Autistic shutdown

A shutdown is simply just not functioning or doing only the basic functions this can show diffent for each person for me it’s I won’t talk to certain people and the ones I go get very basic responses and my tasks slow to a crawl 

What about the lead up to the shutdown? how does one experience it?

Iain said:

If you find you are not reaching the point where the sky falls in completely then it is more likely that you are experiencing burnout which is where the stress placed on you in the near-meltdown zone has become intense and you are starting to behave erratically.

To clarify,  Kvothe  , the opposite applies.

Autistic burnout is not an interim stage that we go through before we begin to experience shutdowns or meltdowns.

Instead, experiencing more frequent meltdowns and/or shutdowns than we normally do can be an indicator that we are entering the early stages of autistic burnout.

NAS - Autistic fatigue and burnout

Embrace Autism - Meltdowns and shutdowns 

Iain, I do not disagree with what you quoted from the article that you linked to (“Meltdowns often occur after prolonged burnout has been ignored and after autistic people try to push through.”)

Meltdowns can certainly only first occur after someone has already been experiencing autistic burnout (prolonged or otherwise). And increased frequency of meltdowns can also be a key indicator of potential entry into burnout, if someone is not yet already experiencing it.

My issue is with you having misleadingly claimed that:

Iain said:

If you find you are not reaching the point where the sky falls in completely then it is more likely that you are experiencing burnout which is where the stress placed on you in the near-meltdown zone has become intense and you are starting to behave erratically.

Whether you intended it or not (and I think you did, as I explain below), a reasonable interpretation of what you said is that burnout typically precedes meltdowns or shutdowns ("if you are not reaching [shutdown or meltdown]", "then it is more likely that you are experiencing burnout"). 

This is simply not true. Meltdowns and shutdowns can occur both before and during burnout.

As the NAS explains in the article that I linked to:

"Autistic people have described various ways that autistic fatigue and burnout have affected them. Autistic fatigue has often been described as exhaustion with additional difficulties such as:

increased meltdowns and sensory sensitivity
physical pain and headaches
physically shutting down, including the loss of speech."

NAS - Autistic fatigue and burnout

This is supported by the Embrace Autism article that you yourself have previously linked to (which was last updated in July 2025, to reflect the latest research):

"When meltdowns occur frequently, they can signal early stages of autistic burnout, indicating deeper, chronic distress"

Embrace Autism - Meltdowns and shutdowns

Iain said:

Given your track record of attacking me on details where you decide what I meant (ie note that I did not use the word interim)

I dispute both your emotive use of "attack", and having ever misrepresented your meaning. I am not attacking you, and you are not a victim. I am addressing what reads, to me, as a misleading statement about some of the core elements of our autistic experience. I believe that your statement was based on a fundamentally mistaken belief on your part.

By way of supporting evidence for this, I refer you to your comment in a previous, related thread, where you didn't recognise what, for several of us, was a textbook example of a meltdown:

Iain said:

With some further reading it looks line burnout and meltdowns are on their own spectrum:

https://embrace-autism.com/meltdowns-and-shutdowns/

Defining where burnout ends and meltdowns begin is an imprecise science.

Burnout and meltdowns are not on a spectrum in the sense of, per your statement, burnout ending before meltdowns begin. It is an irrelevant falsehood to believe that one could ever define where one ends and the other begins. They can, and often do, co-occur.

Meltdowns can occur without someone entering into burnout. They can also occur after someone has entered burnout. When they increase in frequency, the person is more likely to be in burnout. 

In that same thread, you also said:

Iain said:

I had thought meltdowns were when there was more of a loss of control but it looks like this is much more murky and it is nearly impossible to tell if you are having burnout and a tantrum related to this or if you are moving into meltdown.

It is far from "murky" or "nearly impossible" to distinguish between tantrums, meltdowns / shutdowns, and burnout.

Meltdowns do, indeed, involve a loss of control. Tantrums do not. Meltdown is not something that you "move into" after having burnout and, potentially also, tantrums.

what you wrote made sense to me Iain  , ironically also what Bunny did too -  hehe who said autistic people have problems with empathy - for what it's worth I don't think the person I was ever have comes out of burnout - it's something more like a phoenix engages with - I think that what burnt out was the self-delusion that I was neurotypical enough to manage things the same way i had been in a neurotypical environment

Bunny said:

Autistic burnout is not an interim stage that we go through before we begin to experience shutdowns or meltdowns.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-forgotten-women/202501/burnout-inertia-meltdown-and-shutdown-can-shape-autistic-lives

Meltdowns often occur after prolonged burnout has been ignored and after autistic people try to push through.

This implies that the two are connected in this way.

Given your track record of attacking me on details where you decide what I meant (ie note that I did not use the word interim) I will not engage further but let the professionals opinion explain it for me.

Bunny said:

Autistic burnout is not an interim stage that we go through before we begin to experience shutdowns or meltdowns.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-forgotten-women/202501/burnout-inertia-meltdown-and-shutdown-can-shape-autistic-lives

Meltdowns often occur after prolonged burnout has been ignored and after autistic people try to push through.

This implies that the two are connected in this way.

Given your track record of attacking me on details where you decide what I meant (ie note that I did not use the word interim) I will not engage further but let the professionals opinion explain it for me.

Iain, I do not disagree with what you quoted from the article that you linked to (“Meltdowns often occur after prolonged burnout has been ignored and after autistic people try to push through.”)

Meltdowns can certainly only first occur after someone has already been experiencing autistic burnout (prolonged or otherwise). And increased frequency of meltdowns can also be a key indicator of potential entry into burnout, if someone is not yet already experiencing it.

My issue is with you having misleadingly claimed that:

Iain said:

If you find you are not reaching the point where the sky falls in completely then it is more likely that you are experiencing burnout which is where the stress placed on you in the near-meltdown zone has become intense and you are starting to behave erratically.

Whether you intended it or not (and I think you did, as I explain below), a reasonable interpretation of what you said is that burnout typically precedes meltdowns or shutdowns ("if you are not reaching [shutdown or meltdown]", "then it is more likely that you are experiencing burnout"). 

This is simply not true. Meltdowns and shutdowns can occur both before and during burnout.

As the NAS explains in the article that I linked to:

"Autistic people have described various ways that autistic fatigue and burnout have affected them. Autistic fatigue has often been described as exhaustion with additional difficulties such as:

increased meltdowns and sensory sensitivity
physical pain and headaches
physically shutting down, including the loss of speech."

NAS - Autistic fatigue and burnout

This is supported by the Embrace Autism article that you yourself have previously linked to (which was last updated in July 2025, to reflect the latest research):

"When meltdowns occur frequently, they can signal early stages of autistic burnout, indicating deeper, chronic distress"

Embrace Autism - Meltdowns and shutdowns

Iain said:

Given your track record of attacking me on details where you decide what I meant (ie note that I did not use the word interim)

I dispute both your emotive use of "attack", and having ever misrepresented your meaning. I am not attacking you, and you are not a victim. I am addressing what reads, to me, as a misleading statement about some of the core elements of our autistic experience. I believe that your statement was based on a fundamentally mistaken belief on your part.

By way of supporting evidence for this, I refer you to your comment in a previous, related thread, where you didn't recognise what, for several of us, was a textbook example of a meltdown:

Iain said:

With some further reading it looks line burnout and meltdowns are on their own spectrum:

https://embrace-autism.com/meltdowns-and-shutdowns/

Defining where burnout ends and meltdowns begin is an imprecise science.

Burnout and meltdowns are not on a spectrum in the sense of, per your statement, burnout ending before meltdowns begin. It is an irrelevant falsehood to believe that one could ever define where one ends and the other begins. They can, and often do, co-occur.

Meltdowns can occur without someone entering into burnout. They can also occur after someone has entered burnout. When they increase in frequency, the person is more likely to be in burnout. 

In that same thread, you also said:

Iain said:

I had thought meltdowns were when there was more of a loss of control but it looks like this is much more murky and it is nearly impossible to tell if you are having burnout and a tantrum related to this or if you are moving into meltdown.

It is far from "murky" or "nearly impossible" to distinguish between tantrums, meltdowns / shutdowns, and burnout.

Meltdowns do, indeed, involve a loss of control. Tantrums do not. Meltdown is not something that you "move into" after having burnout and, potentially also, tantrums.

what you wrote made sense to me Iain  , ironically also what Bunny did too -  hehe who said autistic people have problems with empathy - for what it's worth I don't think the person I was ever have comes out of burnout - it's something more like a phoenix engages with - I think that what burnt out was the self-delusion that I was neurotypical enough to manage things the same way i had been in a neurotypical environment