Shutdowns| Purple Ella

Ever since I got my diagnosis, I started realizing how many "panic attacks" were actually shutdowns and/or meltdowns

The worst I think with shutdowns is other people trying to help. Like, they try talking to you, but you can't talk back, so they start hugging you, which is only making it worse, and you are unable to tell them to stop and just leave you alone.

Thank you for this video. I am a 44 year old man and I am just realizing that I am Autistic. This is may be the first time in my life I've felt like I'm not alone.

I always used to think depression was coming back, now I know better. Yes especially the trying to entertain everyone

Holy heck! You've just given me insights into another type of shutdown that i have. I go into periods where i just can't communicate and almost panic when people come up to me to try to engage. People get really angry about me not being able to engage with them.

when i look back, i think high school was just one big long shutdown

You just made me realize that having romantic relationships put me in permanent shutdowns. I see them talk but I can't grasp what is being said. And when I do, I tend to forget what they said. Then I get all kinds of resentments like 'you're not listening!' In the end I always end up breaking up with them because I don't feel like I'm understood or respected. Sigh.

I have found that doing child's pose and putting my head on the floor, like curling into a kind of a ball for awhile helps me reset after overwhelm. It's almost like a nap.or meditation state and can be rejuvenating.

I was diagnosed ASD about 4 years ago ( and ADHD/Dyslexic). I'm still in the process of recognizing autistic behaviors that I used to dismiss or cover with unsubstantiated reasons. It is hard know what is what. I know we are all different, but when my traits do not match someone else's traits, I wonder if I'm really autistic. But there are so many traits that do match I believe the diagnosis was valid. It is fascinating to me how "blind" we are to our own traits. It took me 59 years before I realized I had autism.

I have recently suffered a two week shutdown. I have been working from home during a high-stress project and found myself unable to respond to e-mails, or pick up the phone, and sat watching the meeting reminders come and go like someone locked into the back of a Black Cab where the driver had popped off for a bit. The engine was running, but I was staring into middle distance and dozing off whilst sitting at my desk, my leg jiggling so much that I ended up with an inflamed knee joint. A two week flinch, waiting for... I don't know. The universe to punish me for inaction? Thanks for working together to articulate a very human experience.

I don't have any helpful suggestions, but I am very grateful for this video, because now that I know shutdowns exist, I understand myself a LOT better. I'm that person who needs to be alone a lot because I compulsively "manage" everything for everybody. I knew it wasn't good, but I didn't know how much stress it causes.

I've felt like this ever since the beginning of quarintine till now I'm not sure shutdowns last for this long but it's what I feel especially brain fog it's so bad sometimes I cant even think a full sentence

There it is again - the feeling of "Oh, so that's what it is!". Thank you.

I've been working really hard on university work whenever I felt like I was going to feel bad. It's been going on for a while and I think it just created a shutdown. I've been sitting there for a few hours watching videos and not having ANY emotional response to them. It doesn't feel like myself. Advice from me at this moment is just PLEASE ALLOW TIME TO REST. I think I rest when I don't work for 10 minutes or when I shower or sleep, but that's not rest. Rest is being in a calm place doing something that doesn't activates this spirral in my brain.

I feel like I'm just surviving. My job in public education, my apartment life, the constant barrage of noise and constantly having to adjust on a dime when, sometimes, I just can't. I'm trying to pay off school loans and this and that, I feel like I have little free choice. I don't make enough money to just move, rent and housing prices and land prices are skyrocketing, and I come home and put ear plugs in and crash nearly daily. Trying to find ways to adjust, but tired of being made to feel I'm just not pushing myself hard enough.

so this is what it's called...thank you ladies! You two have no idea how much this video has explained a lot of my life when I felt like something was wrong and thought I was broken!

Haha…”This is really not great!”. I’m the opposite - don’t have what’s typically described as meltdowns, but most definitely have shutdowns. And it is hard to describe what it feels like. If you have them, no description is necessary, if you don’t, no description is adequate. I’ve been told that it’s disturbing and distressing to others nearby, so that’s something to consider. I agree, that when I find myself pushing through over and over for too long, shutdown is eminent. Keep doing this and burnout is eminent. That’s my experience. Even though alexithymia makes it difficult, it’s important for me to pay attention to the early signs. Prevention is the answer for me.

I’m not diagnosed, but I’m beginning to really truly wonder.... My therapist (who I don’t currently see) used to just say that I’m the sort of person who goes into a vegetative state when depressed....hm There is no movement, none...nothing...just me sitting on a blank slate, in a blank space....waiting for color and movement to begin again...

"Words. In an order that makes sense." I haven't heard others do this. My phrasing is "Words. It's something that's comes out of your mouth from your brains. They usually make sense. I don't have them."

Quite often my shutdowns are the first step of going into meltdown where I at the end I become very agitated where I start shouting I want to go home. I call my shutdowns and meltdowns by calling them my Starfleet crises. I have never learned how to mask my feelings and emotions and never seen a need to do it. When people see me acting different than normal it is hard for them to understand I am not doing it on process which upsets them and makes me feel guilty and very misunderstood when I look like I am staring at them. I do not stare at people intentionally as I am processing my thoughts and processing their conversation at the same time as well as trying to concentrate and process on what their saying and questioning if I am making the right responses which leads to overload. This happens in shopping centres where I am also processing the persons conversation, my thoughts and sensory overload with background noisy conversations, crowds of people, too much information and artificial lightning. It's hard as an autistic adult of 55 as I only got autism at the age of 51 and it's hard to explain to siblings and relatives about my late diagnosis and to explain that I am not using my diagnosis as an excuse for my strange and off putting behaviour. My shutdowns and meltdowns have got worse as I got older as it is difficult for relatives to adjust to me and my diagnosis.