway after all that my mind just switched off and anything that tried to enter through my senses just made me feel pain and sickness. I went to bed and just lay there for a while before sleeping, but I woke up the next morning obsessing about an accountancy spreadsheet I slightly messed up 6 years ago, and how I could have done it better. It took me 15 minutes to realize what I was doing. Now that's funny. I can laugh or I can cry, right?

In answer to the original post, for me there seems to be no quick way of getting over it. I get "mini-shutdowns" all the time, and I just cope by nodding in what I think are the right places until I can get the hell out of the room, but the bigger ones take A LONG TIME to get over. Maybe weeks for me.

Wow. That is the best description of what happens to me that I have ever read. That is including what I try and write to describe it.

The most recent and probably most potent one I have had in quite a while took place at my brother's wedding last month. I was doing really well until after the dinner. At which point people were talking noisily and the music was loud and people were dancing. I was perfectly fine sitting in the back watching people dance, but I kept having people come to me (my mom, dad, sister, other brother, uncle) and telling me that I should go and dance. I went down hill fast. I became fatigued, tired, was rubbing my eyes. I could only force a few words into disjointed sentences about not wanting to dance and to be left alone.

After pestering me for a while I started to really shut down. I would close my eyes for minutes at a time only to open them and glance at the walls for a bit and close them again. I started stimming by rubbing the fingers of my right hand across the first knuckles of my left hand rapidly and extremely fast bouncing of my right leg. I had my elbows on my knees at the time so it was like fast mini rocking also. This continued long after they stopped trying to get me to dance as it got my mind focused on me not dancing and feeling that I should be. It was like a downward spiral. I eventually went into a stupor like state where I was nearly asleep, but vaguely aware of things around me. I stayed like that for probably an hour or so and then came back much closer to normal fairly rapidly. I was then able to get up and walk around, help out with getting my brother's stuff packed into the limo, etc...

All in all a very unpleasant experience. I think I need to print out that paper because it explains it so much better than I do.

I remember when I was younger that I would get stressed or sad and find someplace to hide and just sit stone still until I felt like sleeping. The last time it happened I was at work and was so depressed that I couldn't move anymore; I sat down at a table in the breakroom for a few hours until someone came and asked me why I wasn't working. I just couldn't deal with it and I was too scared to say why; hell I didn't even KNOW why, I just said I was sick and could I please go home?

I just had one on Monday. Social stress can result in shut downs for me but the most common reason why my mind shuts down has to do with some latent infection like fighting off the flu or common cold. Being in a class that is boring can cause my mind to shut down. It happened at work as well, out of the blue. I was a consultant at McKinsey and for a period of time I kept getting hit by shutdowns. Needless to say, that did not go down too well with the other highly charged gorillas.

The only thing I can do is sleep. In fact, I must sleep because my brain literally switches off. Sleeping for 10-20 minutes allows my brain to "reboot" itself. It is a bit like surfing the web and hitting a site that has some flash or javascript embedded in it which does not agree with your computer. 100% of the system resources gets used to process the objects but it still isn't enough and the system hangs. Best way to solve the problem is to reboot the computer and obviously not revisit that site again. And that is pretty much what I recommend. There are certain things which autistic individuals must avoid. Situations that require the autistic person to process information that tends to scamble up the processor must be averted. Even without any stresses or stimuli (it happened in the library on Monday when I was sitting in a cavernous room by myself) shutdowns can still occur.

Shut downs and melt downs are close cousins that are manifestations of the same faulty circuitry. Thanks for the article. This is a topic that deserves to be discussed.

Thanks for this. I am going to copy it and give it to my 8 yr old son's teacher as it appears to be exactly what's happening when it comes to work he finds is too difficult. Helpful to hear that so many others relate to it too.

I think we should NOT take the article necessarily at face value, we don't know what it is and whether it trully is true.

I am now even wondering if shutdowns are ...real occurences, in the sense that what if they're not AS related but maybe depression related or related to completely different conditions or things not considered by that article? And what if some "shutdowns" are really just due to anxiety which comes when you procrastinate things TOO MUCH? That does happen too...I guess it happens to everybody, NT or AS, to just panick when you have some deadline...and try to avoid it and then feel sleepy and stressed etc...

I really think we should give more thought as to whether that article is right or not and really question its premises and findings...before believing what is says and using it. We do not know much about this. Again, I just wanted to know what others thought about it, it was NOT meant as an informational, official thing!! !!

Thanks KingdomofRats for the link...today was the first day that I have read this too and started to wonder..

If i'm in class when it happens, I will excuse myself for a short walk where I can relax my head. At work, it's pretty much the same thing. Whenever I can, though I try to go somewhere that's dark and quiet where I can lie down and clear my head for a few minutes, because instincts tell me to be alone when this happens. Ear plugs help, too.

Usually, though, it will take me a few hours, espescially when I'm upset. I don't think there's a quick way to truly deal with it. Any break that you can take is certainly useful!