So I‘ve currently been starting my journey of seeking clinical diagnosis for ASD after turning 18, graduating, becoming an adult and having some harsh realizations forced upon me about the way in which my mind has always functioned, how abnormal certain things were and why it’s caused such a traumatic experience from living through an undiagnosed, and neglected childhood. I suppose until I am able to talk to a clinician, I am self-diagnosed.
As a kid I was pretty healthy for most of my life. I mean physically, like I rarely ever got sick like from a cold, I never broke a limb, or really had any kind of physical health challenges that I needed to be rushed to the hospital for. But when I hit sophomore year of high school, all of that changed. That was the first time I think I ever experienced an Autistic shutdown and this would be the first of many that would reoccur for the next four years of my life at a severe intensity, and it kind of sent my life spiraling down. Im going to tell a story about the first time it happened, and I’m just curious to know if anyone else on the spectrum can identify with any of these symptoms or feelings? Or am I going crazy, and are these not shutdowns but something completely different. I have two separate kinds of experiences to describe. One is more severe and episodic and the other is like an overlying state of stagnation that I’ve just become aware of that I’ve been in. i will talk about the 2nd experience in another post.
At the beginning of sophomore year, before I began experiencing episodes, I was being taken to the doctors by my mom for severe stomach/abdominal pain, and cramps, as well as sharp chest pains. These had been going on for months, but during this time I had never experienced the sensation of an episode to go along with those symptoms, so to me they were each they’re own thing. Sometimes I would experience each separately but as time went on and the episodes began happening it became more simultaneous.The doctors said there was this bacteria thing going on at play (too many good bacteria) or something like that for my stomach, and for the chest pain he ruled it out as Acid reflux. I was a little skeptical about the reflux but I went with it.
The first time I experienced an ‘episode‘ (before I suspected I have autism I just called these episodes instead of shutdowns) I was at school, in the hallway walking to my next class, because the bell had just rung. I‘m walking up the stairs, and as I’m turning the corner I immediately feel just..wrong. It was so freaky and so bizarre, but without warning, it’s like I just got completely knocked out of my usual state of consciousness. I can still hear my thoughts, and I can think normal thoughts like if someone were trying to talk to me, in my mind I can think of my response, but for some reason I can’t speak or move.
wait correction; it’s kind or more complicated than that. Because it feels like if I really will myself to do so, I can move, or speak or walk like normal. But for some reason I just don’t. Like the ability is still there, but the push, the force or like the effort is just nonexistent or it’s too weak.
The ability to perceive just feels completely different than how it normally should, almost like I‘m physically feeling more like a mind, this floating consciousness, rather than feeling fully connected and one with my body, and in some weird way my mind feels like it’s untethered. So the mental image I have in my head of what the physical sensation is like, now since I’ve become more used to it, is that my conscious just popped out of my body and it’s like floating above my head BUT don’t be mistaken, it does NOT feel like a full blown out-of-body experience, it’s more like I’m halfway out of my body.
Therefore my body is left, back on earth still having to perceive what’s around me in the physical world (I often had episodes in public places so I was forced to try to be as aware of my body as I possibly could and when I tell you it was just impossible for me to be 100% there). It kind of felt like my body was just back to a primitive level. Imagine your body is a car, and your mind, the driver, just stopped at a store on a hill, turned the car off and went in. Now imagine the driver forgot to put the car in park! Your body, the car, is now careening down this hill at the mercy of whatever lies ahead on that road, the wheel itself might begin to turn and change direction ( I can shuffle, or slightly fix my position if my equilibrium is off and I begin to lean over) but since the driver is not in the car, nothing can make the car stop or tell it what to do at all really. All there is to do is hope that it doesn‘t crash! So basically my mind isn’t connected to my body enough to be able to tell it what to do. It’s like my brain turned off for a sec, and I’m only left with my consciousness who’s like “hey what just happened“ and meanwhile my body is just like “…” unresponsive like a slow Mac that‘s got that stupid loading wheel, waiting for the signal from the mind to reconnect.
Usually to an observer, I just look stuck. They can only tell something is wrong if I’m staring off in a trance and sometimes my eyes will water, or my mouth is slightly ajar in an odd way, or I’m sitting, standing or walking in a weird abnormal way. Ill seem Really stiff, stagnant, or really slow to move and react, or I’ll just seem extremely exhausted like a delirious state of tiredness.
Another term for this occurrence I just recently came across that I think describes these episodes even better is something called Autistic Catatonia. What I look like to other people I think also kind of resembles what’s called a stupor. Has anybody else had this experience? What are your stories, what does the sensation feel like. One thing I also forgot to mention is that I’ll often feel buzzing or tingling and fuzziness in regions of my head, these occur almost everytime I have an episode, sometimes this feeling is the first trigger. It makes me feel like I’m having a seizure or something, or like there’s literal electricity like buzzing around in my brain.
One last thing about my experience is hyperventilating which was always the last phase of an episode. It used to consistently happen with every episode until one day I began to realize that I think I was inducing the hyperventilation as a defense to force my mind out of that state. I know this because, when I stopped choosing to hyperventilate then nothing would happen, I would just stay stuck in that state, and it could honestly last hours, probably days if I let it. Sometimes the hyperventilating would help it surpass on good days, but on bad days the episode would come right back within the next hour or two. I never really had difficulty breathing or feeling like I was choking Though, sometimes a heavy chest, and in the beggining definitely a lot of fear so it made sense to hyperventilate. But once I got used to it, I never felt a need to do that other than the to try to force myself out of that state as quick as possible.
Directly after every episode, especially if people are around I’ll be completely back to normal, and say I’m fine I’m okay. But I will need to go rest immediately because all my energy is like drained sometimes for the rest of the day, it’s like I become lethargic or inert.
As a kid I was pretty healthy for most of my life. I mean physically, like I rarely ever got sick like from a cold, I never broke a limb, or really had any kind of physical health challenges that I needed to be rushed to the hospital for. But when I hit sophomore year of high school, all of that changed. That was the first time I think I ever experienced an Autistic shutdown and this would be the first of many that would reoccur for the next four years of my life at a severe intensity, and it kind of sent my life spiraling down. Im going to tell a story about the first time it happened, and I’m just curious to know if anyone else on the spectrum can identify with any of these symptoms or feelings? Or am I going crazy, and are these not shutdowns but something completely different. I have two separate kinds of experiences to describe. One is more severe and episodic and the other is like an overlying state of stagnation that I’ve just become aware of that I’ve been in. i will talk about the 2nd experience in another post.
At the beginning of sophomore year, before I began experiencing episodes, I was being taken to the doctors by my mom for severe stomach/abdominal pain, and cramps, as well as sharp chest pains. These had been going on for months, but during this time I had never experienced the sensation of an episode to go along with those symptoms, so to me they were each they’re own thing. Sometimes I would experience each separately but as time went on and the episodes began happening it became more simultaneous.The doctors said there was this bacteria thing going on at play (too many good bacteria) or something like that for my stomach, and for the chest pain he ruled it out as Acid reflux. I was a little skeptical about the reflux but I went with it.
The first time I experienced an ‘episode‘ (before I suspected I have autism I just called these episodes instead of shutdowns) I was at school, in the hallway walking to my next class, because the bell had just rung. I‘m walking up the stairs, and as I’m turning the corner I immediately feel just..wrong. It was so freaky and so bizarre, but without warning, it’s like I just got completely knocked out of my usual state of consciousness. I can still hear my thoughts, and I can think normal thoughts like if someone were trying to talk to me, in my mind I can think of my response, but for some reason I can’t speak or move.
wait correction; it’s kind or more complicated than that. Because it feels like if I really will myself to do so, I can move, or speak or walk like normal. But for some reason I just don’t. Like the ability is still there, but the push, the force or like the effort is just nonexistent or it’s too weak.
The ability to perceive just feels completely different than how it normally should, almost like I‘m physically feeling more like a mind, this floating consciousness, rather than feeling fully connected and one with my body, and in some weird way my mind feels like it’s untethered. So the mental image I have in my head of what the physical sensation is like, now since I’ve become more used to it, is that my conscious just popped out of my body and it’s like floating above my head BUT don’t be mistaken, it does NOT feel like a full blown out-of-body experience, it’s more like I’m halfway out of my body.
Therefore my body is left, back on earth still having to perceive what’s around me in the physical world (I often had episodes in public places so I was forced to try to be as aware of my body as I possibly could and when I tell you it was just impossible for me to be 100% there). It kind of felt like my body was just back to a primitive level. Imagine your body is a car, and your mind, the driver, just stopped at a store on a hill, turned the car off and went in. Now imagine the driver forgot to put the car in park! Your body, the car, is now careening down this hill at the mercy of whatever lies ahead on that road, the wheel itself might begin to turn and change direction ( I can shuffle, or slightly fix my position if my equilibrium is off and I begin to lean over) but since the driver is not in the car, nothing can make the car stop or tell it what to do at all really. All there is to do is hope that it doesn‘t crash! So basically my mind isn’t connected to my body enough to be able to tell it what to do. It’s like my brain turned off for a sec, and I’m only left with my consciousness who’s like “hey what just happened“ and meanwhile my body is just like “…” unresponsive like a slow Mac that‘s got that stupid loading wheel, waiting for the signal from the mind to reconnect.
Usually to an observer, I just look stuck. They can only tell something is wrong if I’m staring off in a trance and sometimes my eyes will water, or my mouth is slightly ajar in an odd way, or I’m sitting, standing or walking in a weird abnormal way. Ill seem Really stiff, stagnant, or really slow to move and react, or I’ll just seem extremely exhausted like a delirious state of tiredness.
Another term for this occurrence I just recently came across that I think describes these episodes even better is something called Autistic Catatonia. What I look like to other people I think also kind of resembles what’s called a stupor. Has anybody else had this experience? What are your stories, what does the sensation feel like. One thing I also forgot to mention is that I’ll often feel buzzing or tingling and fuzziness in regions of my head, these occur almost everytime I have an episode, sometimes this feeling is the first trigger. It makes me feel like I’m having a seizure or something, or like there’s literal electricity like buzzing around in my brain.
One last thing about my experience is hyperventilating which was always the last phase of an episode. It used to consistently happen with every episode until one day I began to realize that I think I was inducing the hyperventilation as a defense to force my mind out of that state. I know this because, when I stopped choosing to hyperventilate then nothing would happen, I would just stay stuck in that state, and it could honestly last hours, probably days if I let it. Sometimes the hyperventilating would help it surpass on good days, but on bad days the episode would come right back within the next hour or two. I never really had difficulty breathing or feeling like I was choking Though, sometimes a heavy chest, and in the beggining definitely a lot of fear so it made sense to hyperventilate. But once I got used to it, I never felt a need to do that other than the to try to force myself out of that state as quick as possible.
Directly after every episode, especially if people are around I’ll be completely back to normal, and say I’m fine I’m okay. But I will need to go rest immediately because all my energy is like drained sometimes for the rest of the day, it’s like I become lethargic or inert.
