days where you have low energy

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Sorry to hear. Hope you can recharge batteries.

I have more days like that than not, due to very poor sleep. I also get like that when I'm recovering from a shutdown.

Total shutdown? Partial shutdown? Or both?

This is rare, usually we have enough "powerfull". It may be the lack of sleep.

^^^you sound like you have a fragile energy just like i do, which means one must learn to read the subtle signals of energy depletion and pace oneself to the speed that one's system can recharge.

Very much. It's what burnout looks like for me. It's the last day of school holidays here so I am not doing very well. Kids go back to school tomorrow. It will likely take 3-4 weeks for me to recover (that's how long it normally takes me after school holidays)

Yes, I get that.
I have to listen to my body and take things easy, or I'll be heading for burn-out.
But it's really hard because I have kids to take care of, so I get a lot of guilt over it, too. Ashamed that I don't have much energy to engage with them.
I try not to beat myself up about acting lazy and self-absorbed. Learning to accept that this is part of the autism, and it is what it is, I just have to accept it.

Yes. I have days of low energy and it is frustrating. But I have to just rest and sleep until I am fully restored.

it is like my frontal lobes really just want to sleep rather than work.

Probably what would qualify as a total shutdown. Not sure if I really get partials.

For me I call a full shutdown where I lose my eyesight and usually my hearing... Well. My hearing is often distorted in a partial shutdown anyway. Difficult to tell as when I get a shutdown, I am not even thinking about if my hearing is working or not. My brain just shuts down. It is not a sudden thing though. I get one thing shutting down after the next...But when the sight starts to go and the loud tinitus begins, I know I am fully shutting down.

I partially lose my hearing and get a sort of tunnel vision during what I call a shutdown, and my brain stops all but the most basic things. It all starts at the same time for me, starting off mildly and getting worse as I get deeper into the shutdown. That's why I'm not really sure that I get partial shutdowns, because I don't ever get it where just one sense shuts down or something. I can sometimes hold it off if I catch it quickly enough and then focus enough, but once I lose that focus I shut down.

I have had tunnel vision where I had to walk through the middle of town on a crowded day and all the people turned into a tunnel wall as I was quickly walking myself through. I don't know how I disn't bump into anyone as all I could see was a wall formed as if I was walking through a tube and the people became flat and different colours on the wall... Their clothes became these colours as if they had all been painted on...

I'm lacking energy like this all the time. Even if I have a full night's sleep, I only last about 4-6 hours before I'm 'out of it' and sleepy again. The only cause I can think of is the cocktail of medicines I'm on, but unfortunately as most are epilepsy seizure meds, there's nothing I can do about those.

When I'm really tired I get these attacks where I suddenly feel extremely tired, my mind goes blank and it takes me a moment to remember where I am. (We're pretty sure these are different from the seizures I was getting, as they were absence seizures, in which I would just be still and non-responsive for a minute or two, and then would come out of it and didn't even realise what had just happened.)

My energy level depends on a few things: sunlight, my general mood and how much mental stimulation or physical exercise I receive. Often if I don't cover at least two of those categories, I'll get run down, agitated and left with little energy to get things done. And, if I let it go for too long, I find I can become irritable, emotionally sensitive, insomniac or even depressed. Granted, some days I'm just left with no energy whatsoever.