Is that a shutdown?

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I've read many comments about what autistic shutdown really is, but the experience is vastly different for everyone. So I want to know if my experience count as autistic shutdown.

It happens after I was upset or was sensory overloaded. Firstly, my eyes closing shut and I can't physically open them. Often I can't speak as well and sometimes I can't move at all, even a finger. But I can hear everything and my mind is wide awake. So I lay down, usually with blanket on and in full darkness. It takes from 40 minutes to a few hours to be able to open my eyes again, sometimes I still can't talk after that a few hours later.

It didn't happen to me in my childhood, but started in my 20s and now it's happening practically every week (but a nonverbal episodes happening to me much often).

I don't even know if it's "proper" autistic shutdown or it something else entirely and don't related to my autism. Has anyone had a similar experience?

That sounds pretty much like mine. Mine can last for days or weeks, during which time I don't want to speak and I can't handle any noise like music or TV. I don't watch TV anyway but it would be particularly intolerable in shutdown. I need darkness and silence and stimming to decompress from whatever stimuli brought it on.

Seems like a type of shutdown to me, but I would have expected them to start younger. For me they turned from uncontrollable temper tantrums into shutdowns when I was around five or six so by the time I was seven they had totally turned into shutdowns instead.It took me well over 40 years to track down what they were as doctors did not have a clue! I don't think that many doctors know about shutdowns that effect people physically.

I have bad sensory days and photosensitivity days, yeah. Darkness and quiet usually helps.


My autism and sensory issues got significantly worse after my autistic burnout in 2013 (I'm still not recover after it) and it gets double down after covid. I'm not sure I had a shutdown as a kid - one severe non-verbal episode for sure and two or three "undercooked" sorta shutdowns in which I was managed to "pull out" myself instead of relaxing and take them as help my poor overload brain needed. As I said, after my autistic burnout everything got worse, including shutdowns.

Makes perfect sense. Shutdowns for me, while they are mental, it is the physical effects that I notice. I get them in what I call partial form first which is my mind starting to shut its systems down where I can usually prevent a full shutdown due to the situation of what triggered it. (If I remove myself from the enviroment I can then recover or prevent the partial shutdoen from going into a full on shutdown).
I have noticed that certain things or enviroments can either cause shutdowns or can pull me out of shutdowns and I have used this to great effect to prevent shutdowns in my life, but the only issue is practicality of doing this in certain situations.

As an example, I have found that some work enviroments have stresses or smells that cause me to go into shutdowns, and annoyingly they are the enviroments where the jobs are ones that I can do as I have never really been able to function outside of one of my special interests jobwize if that makes sense?
YetbI have learned that I have never had a full shutdown when driving and if I nip in the car when I happen to be in a partial shutdoen, I pull out from the shutdown. I was puzzled about this, (And also relieved as I would not drive if I risked having shutdowns) and I found it was the zoning in my concentration into the driving blots out the other enviroments that could cause the shutdowns which is why during covid when I had in the months previously had the biggest major burnout/breakdown Inhad ever had where I have not worked since then, I got in the car with my Mum (As she was highly stressed as well and finds she relaxes when in the car as well) and I drove and drove and drove! Had it not been for my Mum paying out for the fuel and for my ability to do this, I would have hit a severe life changing mental breakdown. The last one hit me hard, as did the few before that, and even now, five years one I still have not recovered fully my abilities though I am on the mend and have made progress!
I find that the ability to drive has been a Godsend for me. I used to cycle everywhere but found that with physical exercize, it can speed up shutdowns rather than prevent them, and the only reason why I could cycle at all (I could not jog or run) was that I could regulate my cycling to prevent them, but the few times I tried to over-ride this (As before I never knew what caused the shutdowns and was told by doctors they were "Allergy symptoms" so had gone on a 40 year hunt to find what it was that caused them) was when I ended up shutting down on the bike which was scary! I could not job or run because I could go from 0 to shutdown in seconds while exercizing.
While driving, like I mentioned above, it is the complete opposite! When it was not practical to go out in the car I would engauge in driving games on the Nintendo Switch which are not ideally effective for shutdown prevention like real driving is, but are better than doing nothing.

So you may ask (And I have asked myself this) "Why not take a job that involves driving?" Two reasons. The first is that I could not take a job that involves dealing with taking people back and fore because people who talk and try to give instructions can be dangerous for me as if I get stressed I can't "Drive it off" by zoning in with the concentration on driving. The second thing is that I have taken to driving smaller cars as they are easier on narrow roads we have here, which means that one can't carry too much as a job, but also I am a sticker to the rules, so if one has to break speed limits I will get stressed out! (Once took a job as a postman and if we didn't do 70mph in 30mph zones we would have missed the entire post for the day! Was full on stress which is why when the job ended (Summer season job) I never did any more in that line of work. (14 hrs a day with a single 25-30 minute break and it was all physical so I was getting thinner and thinner as I could hardly sleep and I was too nurvous to eat before work, and too tired to eat when I got home, so I only really ate on sundays! I was young then).

Another reason why a driving job would not be good for me is that I can not risk associating driving with stress, as if my mind connects the two I will be in trouble. I can cope with all sorts of situations such as other drivers doing all sorts of things such as nudging the back of my car while tailgating to driving head on at me, none of which cause me shutdowns, as it turns into a game, but I could not cope with driving in cities where there are risks of a traffic jam as the only time I risk a suphutdown is when I am stationary and stressed. I have driven 100 mile loops to get back home to avoid a 5 minute traffic jam! My brother called them my "Famous shortcuts" as he knew it would take ages to get home and I could not join the traffic queue and had to turn round. (Why I avoid driving on dual carriageways or motorways unless I know they are not too busy. Fortunately there ard only a few of them in Wales!)
Anyway. Anxiety is another reason why I have issues with working as when I am driving I don't get it, but I get it before, and if I pull into work and as soon as I park the car, anxiety hits and I am physically stuck unable to get out the car! I have been stuck in the car for half an hour and once the only thing I could do was to drive again as the anxiety went as I drove and abandoned the idea of going to work (It was actually a job interview in a place I had worked many times before, so I had to have two attempts to do it. The manager (Who I knew) was there the whole day and there was not a fixed time, so I drove for a few hours before coming back to see him, as when I initially turned up I could not physically get out of the car! Why I always keep at least a third of a tank of fuel in the car incase I drive to a fuel station and not be able to get out the car, so I can drive off and come back later when I can if that makes sense?

Sorry, I don't have any driving experience (or working experience for that matter), so I can't relate nor advice something. But I agree that we should take into consideration our weak points, trying to adapt and accomodate ourselves and, if it happens, play on our strenghts.