Do You Find Autism/Asperges Effects You Physically? (Poll).

Post Reply New Topic

I'm badly coordinated and clumsy. I think it goes with the undiagnosed,but probable,dyspraxia .

Not easy to describe. It feels a bit like the horrible feeling one gets while fainting. My body starts to shut down.
The first thing that happens is that any bodily movement I make takes great effort and it feels like my arms and legs have turned into lead. Depending on how deep I have shut down, the deeper I go into a shutdown the more limp my body goes.
My balance starts to shut down where I can also at times get a little dizzy with it. My co-ordination can also be effected. I don't want to have to talk to people as if I have to think to reply, I can do this but after it I am likely to get a full shutdown. Even in a partial shutdown I will be wanting to sit down or preferably lie down as it is how I recover. But if I go i to a ful shutdown, I am lying on the floor anyway. I get a loud medium pitch tinitus just before a full shutdown which gradually (And fairly quickly) then lowers in tone at the same time my eyesights darkens until it becomes totally black (By this time even if I was standing before, I will be in some sort of heap on the floor, like it or not!) Then, though due to the aweful shutdown feeling I get and the panic of shutting down I hardly notice... My hearing also stops working. I almost go unconcious (And once or twice I have) but usually I remain concious, but can't do anything. I can't think, but if someone touches me I can feel them. I am not usually that long like this before I start to recover as for me, the shutting down usually drowns out the outside goings on so I have a chance to recover. However, as long as I don't get people trying to force me to talk to them until I am ready to talk, I usually recover. If someone tries to force me to talk (E.g. a medical professional may by their training try to get the person to state their name or ask what day it is etc... Well. For me to then start to try to use my brain before it has recovered... I can do it if forced to BUT I then go straight back into another shutdown!)
Now once I remember shutting down in my bed at night (Very rare to get shutdowns late at night as I am usually relaxing, so when relaxing I tend not to shut down) and I fully shut down and I awoke in the morning as if nothing had happened. I fell to sleep while I was shut down. To my memory I have only done this once. However, if I have fully shut down I usually want to remain lying down for a while which could mean I will decide to go to sleep if appropiate, as it is an ideal way to fully recover, as shutdowns are tiring... Uhmmm. Well. They feel like one has run a marathon! So sleeping them off if appropiate... A half hour snooze... This can make quite a difference to recovery.
Difficulties in partly shutting down and shutting down. Well. If I am not able to act upon the early warning signs (Feelings which I know soo well!) and I try to carry on, this is where I risk going deeper into a shutdown. I can carry on for a while (Known as delaying the shutdown) but the cost comes at the price of a much deeper shutdown. So lets say I am helpinh someone to lift something heavy. I can usually carry on but when I am able to put the thing down where it will be needed, I then shut down and am on the floor... No matter what the weather. If it is raining I am on the wet ground getting wet. Nothing I can do about it. However, if I am feeling that I am shutting down and I am in a situation where I am on my own I look foe a place to lie down and lie down and I only partly shut down. I wait (Usually anything between 5 minutes and half an hour) to recover, and then off I go again to do whatever I was doing before I had to deal with partially shutting down.
However, here is where I really face difficulties. If I am in work. I will be constantly battling to delay and delay shutdown after shutdown to try to continue working. No work. No pay... So I will also be trying to avoid showing that I am shutting down... Is a constand battle to survive the shift with little chance to escape to recover. This brings on stress and anxiety. I get soo anxious before the days shift knowing the battle I will be facing that I often have to go to work much earlier then my shift as due to heavy bouts of anxiety I can't even move. I will be stuck in a seat not physically able to get up until I calm down enough to stand up.

I have to say, this sounds like seizures. I have a (diagnosed) partial seizure disorder and you've just described exactly what happens to me.I think you ruled this out in another post but you you shouldn't. You should consider some testing esp. as these happen so often.

There are certain symptoms with seizures which don't match what I get. I can delay having the shutsdown being one. Certain seizure symptoms are missing from my descriptions. I have definate triggers to the events. Mostly stress related. Sometimes certain smells lie bleach in hospitals or paint fumes, or petrol based fumes... Also, another hospital cause to triggering off a shutdown is walking through long corridors. I hate doing this. It turns on anxiety and then the anxiety leads to shutting down.
Another common trigger I get is when someone asks me to help them lift something heavy. Even before I reach where they are I sometimss shut down, as I have the sudden stress of not mentally planning in my head the day before.. So I won't be mentally focussed... And being suddenly asked to help can (And often does) trigger a shutdown.

I am not sure if these triggers can trigger seisures? No idea, but I have not read anything to sugest they do. I need to go back and list the ones which do match and don't match what I get. When I looked the other day at the seisure symptoms, two symptoms matched what I get but all the rest did not.

Not all seizure types have the same "seizure symptoms" . And, stress and sensory issues CAN trigger seizures (I've been triggered by "new car smell").
I've not heard anyone use your description to describe ASD shut downs. When I look back on what I *think* are my shutdowns, I become catatonic. I can sit in one position for hours, not moving or talking, stuck in my head. But my seizures are what you describe. Epilepsy or another neurological condition could be causing what's happening to you; it's concerning they happen so frequently.

Just wrote lots but the robot think would not allow me to post them!

Voluntary Aspects of Shutdown

Shutdown is often involuntary. This means that the person has no choice about the fact that she is shutting down, and no choice over the amount and kind of abilities that will shut down. In this case, there is nothing she can do but wait it out.

Shutdown can also have voluntary components. An autistic person may find that he is shutting down, and be unable to control that fact. However, he may be able to direct which abilities are more important to preserve. In this case, the other abilities will shut down first. For instance, if he is driving, he may elect to understand enough sensory information to navigate around obstacles and retain the motor skills to drive the car to a safe place. However, during this time he may have lost speech, the ability to move in any way other than the motions required for driving, the ability to identify objects, and the ability to respond meaningfully to human voices. When he stops the car, he may find himself unable to step out, but he drove safely and competently. An autistic person may also be able to delay a full shutdown by allowing himself to experience increasing numbers of partial shutdowns, or head off an involuntary shutdown by deliberately stopping the activity in question before his brain stops it for him.


See above marked in black. When I read this I had to check that I was not the author because it is exactly what happens to me to a T. I rarely get any partial shutdowns when driving, but when it has happened, it is exactly as described above.

I can have driven safely and compently to a safe place to pull in, but no way could I get up out of the car. I will then be stuck in the drivers seat until I recover from partly shutting down. I have never fully shut down while driving. I rarely partly shut down as driving makes me relax.

@Mountain Goat. The physical symptoms sound as though they're somatic.

Yes. Why for around 30 years I have been tested for just about everything possible that may be causing them. Everything comes up clear.

I am a little embarissed as I had to look up the word you used as I didn't know what it meant.

Stummy pronlems are a fight.. am really well verse in using supplements to help mitigate those.
Add some self discipline and have managed them. Somewhat. But did not know the problem behind the steering wheel. After i get stopped and , do not even try to get out might be related?.. sometimes not often but conversely getting out of a store and making it back into the car , feel like collapsing .
Been trying to devise a way to try to get some padding into floor of back of minivan and just go lay down, but end up slumped over the steering wheel most ,alotta times . No ergs to get into the back of it. To lay down. Early life no stamina or much in the way of coordination. But hec still have those issues now.lol , just better prepared .gotta go t c all.

Don't stop stimming if you feel you need to stim. I trained myself from an early age after being told off so often. I believe that if I was allowed to stim then I would have saved myself from many difficulties like going deeper into shutdowns then I needed to etc. It would have not exactly orevented, but eased off a lot of difficulties that I was struggling with. There are ways of stimming which are less noticeable in public places if you are concerned. There are many ways to stim like this.

For years little by little I stopped stimming after many different people from my Dad teachers to employers (All who didn't know why I was doing it and I didn't know why myself so I could not explain why I did it) and though they were all trying to be kind to me so I would fit in better as lets face it... If they were not concerned for my future wellbeing they would not have tried to stop me stimming... But they didn't know it was my way of stress relief and also my way of concentrating in lessons etc... None of us knew... And it took years to stop each different stimming method I used... And now? Well. I am in a fragile situation which may have been avoidable had I been stimming.

I have re-introduced stimming when I am feeling anxious and it lessens the depth to shutdowns.

Autism affects me physically in many ways.

Well one of the signs for Asperger's is an awkward gait. I have found since childhood I cannot run properly. Was always near last in gym in school despite running as fast as I could. It has to do with the brain-physical mechanics and getting the diagnosis just confirmed my childhood suspicions that something wasn't right.

I found that while I may not notice that my gait is different (Though my youngest brother does fun impressions of my funny walk!) I found I was never going to win anything at running! Uhmm.

I suppose it probably does in some ways, but hard to say exactly how as I have never really thought about it. I know I was never good at P.E class, and when I was an adolescent my siblings and cousin were into skateboarding I tried to join in as well...but all I could manage to do was fall off the skate-board.
But I cannot say for sure autism is the cause of my physical failings I just know its been consistent that I've never been good at much physical activity outside of walking...ha ha I can walk and walk and walk but don't expect me to do a pull up or be able to run very far.


My PTSD has more annoying physical symptoms it can be anything from just starting to feel kind of edgy and thus having to look around anxiously for any potential threats(thats called hypervigilance and its distracting)...to me being stuck on the floor for a time till I can convince my body I am not in mortal danger and it cooperates.

The only thing I can yes to with any certainty is that was "double jointed" primarily with my legs as a youngster. I got more muscle bound and am much less flexible now. If I worked at it I'd probably get some back. - Yes loose ligaments has been noted as a symptom of Aspergers.

Anything else I deal with physically is hard to say. For instance: I have a sensory integration deficit and that could be because of the Aspergers or it could be something I'd have even without Aspergers. Then there's question of if what I've experienced in a meltdown was do to my sensory stuff or if it was the Aspergers causing the sensory spasms out. *throws hands in the air*