How do you recover from a shutdown?

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Just like that, without the actual falling asleep. That would have been a blessing.

I had a mini-shutdown at school once when I screwed up a music performance. Then to make it even worse for me, my teacher told me to play a scale on the guitar and I temporarily lost all ability to play . I felt like I was about to burst into tears and I couldn't function properly for the rest of the morning. I've also had 'mute' moments that lasted for about 30-60 seconds, but were still scary. When I was younger, my shutdowns involved me gouging at my arms with my fingernails or scissors or whatever sharp object was around and crying (but I never did those things in public, of course). If I'm feeling stressed or uncomfortable, I excuse my self from the situation and go outside, but then people think I'm 'antisocial' (but they obviously don't know the real meaning of the word). If I'm at home, I close the curtains, turn the lights out and sit in my wardrobe with my iPod.

I fall asleep when I'm stressed or overstimulated. Until now I had actually no idea this was a real phenomenon among people with ASDs, I thought it was just me!

I go to my room, or somewhere where I can be alone for a while. Or failing that, I just refuse to talk to anyone.

My son does this.
He did it today, and it took an hour of curling up on his bed before he 're-started'
He used to do it a fair amount when he was younger, but it is less frequent now thankfully.
He is a young teen now, and is due an assessment for asperger's in a few months.
When he was 2-3 I first told doctors of my concerns that he may be autistic or have some form of epilepsy, and I have had lots of doctors, psychologists, teachers all pretty much tell me theres nothing wrong, that it is all jusst bad behaviour.

I used to do this too as a teen, but I used to usually hold it until I got to somewhere on my own. Thats how I cope now, but it means I am never far from either my home or my car.

Does anyone know if there is anything I could ask the school to do? If my son perhaps had somewhere quiet he could go when he begins to feel like that it may help prevent a full on episode? I used to go sit in a toilet cubicle, sometimes for fours, but thats not ideal at all.

The school are pretty good atm, staff at previous schools have been quite horrible and cruel. Is there anything I can do to help my son? I'm a bit out of date, there was no such thing as an asperger's diagnosis when I was at school, I was just the weird kid. I know there is much more help available now, but what is it?