Shutdown stuff?

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This is probably in the wrong forum, because I'm not processing things properly - which is part of this question.
1. Today, I started very early and didn't sleep well last night.
2. My ordinarily minimally verbal, minimally social part time job today turned very verbal and peopled. People were at two of the sites when they shouldn't have been, and there were things like landscapers on site and others doing things I didn't understand like sitting there and watching me work. There was also pressure to get jobs done at other sites before people turned up there too. There were just people (and dogs) coming at me everywhere, expecting me to talk and be normal and address them.
3. About halfway through this I noticed speaking was getting harder and harder. I was making silly mistakes (and she had to actually tell me to do very obvious things) saying stupid things, repeating everything my supervisor said to me and couldn't seem to follow instructions, and seemed to be going so slowly. Things were taking twice the time they should have, and even my very tolerant supervisor started looking at me like there was something wrong with me. As the day went on it seemed to get worse - I started not being able to understand what was being said to me, I could see her talking to me and I just had no idea what the meaning was or what she was talking about. It was all just gibberish. I started feeling weirdly disconnected, like I couldn't make sense of anything that was going on around me, it was all just movement and sensation and light and sound sound sound, and I was completely checked out from it.
4. When I was driving back from work I started to feel really tired - more tired than I should have just from an incomplete night's sleep - and sort of numb and sluggish. It took a lot of effort to move my body and stay awake behind the wheel. I couldn't even listen to music because it just sounded discordant and jumbled and I couldn't stand the noise.
5. When I got back to the house it was weird, it was like I wasn't communicating right for the circumstances or something, it's hard to articulate. Everyone in the house started treating me like I'm sick, offering to make me dinner (which never happens) saying I could shut my door if the noise was too loud, asking if I needed anything, etc. Sort of being solicitous. I assume I must be looking or acting sick but I don't understand why or what I'm doing.
6. So now I can't stand any noise, the TV in the other room is deafening, and I'm currently wearing silicone earplugs because I can't tolerate the sound of the TV. I can't tolerate any people, anywhere near me. I need them to leave me alone and not come anywhere close.
It's like my brain is short-circuiting. Can't think. But this has been gathering up all day. When I have experienced shutdown, it's been a lot quicker than this. Just a shut down, goodbye.
I have no idea what this is, why it is going on or anything. Anyone else ever had this kind of thing? Wtf?
This seems to have taken me ages to type, and may not end up making any sense.

Normal.

That sort of thing happens to me sometimes too, when I'm tired and overstimulated. Everything becomes overwhelming, even my own thoughts. It feels different from my usual shutdowns, during which I just tune everything out and become mostly unresponsive, but it does seem to happen for the same reasons I'll usually get a shutdown.

I've had all of that happen to me throughout my life, yes. Sometimes the sequence of it all comes faster, sometimes it takes as long as this. But all the same elements.

Sometimes it doesn't take just one day of overwhelm but if I've had more than one day where there has just been too much going on, then finally after two or more days like this, I go into major shutdown unable to function as described in the OP. I've had to cancel work when that has happened. Which doesn't go over well.

Yes, you were over-stimulated and it made you sick and hyper-sensitive to sound and probably light etc.
Don't blame yourself!

You can make an aspie-paradise out of your room. Not today, but when you feel better.
The book below signature gives loads of tips, for work or home.

Can you call in sick tomorrow? I believe you don't respect your condition, and neither do NT's, but you are sick and need time and quiet to recover.

That sort of what I call extreme overload usually happen when I have already started to feel overloaded, but can't actually leave the source of the overload, or when I am pressured to remain social when I start to feel tired from too much social interactions. Normally, I can listen to music to calm me down and get back to my normal, but, just like you, when I have reached that point, music will feel just as assaulting as everything else and the only solution I have found is to retract into a safe and silent environment I know, usually, my room, for some time.

You're all probably right above.
But it was initially weird as this is not the most overstimulating environment I've been in - I have been in clubs and city rallies and so on where there are crowds, noise, light, etc and didn't get this weird reaction. And after some time in silence, nonverbal, shut in the bedroom, it started to sort of clear up, not get worse as it would have if I was just over-tired.
I think when I actually tried to work this out, it may also have been an alexithymic problem. I took me three and a half months to recognize an emotion - one that had been overloading me the whole time I've been at this job, I just cannot understand / interpret / cope with emotion so I had no idea it was undermining me, when it was. And has been compounding, unbeknownst to me, for three months. And the social overload just reinforced the emotion and my brain can't handle emotion so the whole thing imploded.
Needless to say, I've started looking for another job where the emotion won't be there. Making some direct considerations about what is actually appropriate for me in terms of work and what is just a job field that I think has merit, but is not suitable for me as an autistic.