Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi All,
I've been trying to understand my experiences in the context of things like Meltdowns, Overload and Shutdowns. I've been struggling to match my experiences to the terms though and was hoping people here could help give insights into them to match them up. Or are they just typical human emotions that aren't autism related?
For example:
I've had an episode where I saw someone linked to a past traumatic event and after a few minutes went completely non-verbal, heavy breathing, collapsed to the ground next to my car kind of thing. Is this an implosive version of a meltdown? Is it an anxiety attack, or does that tend to have more thoughts and fears along with it?
I find identifying meltdowns particularly tricky given that I'm not prone to violence or aggression particularly, which in most online research tends to get linked to meltdowns.
So how do you know the difference between a shutdown, a meltdown, or something else?
Any insights or questions welcome!
Thanks,Craig
I can tell you the definitions that I use, but as tfw7 said, they're not very precisely defined terms, and they do seem to shade into each other, and are very closely related. So bear in mind that I'm speaking mostly about my personal experiences of them.
After a shut-down or melt-down you will usually feel extremely drained and tired, and probably need to sleep, use sensory comforters, or stim a lot. Recovery from only an anxiety attack is usually quicker and easier, but not always.
Just to confuse you even further (I'm sorry), there another one you might hear that I might as well introduce to complete the set.
You'll note with all of those that stress and anxiety seem to come up a lot. In one way or another, stress causes all of them, if you include extreme emotions, having trouble communicating with the world, and sensory sensitivities as sources of stress, which they surely are. Anything you can do which lowers the amount of stress in your life will help.
ooh yeah, burn out, I get that. "Running on empty" or "just not feeling it" were the phrases I used pre-diagnosis when anyone asked how i felt and it was that kind of thing where it's a gradual build up.
It's one of those aspects of autism that I wish the professionals had been able to tell me about at my assessment. It seems to be so common, and has a huge impact on autistic people's lives, yet we're expected to work it out for ourselves, and there's no recognition of what our needs are when we're burned out.
When I'm badly burned out, I simply can't look after myself properly; all of my usual coping mechanisms go out of the window. The house becomes a tip, my personal hygiene becomes terrible, I barely eat, and most of all, I simply cannot stand any kind of communication with people. I go out into the world already on the edge of a melt-down before I've even got out of the door; I can become extremely agoraphobic when I'm burned out.
Another problem is that autistic burnout can easily be mixed up with depression, and I think this is partly why professionals rarely recognise it; the observable behaviours are very similar. One shades into the other, so that if burn-out isn't dealt with, it can gradually morph into severe depression. The trouble is that treatments for depression aren't always appropriate for burn-out. For example, CBT can be a very effective intervention for depression, even for autistic people; but when you're burned out, the emotional strain of counselling could just overload an already struggling brain further, making the burn-out worse. Likewise, medication may help with anxiety relief, but is not a substitute for the rest that's needed for recovery.
Once burned out, rest really is the only thing that works; I need lots of sleep, isolation from sensory triggers, and as few chores and tasks on my plate as possible for a while. It's definitely one of those things where prevention is better than cure. If you're zapped after a day at work/school, an hour's down time on getting home each day, is much better than letting it build up, so that your whole weekend is ruined. A few short holidays throughout the year may be better than one big fortnight; so that work stress is let out over the course of the year instead of building to the point where you can't cope (this has cost me every job that I've ever had.)
Like I said earlier; identify all causes of stress in your life, and try any and all techniques for minimising stress to find what works best for you; managing stress and anxiety is the key to improving all of these "brain overload" aspects of autism. Rest and "special-interest" time are justifiable therapies for autistic people, not just "symptoms" or indulgences.