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What are your shutdowns like?

Southern Discomfort

Southern Discomfort

Smarter than the Average Bear
V.I.P Member
This would help me figure something out. I have gotten these jarring moments where my brain gets stuck on two thoughts, I can't talk much because of it and I get severely nauseated. These occur on long days where I've been doing a lot, one example being my brother's wedding last month. I think my brain tried to process the day during REM sleep and I can't cope with it and I just sort of lock up I have to rush to the bathroom and prepare to have to vomit. I'm not too sure if this is a shutdown or not because I've never heard of anyone describe it like this.

I asked this a long time ago. I should bring this up again with my new doctor.
 
Mine seem like severe hypoglycemic episodes in terms of feeling nausea, shakes, dizziness, and weakness.

But the mental state is something else again; a kind of panic attack where my brain isn't quite attached to my body anymore...

I have to go into sensory deprivation; under my weighted blanket, playing my Brainwaves app, sleep mask on.

I have learned to look for visual distortions as a warning that I am approaching this level of overwhelming.
 
i go to sleep,it can be anywhere,i stop speaking prior to that,my vision goes completely and i am extremely overwhelmed and overloaded so i end up lying on the floor or wherever and sleeping,its an extremely deep sleep, people struggle to wake me and think its one of my epileptic seizures.
 
Southern Discomfort said:
Okay, that's quite enlightening. Do you when take a break and go somewhere quiet to deal with it to lower the risk of getting to that threshold?
Click to expand...

Yes, exactly. Short term, I can usually get outside and take some deep breaths; I live in a rural area and there is usually some nature vista available. This seems to be calming input, rather than agitating input.

I was once on a trip to a nearby town, meeting friends, and sitting in a nice little patio outside. But then I got a "heat shimmer" across my vision. I had to cut everything short and went straight home. Which was the right decision.

I am not aware of stress at the time it is accummulating. I am actually highly social and my friends/husband are all easy to be with. But not knowing that it's getting to be too much until it is getting to be too much is very frustrating. But at least now I know that dealing with people is one of those things that will accumulate :)

When my awareness of my AS status was not yet known to me, I would follow my doctor's instructions to "relax" by going out and doing fun things. But this is not really the best thing for me, I know now. "Bunkering" in my apartment with my iPad, reading/listening to podcasts or music, and contemplating a long stretch of time in which I will not be asked to do anything... this is what heals me.

Another warning sign is when my brain starts repeating "Leave me alone." I am grateful my brain "calls me on the phone" and tells me things. It makes figuring this stuff out so much easier :rolleyes:
 
Is a shutdown different than a meltdown or two different words for the same occurrence? Like, are the precursors for a shutdown different than those for a meltdown? I've often wondered this for my son and myself. When I think of shutdown I think of withdrawal and when I think of meltdown I think of some type of explosion.

For me, I've never gotten or felt sick. It's a complete lack of emotion or only the negative emotions. I don't/can't be around anyone or anything. Unfortunately, since I've never been diagnosed it's not 'normal' for me and so I've been called quite a few things for them. I used to be able to do more things like take walks by myself, sometimes in the rain before I got to that point but since I've had my son I've only been away from him for 5 days/nights and that was because I was in the hospital. He's seven years old. I have had to learn to 'fight' them or do my best to avoid them but I can't always.

I usually shut down because of having a mental meltdown and not being able to express it so to deal with it all I shutdown. Maybe I'm not explaining it right. :rolleyes: :)

rainfall
 
I have been told my shut downs look like Lt Commander Data from Star Trek, for those familiar with the show, when he is turned off. eyes open, but unresponsive for the most part. For me it feels like time moves in slow motion, I can barely process anything normally, cannot speak. It can last from a few min to over an hour. I also do not remember anything that happens during that time if asked. Happened when my wife was in ICU, I was standing there, clock on the wall said it was around 2 in the morning. Next thing I know its nearly 4am and I do not remember anything. Nurse comes in and says "your back"(I had seen her just before 2am) and I kind of looked confused and she told me that I had been shutdown. Her nursing staff had been informed that I was on the spectrum and to write everything down for me and the social worker made sure I was ok every day. I do not remember much of anything during that time I was shutdown, but I do know I was very overwhelmed as would anybody with thier spouse in bad shape in ICU at the hospital. My meltdowns are more violent, angry, swearing, and if not calmed down I will start throwing and hitting stuff. Both will leave me exhausted for days afterwards and I will sleep a lot. Mike
 
So I guess there's no one definitive form of a shutdown then and everyone experiences it differently. I'm not sure why this comes as a surprise to me.

I should be getting some occupational therapy or something at some point I'll have to bring this up with them and see if they can help me recognise the signs that I'm getting overloaded. I might talk to my cousin about it, he seems to take regular breaks from crowded areas, I'll have to ask him if he gets like that and if he notices warning signs too.
 
What also might be helpful is my experience before and after my realizing I'm an Aspie.

Starting in my teens I would have what I thought was "low blood sugar" but now realize were shutdowns. Especially notable was one where a nasty person deliberately worked at getting me upset, and I barely made it out of the room before trying almost blacking out.

Another time, numbed by grief, I lost track of my feedback, and tried to do much too much, not realizing how tired I was. I was jolted into this realization when I was driving late at night after a full day, and my vision flipped upside down.

You know how the brain is always working to flip the reversed visual image right side up for us? Well, my brain got so overloaded it stopped doing that.

Fortunately, I called upon my video game skills :) and kept the truck on the road while a giant jolt of adrenaline returned things to normal. And after that, I cut way back on what I asked myself to do.

Now that I know what they are and what causes them, I have a much better Early Warning System. Two mental exercises I use when my job throws me into bunches of strangers:

  1. Deep breathing; I visualize the dark matter of stress flowing out of my body on the exhale, and fertilizing all these light colored flowers around me. The flowers throw off golden pollen sparklies, which I inhale for stress relief. If I can be alone, I also shake off my hands like a cat with wet paws. Finish with a full body "cat stretch."
  2. As people approach me, I "build my bunker." I am protected a cylinder of lovely smooth thick marble, with an equally thick tinted window set in front of my face. I like choosing different colors; white marble with gold streaks and a turquoise window, black marble with purple streaks and a purple window, pink marble with a cobalt blue window. I "filter" my interactions through this invisible barrier so I don't feel so vulnerable.
 
I wasn't sure how to respond to this topic because I wasn't really sure what my shutdowns look like exactly, just that I get tired and run-down, but now that I'm reading it as @WereBear described, my shutdowns are exactly like a hypoglycemic episode. That's what I've been thinking it was this whole time. That actually explains a great deal; I'm just now realizing that I spent three years at an extremely stressful job apparently shutting down as soon as I got there and just chugging 5-Hour Energy like it was Kool-Aid and powering through my "hypoglycemia" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week. No wonder I eventually just broke. Thank you so much @WereBear, I've been feeling like a failure all this time, like I just wasn't strong enough, but now I have closure and I feel so much better :D

Just had to say that, I couldn't not. Carry on.
 
The only time IVE had that is when IM having a panic attack its the bit before vomiting to lighten yourself so you can run fast and escape danger
i DONT feel nauseous with hypoglycaemia i feel hungry if its mild
but IM not diabetic never experienced diabetic coma
 
IM having one now as IVE answered two questions in the last 20 mins and THEYVE both been removed
Southern Discomfort said:
This would help me figure something out. I have gotten these jarring moments where my brain gets stuck on two thoughts, I can't talk much because of it and I get severely nauseated. These occur on long days where I've been doing a lot, one example being my brother's wedding last month. I think my brain tried to process the day during REM sleep and I can't cope with it and I just sort of lock up I have to rush to the bathroom and prepare to have to vomit. I'm not too sure if this is a shutdown or not because I've never heard of anyone describe it like this.

I asked this a long time ago. I should bring this up again with my new doctor.
Click to expand...
 
Gritches said:
Thank you so much @WereBear, I've been feeling like a failure all this time, like I just wasn't strong enough, but now I have closure and I feel so much better :D

Just had to say that, I couldn't not. Carry on.
Click to expand...

You are more than welcome: just paying it back because reading about it here on the forum helped me figure out what was going on.

And I can very much identify with that "failure" vibe. For years I thought I had mental problems because my high skills didn't seem to match my low ambition.

Why couldn't I go to school full time and work full time like other people I knew? Why was I so reluctant to sign onto those high powered careers where I'd work 60 hours a week? Why was I so fussy about what I could deal with?

Turns out, I was being smart. On some level, I knew couldn't do all those things.

This revelation is transforming my future. Before, I had a skimpy retirement account. Now, I'm leveraging it into creating a business that I can do at home, enjoy, and make a much better retirement income.

Knowledge is power, for certain.
 
I need to immediately get to a spot where I'm alone. Sometimes I'll be silent for hours. I feel like information is coming at me 300 miles a second and it's white static. I try to learn the triggers first and then practice what therapists have taught in different responses. Feel for you, hang in there, find some space, and keep the bigger picture in mind maybe. Good post.
 
My brain just stops working....I can do progressively less and less, cognitively and physically. I start to have problems with motor-coordination, and my issues with language and memory and focus become worse. I lose the ability to process incoming sensory information....sensory channels all shut down at once. I get tired, spaced out, and disoriented. It is often frustrating, sometimes to the point of being infuriating (and then I am at huge risk of having a meltdown). In some contexts it is also anxiety-provoking, because it makes me vulnerable.
 
My aspie husband (I'm aspie too) didn't talk to me for two weeks after a fight that we had (we are better now). Is that an aspie shutdown? Or is it just that he was being an idiot? (He also barely talked to the kids during that time).
 
During my second year at college (UK), it was much more academic and as a result, much less friendly than my previous year there.

After a full day at college, I would return home and go straight upstairs to my room; specifically to my computer, only going down for dinner. I even started watching Michael Rosen YTPs on a regular basis as a source of joy/laughter.

The only other cause of a different kind of shutdown is in a supermarket like Tesco's or ASDA, as the longer I spend in those kind of environments, the more absent-minded and distracted I am.

Or am I describing meltdowns? I'm unsure.
 
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