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There aren’t too many differences between meltdowns and shutdowns. Both are extreme reactions to everyday stimuli, often the result of long term unresolved issues and are completely out of the control of the aspie.

I personally tend to be more predisposed to shutdowns than meltdowns.

What is a Shutdown?

A shutdown is almost the polar opposite of a meltdown. Whilst a meltdown could be described as a rage against a situation, the shutdown is more of a retreat.

As with a meltdown the aspie may act irrationally or dangerously, but unlike a meltdown the harmful actions are directed at oneself. They may be more likely to take reckless risks such as driving faster or stepping out in front of traffic. There may be attempts at self harm or even suicidal thoughts. Simply put, you don’t care about yourself, whether you live or you die.

Behaviours which come to the fore during a shutdown tend to be ones of trying to hide away from the world. Rolling up into the foetal position, crawling under things or lying face down. Gaze avoidance tends to increase and conversation is non-existent. I’ve had shutdowns at work induced by making a stupid mistake, where I will just stare at my monitor for hours, rocking, being oblivious to what is going on around me.

Causes

In common with the meltdown, the cause of the shutdown tends to be cumulative, and isn’t down to just one event. The final “trigger” may bear no relation to the actual problem.

The final trigger could be something small such as an insignificant incident at work that provokes a long term insecurity, or the result of an extreme event such as a loss of a relationship, or redundancy.

Typically the problems associated with shutdowns tend to lean towards low self esteem and depression.

I can quickly get into a shutdown if I end up in a futile conversation, when the discussion begins to feel like I’m stuck in a never-ending labyrinth where the other party is telling me that I have done or thought something that I really have not, accusing me of lying or not knowing my own mind when it is they who have misinterpreted me because they are used to dealing with Neurotypicals.

What it Feels Like

For me the pain of all the current issues in my life, both the one that triggered the shutdown and those that were part of the cumulative, comes to the fore.

I start to make mountains out of molehills, catastrophising. I’ll start thinking “what if”, “if only”, “could have”, “should have”, which is counterproductive because you can’t change the past, and you start to beat yourself up over the stupid mistakes that you’ve made.

I’ll play events over and over again in my head, in high def colour video with dolby surround sound audio, picture perfect. I’ll cross reference things said and done with previous comments and catastrophise the shit out of the situation.

I become incapable of functioning outside of those things that are essential, such as doing my job. I’ll get home from work and collapse into bed rolled up in the foetal position, or sit in the lounge staring into space, rocking to the beat of my heart. I’ll skip meals, or eat junk. I’ll perform the just the basics to maintain my personal wellbeing. I’m on autopilot.

I feel unfulfilled, lacking in motivation.

This is the worst time for me to communicate with the outside world, as my cognitive abilities are shot to pieces. This is the time when I will be most abrupt and blunt, and if I communicate I will often make things worse. I don’t think straight, and I’ll piss off the people that I need in my life the most.

So I will often ignore phone calls and messages, which pisses people off further, but they don’t understand that I just don’t have the ability to respond. This isn’t a cry for help, a game. This is pure on spiralling out of control into the abyss.

I really just want to be left alone, for the world to stop long enough for me to sort out my thoughts. I feel so alone and isolated, yet paradoxically I want to reach out to people, wanting them to understand me and to make allowances for my responses to situations that they are involved in with me.

I want to cry from the frustration but can’t.

Sometimes, depending on the level of pain I’m feeling, and how much my world is spiralling out of control I can quickly get to a very dark place thinking what’s the point of it all. I’m not the suicidal kind, I’m a coward and could never take my own life, but I do start to wish for a natural death; I want to go to sleep and not wake, or have a heart attack.

I am exhausted from living, but I want to live. I want to get better. I want to regain energy.

A shutdown usually lasts a couple of days for me, and like a meltdown it is so draining that the cumulative effects are felt for days after, the meltdown hangover! On coming out of the shutdown, as with the meltdown I tend to feel stupid and can’t look the world in the eye.

“Dealing” with it

Often when in shutdown I will just get in my car and drive. And drive. And drive. It’s my escape from the world. I’ll put my music on, divert my phone to voicemail, and just drive, often with no destination in mind. I just want to escape the normality of my life.

A few years ago I had a massive argument with my partner. She told me she was leaving and went back to her mums on the Saturday morning. I went into a shutdown, got into my car and drove the entirety of the Welsh coast over two days, sleeping in my car overnight. I didn’t take my phone charger and the phone soon died.

When I got home she’d “come back” and she was going out of her mind with worry as she’d not been able to contact me. She’d called my friends, family and the police as she was sick with worry. Because she had “left” me it never occured to me that she might actually care.

This is the reality of shutting off during the shutdown.

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I had a meltdown on Friday night, and 3 days later I’m still knocked for six, stuck in the meltdown hangover.

Since separating from Maria almost 12 months ago, I’ve been a member of several closed singles groups on Facebook. No one caught my attention until a few months ago when Jenny arrived in the group.

There was something different about Jenny. She didn’t seem to be taking the group seriously and her posts and comments went over the heads of the many guys who were drooling over her because of her stunning looks and her risqué comments. I saw something else though, a witty sarcastic intelligence. I had a gut feeling that I would meet her one day, and I did.

We had a bit of a fall out a couple of weeks ago. Our friendship is very new, just 6 weeks old, but already I know that she’s someone that I want in my life forever. We’d been chatting 19 hours daily, swapping almost 7000 messages in just 3 weeks, 1163 on one day alone (yeah, Aspie stats obsession!). I even visited her for 5 days just a few weeks after we first spoke.

She felt like a friend on steroids. We just got on, we had an affinity. We were on the same level. It’s rare for me to find someone like that. There certainly didn’t seem to be anything of a romantic nature from either side, not that I would really notice if there was.

So when we fell out my anxiety levels heightened. I didn’t want to lose this amazing new friend. We quickly resolved our issue, but then it all went wrong again within hours and I wasn’t sure why. I asked if she was still coming to visit me at the end of the week and she said it wasn’t a good idea, so rather than pick up the phone and resolve the issue, I put my head in the sand and that was the last we spoke until 4 days later.

At the end of the week I sent her flowers, to get her attention. I knew that she’d contact me; she’s too polite not to. We chatted and things seemed to be smoothed over, but then she just turned on me. For three hours we had a circular conversation that ended up with me going into a meltdown due to the futility of it.

To be told over and over that she didn’t believe what I was saying, that I was playing some kind of game, frustrated me. How do you prove that you’re not lying? I quickly got closer and closer to meltdown. It didn’t make sense to me. I surmised that she was jealous of my other friendships. Was she into me in “that” way, and I’d not realised? I’m pretty rubbish at spotting that.

Eventually I started to react to what was being said rather than act rationally. I could see the friendship slipping away and I needed a way to let her know that I wasn’t interested in others, that my only interest was her friendship. So I told her that I loved her. Yeah, I know. Dumb move because I don’t. I’ve no idea what I feel for her but it’s not that. I guess I thought saying that would prove to her that I wasn’t interested in anyone else. I was in meltdown and all cognitive ability goes out of the window.

So now we’re not speaking again because it’s all a little weird. I miss her. I miss our daily conversations about nothing much. I’m afraid that I’ve ruined what would have been one of the best friendships of my life, and I don’t know what to do next.

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I got to work today and straight away two things ruined the day ahead.

Firstly someone had used my chair in my absence on Friday and had adjusted the height and pitch. I spend a lot of time setting up a comfortable position and some selfish colleague had come along and messed all of that up.

Secondly someone had taken my company issued headset. I love to listen to music as I work. It was 6am and whoever took it would probably not be in the office for another 3 hours. This meant that my routine was now all over the place.

I appreciate that these are small things, but they caused me great anxiety, and I know that I’ll be on edge for the entirety of the day now.

I just don’t understand why someone would come to your desk and mess around with the setting of your chair, or think that it’s ok to take your headset and not return it.

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This is a piece that I wrote for the inhouse newsletter at work, back in 2017. I work for a tech company, so some of the terms might not make sense.

Hi, I’m Asperger King and I’m a Senior Developer. Until a few years ago I had no idea what autism was. My views were based on films such as Rainman and Forrest Gump, and Moss from the IT Crowd. Socially awkward geeks with fantastic memories, strange hobbies, stilted speech, unable to hold down a job or a relationship; and if American, likely to go on a gun rampage at some point. Then along came Channel 4’s The Undateables, a rich source of comedy gold with regards Asperger’s Syndrome, which confirmed my views.

And then three years ago I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. How could this be? How could I have got to 41 without knowing? The only possible pointer is that I have an interest in weapons; I teach Air Cadets how to shoot. It was then that realised that my views were stereotypes portrayed by the media for entertainment value. Since receiving my diagnosis I’ve become an advocate for autism awareness, going into schools to give talks to teachers and parents about how it is possible to live a “normal” life on the spectrum as an adult. I asked the editor if an article could be run on autism because the tech industry has a high incidence of autistics working in it, yet the stereotypical views still prevail.

Autistic Development Disorder (ASD) is a neurological developmental disorder characterized by awkwardness in social interaction, communication difficulties, and preoccupation with very narrow interests. It is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how we perceive the world and interact with others. If you have autism, you have it for life – it is not an illness or disease and cannot be ‘cured’, and it’s not something that you suddenly get. Autistic brains are physically different to those of Neurotypicals (NTs). In tech terms I’m running on an ARM processor with a RISC instruction set, and you’re on x64 with CISC (or maybe it’s the other way around).

Autism is often described as a ‘spectrum disorder’ because the condition affects people in many different ways and to varying degrees. A favourite quote in the autism world is from Dr. Stephen Shore, “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism”. Asperger’s’ Syndrome is at the higher functioning end of the spectrum, meaning that we have above average intelligence, but still have the social awkwardness and communication difficulties. It’s mostly a hidden disability; you can’t tell that someone has the condition from their outward appearance, except maybe from a bad sense of dress!

Aspies have difficulties with three main areas. They are:

  • Social Communication
    • We’re honest to the point of being brutal. I once told my partner that her silver coloured designer jumper made her look like a turkey at Christmas. Bad move.
    • We find it difficult to lie.
    • People mistakenly think we’re rude because we are blunt and to the point. No, we just don’t see the point in wasting time pussyfooting around a situation.
    • We focus on the words used, and often miss the context of a conversation or instruction, leading to misunderstandings and arguments. People think we’re pedantic, but we’re not; we’re precise. That can be problematic.
    • We don’t understand idioms. If you tell an autistic child it’s raining cats and dogs they may well expect to see cats falling past their window.
    • We don’t understand the point of small talk. If you greet me with “Hi, how are you” cross your fingers that I’m not in the mood to tell you about all of my ailments, just to teach you for making such pointless conversation.
    • We struggle with non-verbal communication; we often don’t pick up on body language, facial expressions, tones of voice, and conversely we tend to speak in monotone, and our body language doesn’t match what we are saying, making it difficult for others to understand us.
    • We struggle to make and keep eye contact, leading to distrust by others who think we are lying.
    • Abstract concepts and vagueness in conversation confuse us.
  • Social Interaction
    • We tend to not enjoy being in large groups of Neurotypicals (NTs), because of the communication difficulties.
    • We might talk about ourselves and our special interests too much and often will not ask about the other person, appearing self centred and egotistical.
    • We’d rather concentrate on our own interests and work solo, rather than participate in group activities.
    • We tend to not seek comfort or help from others as we’re not understood.
    • Aspies often have a socially unacceptable sense of humour.
  • Social Imagination
    • We may find it hard to predict the consequence of our actions on others.
    • Empathy doesn’t come naturally to us. We have to learn it, which
    • It can be hard to generalise, to see how a new situation is similar to something that we’ve already experienced and to adapt this prior knowledge.

Outside of this ‘Triad of Impairments’ there are a few other characteristics that we tend to have. We like routine and are resistant to change. We have problems with short term working memory, but have excellent long term memory. Many Aspies have intense and highly focused specialist, often unusual interests. We may also experience over or under sensitivity to sound, touch, tastes, smells, light, colours and temperature. Anxiety is also a major comorbid condition.

Autism is much more common than most people think. There are around 700,000 people in the UK living with autism – that’s around 1.1% of the population, which means that statistically there may be around 20 employees here who are on the spectrum, possibly more given the natural affinity the autistic mind has for software development. Only 16% of people on the spectrum have full-time jobs in the UK. Many people on the spectrum struggle with job interviews as they often find the sensory experience and social interactions in an interview challenging, but companies such as Microsoft, HP, SAP, Ford, Vodafone and PayPal are now actively recruiting people with ASD. They gave changed their recruitment processes as autistic people often do much better when they are able to demonstrate their skills over time and not in a high stress situation like an interview. Autistics typically have high attention to detail and an ability to concentrate on tasks, and our non-traditional way of thinking can provide innovative solutions to problems, which is why these employers are seeking neurodiversity within their workforces.

Prior to my diagnosis my job was far more difficult than it is now. The main difficulty that I have is with communication, and I was constantly being told that my emails or comments in jira were either too verbose, or too abrupt to the point of being rude. I think that people thought that I was being deliberately difficult, but I wasn’t. I was just not aware that people thought differently to me, and assumed that they would understand what I was saying. That I would be taken aside from time to time to discuss my communications caused a great deal of anxiety. I didn’t understand why it was wrong to state things as they were without diplomacy, especially when communicating with other teams.

I was also prone to misinterpreting jira issues, because I concentrated on the words not the context, and I’d end up asking what others probably thought were stupid questions in order to get clarity, and even then I’d sometimes still end up working on the wrong thing. That’s quite embarrassing, and demoralising, and again caused a great deal of anxiety. This anxiety led to a few very public meltdowns in the office. A meltdown looks to onlookers like a “temper-tantrum” when the reality is that your senses have become so overwhelmed that you just shutdown, rather noisily. Often a meltdown can see you banging your head against objects, which can be disturbing to observers. You have no control over it and the tipping point into the meltdown may be completely unrelated to the underlying anxiety. I can’t begin to explain how humiliating it is to meltdown in-front of your colleagues. You feel so ashamed that quitting your job seems like a good option.

I’m very resistant to change of routine. Something as simple as having a desk move causes me great anxiety, or having to work different hours. It sounds ridiculous, even to me, but it causes palpitations.

Since being diagnosed and disclosing to my colleagues things have been different. People make allowances for me now. They accept that when I ask a question, no matter how stupid it may seem, that I actually need to ask that question for my own understanding. Most of my communication is done face to face now to avoid the issues that I once had with emails. I’m consulted in advance about desk moves and changes in working hours. My colleagues and line management have been fantastic.

The one area that I still struggle with is in socialising. I still can’t make small talk at the coffee machine, and dread someone saying “good morning” to me. I would love to go to lunch or join in with the nights out that my team have, but the fear of having to talk about something other than work is truly debilitating. I have the same physiological response that I have when atop tall buildings. When walking in the local area I will cross the road to avoid having to walk with someone that I know, just in-case they attempt to strike up a conversation. It’s not rudeness, it’s a genuine fear. I just don’t know how to make small talk.

Having been open about my condition I’ve had quite a few people tell me that they think that they may have Aspergers. Seeking a diagnosis is a personal thing, but if you suspect that you may be on the spectrum and that a diagnosis would be a positive thing, I’d suggest that you search online for Autism Quotient Test as a starting point and seek a professional diagnosis through your GP if the test indicates that you may be.

I appreciate that all of the above seems to paint a bleak picture of Aspergers, but I’ve purposely focused on the challenges that it brings because those are the things that people tend to notice and judge on without appreciating why someone is as they are. My autism doesn’t define who I am, but it has shaped me, and I’d not want to be without it. Aspie’s are not broken, we’re just different. As I said at the beginning, we’re running a different instruction set on different hardware, that’s all, and to understand us you need to learn a new language. You’d not get too far trying to run a windows program on Linux, at least not without WINE, so you’re going to have to port your instructions that would work fine with Neurotypicals over to Aspie.

I’ll leave you with one final cheeky quote. “If the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool, you would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.” Dr. Temple Grandin