Not meltdowns but shut downs...sorry if this is elsewhere

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Umm, I tried to see if there was anything else on this, but I cant manage the energy to look.

I'm having one of my "shutdowns" at the moment, and frustrated by it, as I have a lot of things I need to do. It's not exactly depression, been there, had that, know the difference. It's more a wave of physical lethargy and ennui. I'm bone weary, need to sleep all the time, and can't motivate myself. And am avoiding people, as just haven't the will to fake any interest in their lives.

I've just been through a fairly high stress period (and probably caused a fair amount, ha ha)

Does this happen to others? Without delving into the realms of quackery, it's like a post-adrenaline and cortisol hangover.

Thanks
(and if there are any typo's, can you pretend you didn't see them? Cheers, I'm normally a spelling & grammar control freak)

I think I have shutdowns where I'll just lay in bed and bury my face in a pillow. Or I'll just close my eyes and bury my face in my hands and get lost that way for awhile. Is that the same thing?

Yes, I've had this happen to me, and quite recently. It started when I withdrew from school in late November. That was an extremely stressful event for me. After that, for about 5-6 weeks, all I did was sleep, play video games, browse the Internet, and go to work when I had to. I avoided talking to or seeing anybody socially (except for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, which was a major effort). And of course, this happened in the midst of the holiday season as well, which made it worse.

Perhaps you need time and distance from whatever triggered you to shut down. Be gentle on yourself, and set small goals for each day (even if it is something like getting out of bed and showering, if necessary). If you still experience pleasure from any activities, by all means, engage in them. And, remind yourself that this won't last forever.

Good luck to you.

Yes, this happens to a lot of Aspies. Your brain gets so overloaded from stress or sensory input that it shuts itself down in self defense. Rather like a motor that automatically shuts off to avoid overheating.

Chocolate and extra food help me to keep functioning until I can get to bed, but really the best thing you can do is sleep it off. Your brain needs time to recover.

A lot of people on this site compare it to a computer crashing or slowing down and needing to be rebooted.

Hope you're feeling better soon.

I've noticed I seem to have two different kinds of shutdowns. One is the type described above, where I withdraw from people for several days, and it takes a major effort for me to be around anyone (this type happened when Anne broke up with me. See the thread "Text Message Breakup" in the relationships section) and the other is more frequent, and a result of an immediate overload of stimuli. This more frequent type, I just kinda zone out, unable to do anything, or say anything, until I either burst, or the cause of the overload goes away. I only recall bursting once. I was in French class, and there was a substitute teacher. The class just kept getting louder and louder, I went into that second type of shutdown for a few, and then just burt "SHADDUP!! !! !! !! !! !!". Room was silent the rest of class.

these are what autistic shutdowns are:
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1707940

yep. that describes exactly what I mean when I say shutdown. My short term ones usually are Motor, often also Speech, and even Sensory. I don't think I've had a Full Shutdown, though. My longer term ones usually are sensory, with partial Speech, Expressive language and receptive language shutdowns.
I also frequently find myself with receptive language shutdowns of about a minute or so, until someone does something that snaps me out of it.

Thank you everyone who added to this thread....and the link was really interesting. I didn't even know that shutdown was the correct word..it was all I could think of. I was also feeling bad about not "pulling myself together" or some other unhelpful NT concept.

I do have the partial shutdowns quite a lot..hearing, speech. I just called it going into "screensaver mode"

What was really nice was the replies, and the shared commiserating. Who said people with ASD don't have empathy? They haven't visited WP

Thanks all
L