• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Are Physical Shutdowns Rare?

C

Captain Caveman

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
I know it happens mentally as well (At the same time) but is my mind mentally shutting its physical systems down that is for me a LOT more noticable.

(I also am aware that shutdowns come in different forms (I think six different forms I once saw listed?)

BUT are physical shutdown rare?
 
Captain Caveman said:
I know it happens mentally as well (At the same time) but is my mind mentally shutting its physical systems down that is for me a LOT more noticable.

(I also am aware that shutdowns come in different forms (I think six different forms I once saw listed?)

BUT are physical shutdown rare?
Click to expand...
I don't think so. It varies according to the individual in question really.
 
Why I ask this is that many doctors don't seem to have heard of them (I know this as I have been describing the symptoms to them for at least 35 years, before I finally found out they had something to do with autism (Since then I have been assessed and diagnosed)).
But even when I mentioned them to psycologists they go quiet and want to know more, which leads me to think that they might be rare.
 
I have more of a shutdown leaning myself. It becomes hard to respond to conversations, questions, ect.
 
Captain Caveman said:
Why I ask this is that many doctors don't seem to have heard of them (I know this as I have been describing the symptoms to them for at least 35 years, before I finally found out they had something to do with autism (Since then I have been assessed and diagnosed).
Click to expand...
I think most people are more aware of the meltdown trait, but there are many of us who are much more likely to shutdown instead.
 
The mind is a funny thing. I never had meltdowns or shutdowns like I hear others writing about. I have a temper but that's usually well controlled and when I go off it's usually justified and proportionate.

When I started burning out I started having blackouts. I would literally pass out, lose consciousness, my body would drop to the floor like a felled tree. I often injured myself in the fall as well. I saw doctor after doctor over many years trying to work out what was going on, none of them could ever find anything wrong with me and a couple of them even told me to my face that I was a liar and making up stories.

This went on for 15 years. In my own research I wondered if I could have Adult Onset Epilepsy, rare but it was the only answer I could find that seemed to fit. That and one other thing I picked up on while watching The Sopranos. Tony's anxiety attacks where he kept passing out. That was pretty much exactly what kept happening to me.

Why took me so long to finally work out what was going on is because this nervous response was delayed. It is just anxiety attacks but I was having the attack several days after the event that had caused me stress. As years went by the attacks started happening more closely to the events that were stressing me out, and eventually they became more immediate responses and I could see reasoning for them.

I haven't had a single problem in over 5 years now.
 
I want to share a short Youtube film. which is the closest thing I have seen to what I call a shutdown. There are only two small differences to what I get. By the time I see black I am already on the floor as I lose the ability to hold myself upright. It is NOT straight dosn as in a faint, but is more of a slow going down with just enough power to stop myself having harm as I end up on the floor unable to move.
The second difference, is that with me the blackness fades in from the top down like a stage curtain being lowered. In the film it is fading in from all sides inwards.

 
I had shutdowns frequently in overwhelming social situations, i don't seem to have them anymore since a few years though.
 
In my own case, yes shutdowns have happened to me very few times. The last being a number of years ago while Christmas shopping in an overly crowded mall. Too many people all focused on their own affairs moving very quickly.

Feeling like I was about to pass out, I barely recall looking for an exit, and the rest is pretty murky when I felt as if I woke up sitting in the driver seat of my car. Not being able to recall actually leaving the building or when I got into my car.

Sometimes I almost wonder if such an experience is akin to something like "alien abduction" and the loss of time one can experience. Where most of the details of whatever happened are lost in a sort of haze. From my own perspective, a rather uncomfortable and disquieting experience.
 
Last edited:
Before I knew they were called shutdowns or that they had anything to do with autism, so about five or six years ago... I had changed doctors surgeries (Had to as old doctors assumed I was faking it after testing me for everything except allergies which they refused to test me for (I had asked them repeatedly for allergy testing for 20 years but kept being told the NHS don't do it), but as they said I was a hypercondriact (They didn't tell me this but they limited me to one 3 minute appointment per year and timed me by watching their watch and ignoring what I said)...
Was after I ended up stuck on the floor for 45 minutes when my heart violently jumped up and down and for six months my body felt cut in half... And I asked if I should go to the hospital but the receptionist said "No way should you go to the hospital!" and instead said "Ring in the morning to book an appointment" but I fully well know they would see my telephone number and ignore it on their lines every morning and every time I did get through at mid day, they said "Sorry, all appointments have gone. Try tomorrow".. Eight and a half months later of daily phoning them I actually got to see the doctor and when I said what had happened he shouted at me saying I should have gone to the hospital (It was HIS receptionist who said NOT TO go to the hospital!) He said it was way to late for himto do anything and asked me to leave!
(Why I changed doctors surgeries and Mum changed with me. . The new doctors surgery could not get our medical records as old doctors had lost them. A family friend in high up circles said that a friend of his (Also a doctor but was not registered with that surgery) was showing our medical records to his high up friends (Friends were not in the medical profession) and they were rideculing us while doing it as it was their evenings entertainment. He told us this as he was there but did not want to be identified).
But anyway... New doctors had nothing to go on which was the best thing that could happen. So I asked for an allergy test and they said "Yes" straight away! They did say it was just the basic test.

Now I don't do well in hospitals at all! Doctors surgeries I find difficult. Smells are shutdown triggers and though I am not normally light sensitive, when in a partial shutdown due to the smells of bleach and other hospital smells being triggers, the strip lights in long hospital corridors seem to be way too intense and flickering with amplify the shutdown trigger effect! So when having to walk down those long corridors to the place they take a sample of my blood (Which is almost a guaranteed shutdown!), I had to have a ticket and wait in the crowded room for three quarters of an hour to an hour... Already had to go to the corridor where I had a shutdown on the floor and luckily my Mum would say "This always happens. He is ok. We are used to it" so they can leave me alone...
But when I was in that chair and closed my eyes so I couldn't see the needle, and felt the sting, and then the blood move in my veins, I had a shutdown.
The nurse thought I had fainted (I didn't know they were even called shutdowns in thiose days), so she went through the standard proceedures as I started pulling out by forcing me to talk way. efore I was ready to think.
"What is your name?"
"What is your date of birth?"
"What is your address?"
etc, etc, and each time I tried to speak I slipped into another shutdown!
In between shutdowns I managed to say
"Stop"
Shutdown.
"Asking"
Shutdown.
"Me"
Shutdown.
"Questions"
Shutdown... And I could only get a word out as I pulled out of each shutdown which was some time...
After a few hours of this and I had managed to repeat this sentence a word at a time about three sentences worth after a few hours of trying, she finally listened and I was able to recover, BUT I was so exhausted and shaky/clammy that I could hardly sit up, let alone walk, as for a while they had a heavy built hospital wheelchair to tske me down to A&E, but they were not allowed to lift me and they could not use a stretcher (No idea why)... So they had to wait an hour before I could actually get up to sit upright, so I could sit in that chair to be taken to A&E... (All I went in for was a blood test!)
I was a few hours down A&E with monetering equipment on me, and when a specialist came (A VERY tallented Asian man) and he said "It is definately NOT fainting (As he went through the differences between fainting and what I get (Though they physically feel the same, they are very different in the recovery, and shutdowns are a lot slower going down to the floor. Fainting js straight doen. Shutdowns look to others like they are purposfully done as I slowly slip down to the ground!)
He said "There is something different going on here. Are you autistic?"
I said "No" (As I didn't know I was).
He said it would be a good idea to be assessed. (I think I mentioned others had asked me that quite a number of times in the past! :D ).
Anyway. I had to then try and recover enough to get back to the car as I would get big parking fines as I was only allowed six hours and I made it with a few minutes to spare. I had to drive as I was a mile down the road to recover the rest in the car in a woodland carpark as I had no income due to not being able to work, and Mum had little money as I could not pay her anything, so if I had been fined I would be in a mess!
 
Judge said:
In my own case, yes shutdowns have happened to me very few times. The last being a number of years ago while Christmas shopping in an overly crowded mall. Too many people all focused on their own affairs moving very quickly.

Feeling like I was about to pass out, I barely recall looking for an exit, and the rest is pretty murky when I felt as if I woke up sitting in the driver seat of my car. Not being able to recall actually leaving the building or when I got into my car.

Sometimes I almost wonder if such an experience is akin to something like "alien abduction" and the loss of time one can experience. Where most of the details of whatever happened are lost in a sort of haze. From my own perspective, a rather uncomfortable and disquieting experience.
Click to expand...
With me, during a shutdown, I am concious. I will not be able to move or see or hear but I can feel the air move as people walk past... when people try and step over me they would step on my fingers and the pain would be amplified but I could not scream or shout as I was in a shutdown!

Oddly, driving pulls me out of shutdowns! The zoning in on the road and the concentration on that, pulls me out!

During covid when stress was really high and things were in lockdown, I drove and drove and drove. I didn't go in any shops as that was too stressful (I am facemask exampt but I avoid shops. I did manage to go in petrol garages to pay for fuel which I tried to minimize the risk... (Car does 60 mpg so could go miles. Mum was also stressed and finds just going through country lanes relaxing. If it wasn't for that, I would have ended up in a serious mental breakdown in covid... But though it was nearly all country lane driving so we didn't go out other than for me to occasionally wee behind a hedge (Wales can be difficult to find a public toilet open especially in the south, and when I get nervous I drink a lot of water so I know all the toilets and possible hedgerows I can go in most country areas of Wales! :D )).
 
Last edited:
FayetheAspie said:
I have more of a shutdown leaning myself. It becomes hard to respond to conversations, questions, ect.
Click to expand...
Autism lingo is still new to me, but this - it becoming difficult to communicate but not impossible - happens many times to me. I have a couple of questions:

1) "Masking sometimes becomes too overwhelming that we stop doing it; the natural autistic reaction to negative stimuli then occurs." Is this statement, which I just composed, a good way of simplifying what a shutdown is?

2) My brother Oliver (pseudonym) was once sitting in the eye doctor's office. Several doctors were standing and talking about his eyes, while he sat there - poked, prodded and getting increasingly frustrated. He then passed out and fell over. Was Oliver, who isn't known to have autism (but who knows?), experiencing a physical shutdown?
 
Last edited:
I've never passed out from a shutdown. But it is frequent that I cannot physically move my tongue or hands to speak. I don't know if that qualifies as "physical."
 
Masking would be rather difficult at best during a shutdown but not masking does not automatically equate to being in a shutdown.
 
jsilver256 said:
I've never passed out from a shutdown. But it is frequent that I cannot physically move my tongue or hands to speak. I don't know if that qualifies as "physical."
Click to expand...
If it doesn't count, then I am misunderstanding what a shutdown is.
 
jsilver256 said:
I've never passed out from a shutdown.
Click to expand...
I was in my late 30s the first time that happened to me, and it started happening often. At the same time my metabolism suddenly shifted, massive weight gain and I couldn't drink full strength beer any more because it got me too drunk. That has important cultural impacts in Australia too. And doctors kept telling me there was nothing wrong with me.

It was very bewildering and a little bit scary.

That's the sort of reason I value this forum so much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom