Anyone here have shutdowns rather than meltdowns?

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If so, will you describe how you feel during those shutdowns?

I'm curious about others' experiences.

My brain just retreats from the real world. I'm unaware of what goes on around me and my mind is completely blank. I hear what other people say really quiety, but it doesn't register or have meaning. Everything around me in blurry, because everything is periphery - my eyes don't focus on anything. I usually feel nothing, but if I was really angry before the shutdown I might have the remnants of a feeling that something isn't right and I should be doing something to fix it.

Overall though I'd say it's a pleasant experience because it's a welcome retreat from the world.

Last edited by psot2 on 22 Oct 2014, 5:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yup. Me.

I had meltdowns as a kid, but nowadays, I just kind of stare off into the distance. Things get vague and my thinking's fuzzy, I can't access words, and I feel really tense, like everything hurts--the way you feel when you have a fever. I can't make decisions very well and I have trouble reacting to things. Sometimes I just freeze.

Only way to deal with that is to go somewhere quiet and rest. Often times it won't get better until I've had a night's sleep.

I am your classic deer-in-the-headlights holiday special.

Yeah, me too.

I don't go non-verbal like I've seen a lot of people post about, but usually I'll find a nice little space on a wall, lay down, and scan it with my eyes for an hour or two. I also have semi-shutdowns that can last days where I just don't talk to anybody or move my body off the couch at all, but it's not really in a depressed sort of way. It's more of a "I'm so stressed out and am no longer functioning on any level" kind of way.

us aspies should stick together more often

I NEVER retreat from the real world. I do sometimes retreat from the imaginary hive-mind world.
I see those around me as the irrational squawking and poop-throwing baboons that they are.

Do you push your theories simply to vent this anger?

I definitely experience sensory shutdown to touch, when overwhelmed. I then simply feel little or nothing, ( except perhaps extreme pain, I don't know; it hasn't arisen ).

Baboons, seriously? People are amazing, fascinating, complex, sometimes inexplicable, often annoying. They cause overload, they may even completely throw us into shutdowns, but that's no reason to call them baboons. Find your own little corner, yup; stay away from those who annoy you, sure; but.... you can't put them all into a baboon-shaped basket.

I do. I can only think of one real meltdown I've had as an adult, but I tend to get shutdowns on a monthly basis. I think the author of this article pretty well captures how I feel when I shut down.

No.



They put themselves there by their irrational, aggressive, and/or psychopathic behaviors (inconsistencies, manipulations, deceptions, etc...) that can be pointed out and proven.
Since Baboons share these behaviors to a very high degree, my description becomes functionally useful, that is until you assign your own value judgment to it and ignore the factual comparisons.

I believe people should have a choice to not behave in those ways I observe and can point out, and I think that choice is completely independent of my existence and my involvement. I do not see how I could possibly be causing them to make the choices that they do. If you can see a way, then please point it out and explain.

If you were studying these behavior characteristics in Baboons, would you then choose to assign values to the baboons using your rose-colored glasses, or would it be ok to be more objective since you belong to another "superior" species?

And, what if the Baboons knew exactly what you were doing, and became very angry at your "insulting" objectivity in describing their behaviors, possibly punishing you in some way? Would you succumb to the pressure to modify how you describe them?

I shut down more often than melt down, often due to being overwhelmed.

It is not functionally useful when preceded by exaggerated adjectives, nor is it objective when your factual foundation is primarily sourced from personal experience.

Perhaps you would like to explain why I would be held to a standard of never using exaggerated adjectives or referencing personal experience when others here are not?

At any rate, neither claim invalidates the logic in this case. You will not be hard pressed to find a great many similar accounts to what I expressed.
Perhaps you would then enforce your above standard onto those people as well?

It is not unheard of for people to use adjectives, even colorful ones, to express frustration on this forum. It is also not unheard of for one to state a fact that is also reinforced by their own personal experiences. You should consider that your assumption that those statements are only filtered through those experiences could be presumptuous.

You should also realize that the existence of conflicting opinion, even if it represents the majority, is not a validation of logical consistency.

Besides personal experience and frustration, other questions should be asked in order to establish validation. They have been asked. I gave some examples of that here in hopes you would perform the relevant self-checks.

So, let's get down to the real issue of why it's so difficult for you to call things as they are (adjectives or not). My guess is it is due to life-long conditioning by social pressures created by the opinions of those around you. The placing of higher value on these pressures/expectations than of objective reason would explain your behaviors perfectly. The present majority opinion that valuing those expectations amounts to what is commonly described as "a healthy outlook" is a self-reinforcing factor in this process.

On the other hand, the more objective view would simply not make many other people happy, you being a perfect example to cite here. You seem to me to be unhappy about my shared assessments here.
People automatically become upset when their world view is not supported by other people around them.
If this doesn't help bring the aggressive nature of memetics into the light for you, then I doubt that I can ever do it.

Frustration is a mental state, but stress can be measured in concrete reality.

video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY

This short clip on Robert Sapolsky's research on baboons should be mandatory viewing for anyone who still believes that human hierarchical organisation is the pinnacle of evolution or is an inevitable consequence as part of the construction of scalable societies. The key difference between humans and other primates is our more elaborate verbal language, and the development of written language. These conceptual tools have allowed humans to construct, enforce, preserve, and transmit elaborate hierarchical social pyramid schemes that "serve" society at large in exactly the same way as the social hierarchies that Robert Sapolsky has studied in baboons.

The power of human language capability is a highly double edged sword. On the one hand this capability allows innovation to spread rapidly through society, and on the other hand the hierarchical social structures that human societies share with baboons and other primates systematically exploit the flows of knowledge for the preservation of hierarchy rather than the survival and the welfare of society at large. Robert Sapolsky's observations demonstrate that the construction of social hierarchies is not an innate genetically programmed drive that is shared by all members of society. The genetic origins for hierarchy construction are limited to the behaviours of a few individuals, who when given the chance, are able to persuade a much larger group to adopt hierarchical behavioural patterns.

The ability of a few individual primates (including humans) to construct social hierarchies to dominate others is the result of the strong social learning ability that is shared by all typical primates, and it is not the result of a widespread innate and genetically induced desire to build hierarchies. In humans the tools of language provide an enormous amplifier for social learning.

The main point that is raised by Robert Sapolsky's research is about the origin of hierarchical organisation, and the observation that the genetic makeup of the majority of primates does not compel them to construct hierarchies ? quite the opposite, the majority thrives in the absence of hierarchy.

Thus the question becomes, how can human societies reign in hierarchical structures that have spread across entire cultures like a cancer.

Human languages and modern peer to peer communication technologies are very potent tools. In combination they represent a mechanism that is well positioned to short-circuit and ignore established social hierarchies. If I look at the results of this straw poll http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6268350.html I think the autistic community has a major role to play to ensure humanity does not self-destruct as a result of being mesmerised and caught up in playing the old and primitive primate social status game at the ultimate planetary level.

I never said that you should not ever reference personal experience, nor did I say that you shouldn't use exaggerated adjectives. Your likening of those around you to baboons preceded by those adjectives emphasizes your personal disgust of such individuals, hence it is not functionally useful as your main intention was clearly not for comparative purposes.

I suppose that is only the result of different perspective, but I fail to see yours as being 'more objective' than mine.



Oh but I do. I just have no reason to randomly quote every person that posts like that.

I have nothing against you personally, I am just heavily stimulated by your posts, both positively and negatively.



I fail to see how this is true of me. I have no sense of this social pressure on WrongPlanet. I have gone against majority opinion many times in my short time here.



You presume your view to be objective, and that mine is significantly less so.

I could say exactly the same of you regarding the other stuff.



I don't understand why you wrote that.