Autistic Shutdowns
Disclaimer: Any views, opinions and tips on this blog are personal and belong solely to myself (Kyra) and don’t represent the views of affiliated professionals and organisations. Additionally, I’m not a professional advisor regarding Autism and the content produced on this blog is solely from my own experiences.
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Everyone responds to stress differently. Some people’s first instinct is to talk to a friend, go to a quiet place, or bottle up their feelings. For Autistics, we experience high levels of stress and anxiety in which we respond in one of two ways: either through a meltdown or a shutdown.
A meltdown varies from person to person, but generally, a meltdown develops due to experiencing anxiety that cannot be contained. For some Autistics, a meltdown is expressed emotionally through shouting and screaming, whereas others may respond through physical expressions such as kicking and breaking objects (or a combination of both).
However, for this post, we’ll focus on Autistic shutdowns which is also a response to feeling overwhelmed but instead of responding externally, an Autistic person experiences an internal “shutdown.”
What is Autistic Shutdowns?
Shutdowns are a “muted response” to experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety when an Autistic reaches a crisis point. Signs of a shutdown varies person to person, but these are the common signs:
The inability to communicate.
Heaviness in limbs.
The need to withdraw to a quiet place.
Difficulty when forming thoughts.
Become overly aware of your surroundings, expressions, and actions.
Some Autistics know when they're going to experience a shutdown, while others identify it in the midst of the shutdown itself. For example, I’ve learned to identify the signs leading up to a shutdown, which consists of feeling warm and becoming overwhelmed by all of my senses.
Shutdowns are a coping mechanism that allows us to calm our senses and regain control of our bodies again. It serves as an important function to protect our mental health during exhausting expectations and daily demands placed on us. This is because shutdowns allow us to rest our minds and become attuned with regulating our bodily functions.
What triggers Autistic Shutdowns?
There are multiple triggers of an Autistic shutdown and varies from person to person, but here are a few common triggers:
Having to make quick decisions.
Sensory overload.
Too many demands placed upon yourself.
Emotional overload.
Stress.
To fully understand a few triggers, I would like to share a moment when I experienced an Autistic shutdown in public.
While working at the university bar, it was hard for me to completely shutdown in an environment that required my fullest attention. This meant I couldn’t retreat to a quiet place or curl up into a ball to become less overwhelmed by the lights, smells, and remembering my mask.
Nevertheless, my shutdown manifested into different behaviours that allowed me to regain control of my body. While waiting for customers to enter the club, I sometimes participated in maladaptive daydreaming, which is a behaviour where an individual becomes engrossed in their imagination. For example, I substituted human interaction with detailed fantasies with story plots and thinking about the stories of the first couple of students who danced on the dancefloor. Research into maladaptive daydreaming has often discredited the link of the behaviour to dissociation, as we’re still aware of our surroundings but choose to focus on our imagination. Whereas, dissociation involves psychological symptoms such as being unable to disentangle the real world from a dream world.
I believe that the majority of my colleagues didn’t notice this behaviour, however, there were moments when one particular colleague noticed when I started daydreaming and looking out into the crowd. This colleague normally joined in with my daydreaming (in a none malicious way) and this was when I started to realise how my Autistic shutdowns manifested into this behaviour in public environments.
As mentioned before, an Autistic shutdown is a coping strategy that allows us to calm our senses and regain control of our body again. Fundamentally, maladaptive daydreaming is a manifestation of this mechanism, which allows us to feel less isolated and regain the power that we lost due to trauma.
How to Handle the Aftermath of an Autistic Shutdown?
As mentioned previously, everyone has different coping strategies for handling their Autistic shutdown, and it’s important to familiarise ourselves with ways that can both avoid and soothe ourselves after the shutdown.
For Autistics:
Take as much rest as you need.
Become aware of what triggers your shutdowns - for example, keep a journal or a note section on your phone to write down potential triggers throughout the day.
When you’re ready, practice self-care behaviours that’ll help you to regain control of your body after a shutdown. For example, this could be playing your favourite PS5 game or reading your favourite book.
Watch out for what MB calls a shame spiral, which is when we become focused on negative thoughts that make us feel ashamed of our Autistic shutdown.
For Allists:
Allow the Autistic individual to rest alone - unless they’ve explicitly said how they want to be supported during and after a shutdown.
Don’t push an Autistic individual over their limits, as this can cause harm to their mental and physical health.
Educate yourself on the common signs of an Autistic shutdown and what happens during the coping mechanism. I would suggest watching videos from Autistics who have lived experiences of shutdowns, such as The Thought Spot. This is because you’ll be able to gain an in-depth understanding of the shutdown from our perspective.
What Next?
To end this post, I believe that there needs to be greater research into Autistic shutdowns, as in the neurotypical community, there are often poor misconceptions that affect Autistic individuals’ experiences in both the work and social environments. Additionally, I hope from sharing my experience with both shutdowns and maladaptive daydreaming will allow the Aillistic community to understand that shutdowns are an integral part of our neurodivergency and are not a controlling or manipulative mechanism.
Further Information
Aylward, L (2023) What are Autistic Shutdowns and Why do they Happen? Bristol Autism Support.
MB (2023) Autistic Shutdowns: A Guide for Neurodivergent Adults. My Soul Balm.
Stop Maladaptive Daydreaming (2022) Maladaptive Daydreaming vs. Dissociation: The Differences.
The Thought Spot (2022) Autistic Shutdowns.
Yuko, E (2021) What is Maladaptive Daydreaming? VeryWellHealth.
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