Sensory Overload

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Do the effects of sensory overload vary depending on what condition a person has? Eg, this article on chronic fatigue syndrome mentions unexplained tiredness, confusion or pain ( http://www.cfidsselfhelp.org/library/se ... strategies ) but the way Ive read some autistic/aspergers people describe it it sounds as if they temporarily loose certain senses or something. Is that correct or did I pick something up wrong? Is it the same for all who experience it or does it vary by the condition a person has?

Sensory overload causes me to either meltdown..or shutdown.
Tiredness seems to exacerbate the symptoms.
I have had a few instances where I have been stood in a busy store in the run up to christmas, and it is as if I have just stopped and frozen. Stood still, and stared, and as if my thoughts stopped. I am not sure if anyone else has had that.

But in other instances, I will just start screaming and raging, hitting my head, throwing things. My brain seems unable to process too many stimuli coming in from different directions, I am presuming.

I'm officially dx'ed with CFS, not officially dx'ed ASC. My hearing has always been hypersensitive, in that certain sounds are pure pain/fear like coffee grinders, vacuums, high pressure water, etc. The CFS seems to have made the disruption of my thinking processes by noise worse. That is, the fear/pain also messes with being able to think at all, but after the CFS I found that noise which was soft enough not to cause pain/fear (or was a noise that doesn't cause me that reaction), could still jumble up my thoughts.

I can only remember one time I mentally shut down from a sensory overload. Things that usually bug me are related to sounds that make me uncomfortable, or sounds that trigger anger/sadness.

Normally, such sounds make me cry.

When I was in high school, the fan in my bathroom suddenly broke and made low grinding noises. I was taking a bath at the time, and when I heard it, It made me angry/sad. I got out of the tub, and hid under my covers crying, and I skipped two days of school. That also means that I didn't set foot in that bathroom until the fan was fixed (unless I needed somthing from inside, I fished for it in the darkness).

Shutdowns from over-stimulation are a real problem for me - they happen every time I go to a bar, party, concert, etc. But they can also happen in a crowded noisy mall or supermarket or other place/event. My senses literally "shut down" and I become numb, and then if I don't separate myself from that environment, I fall asleep.