Are Aspie shutdowns classic Autism?

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So lots of Aspies have shutdowns. Is this Autism? Are we occasionally moving out of our classification into theirs, albeit for a few hours/ days?

You can't speak, can't look at people, have very minimal communication, your mind is elsewhere, but doing nothing.

Is it the nearest we get to full on Autism- a total lack of being 'there', of being 'you', being in 'control'..

(I dont mean this to be flippant or jokey- I am seriously wondering)...

It's never happened to me, so I don't know.

I'm not sure I understand the question. Asperger Syndrome IS Autism, on every level. We don't have 'just a touch' of Autism, we simply have a higher functional ability.

The anxiety that keeps me stimming all day long is Autism, it doesn't just kick in under pressure. My shutdowns are Autism, yes, but so is everything else about my life - the sensory hypersensitivity, the emotional disconnect, the utter social ineptitude...all Autism. With effort,, I can work around or through some of that to a certain extent, where others don't have enough functional ability to make that effort, but I think that's the only fundamental difference.

Aspergers IS 'full on' autism, it just manifests in a certain way

I have to fully agree with Willard, which is why the psychological community is moving toward removing Asperger's as a separate diagnosis altogether.

I sort of say so. See me as a five year old, and you would agree. A girlfriend of my late father's ex-husband (this girlfriend happened to work with my mom and was the cause of my parent's divorce, [TLTD*]) described me as at one point having high functioning autism. I at one point (not so much anymore, if ever) would have shutdowns where I would need to be talked through the shutdown to resolve the conflict.

That's the key word: talking. I could (albeit poorly) describe my feelings, and because of many factors related to just brain maturity, therapy, etc., those shutdowns are now rare and I'm quick to rebound from them.

It may be kind of the same thing as they have in classical autism, just not so much of the time.

When I get overloaded and people try to make small talk to me, especially if they keep on asking a long row of questions (sometimes even in the same sentence), I feel that it takes a big effort to get the words out, and they sound very "machine" like with an odd intonation. Like the words are stuck in my head / throat, and at those moments I don't see the point of having to explain what they ask about, because I see it as kind of pointless and unnecessary. But I often will tell people that I'm not good at that kind of talk just now and need to be quiet, but it's not something personal, ie. it's not because I don't want to talk to them as such, I'm just too overloaded to do it at that time.

No; it hasn't got anything to do with suddenly having a different kind of autism. It is just what happens naturally to many autistic people, including Asperger's autistics, when they are completely overwhelmed.

Classic autistics have shutdowns, too. In the case of someone who doesn't speak at all, a shutdown can mean not being able to process the information coming in, or communicate anything coming out (after all, even people who never use symbolic communication tend to communicate other ways, like grabbing someone and leading them to the 'fridge when they're hungry). It can be dangerous because sometimes, when an autistic in sensory overload shuts down and can't communicate the very pain that's causing the shutdown. Autistic people have had serious medical problems missed because of that issue.

Most autistics can speak sometimes or most of the time. Most of those will lose speech occasionally, including Aspies; though the more of a verbal focus your brain has (Aspies tend to be good with language, because we're defined as not having a speech delay), the more stress it takes to push you to the point where you can't communicate coherently. When AS is diagnosed, it almost always mean that you can speak most or all of the time; and in general, that you had no speech delay. That makes it more likely that speech is one of the skills you hold onto more easily when you are stressed. You may lose other skills first--like the ability to think logically, understand others when they talk, understand and avoid danger, or interpret incoming sensory information. Other autistics, who lose speech more easily when stressed, may keep those skills longer. It's really a matter of your individual configuration, which things are easy for you and which are hard, and how stress affects you.

Even neurotypicals occasionally find themselves without the ability to speak, though this seems to happen only during times of extreme stress and shock, such as after having a loved one die or after a horrifying natural disaster. Shutdowns are not unique to autistics; it's just that they happen so often to us. Their frequency, not their simple presence, makes them a notable feature of autism.

depends some experience only shutdowns while other can have pure rage meltdowns

I've always read that autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that someone who has some degree of autism can be anywhere along that spectrum, ranging from a few odd quirks to being very severely affected. The theory that all autistics have the same level of autism but some are able to compensate better is one that I have never heard before, except in this thread.

Clearly, different people have different "degrees of autisticness". The point here is that just because someone is considered to have Asperger's type of autism it does not mean that they must be only "mildly autistic". Aspies can be more severely affected (speaking from experience). I talked early and have (I'm often told) excellent command of language. Still, most people have no idea how excruciatingly difficult it can be for me to organise thoughts to be able to speak them or write them, especially in real time, or just how often my ability to do these things diminishes or vanishes outright.

While many people perceive Asperger's to be a type of "autism lite", the point in this thread is that this perception is inaccurate. AS is simply a common manifestation of autism where communication is either not impaired or the autistic person has enough verbal command enough of the time to seem not impaired. Like the verbally-impaired Kanner type of autism, it can run the entire range from very mild to profound.

My theory is that a shutdown is like temporary LF Autism. It's like we experience for a short time what it's like to be severely autistic.

Just a theory. Challenge it. Hurl abuse at me for having an opinion different to your own. Whatever.