 Good day you wonderful people. I see you. Thank you for coming back to the YouTube channel with your host as always Mr. Thomas Hanley. Today I'm coming at you with another autism dating video and today, today's topic, it's going to be autism shutdowns. How to understand what it's like, what it looks like, all that kind of juicy stuff and also of course the most important thing, how to help and how to understand it in the context of a relationship. Oh no, I've still got the audacity thing up. Terrible. But before we get into this lovely juicy little video, I'm going to have a sip of my new protein powder. It's not sponsored, it's not it's not sneak even though there's a sneak logo on this and it tastes satisfactory. The things I do, the things I say to make the muscle every day. So you're coming onto this video you're perhaps knowing what a shutdown is but perhaps you do not. The funny thing about autism shutdowns is that it's one of the least known about things to do with autism. You have the big shiny glamorous meltdown that everybody knows about even through memes or just being a parent or just being an autistic person. But the old shutdown doesn't really get as much attention as its counterpart. But why? Before we get into the video I just want to bring your attention to this little scale that's have got going on in my head. I'm going to try and explain it. So basically most autistic people are relexophymic, meaning that they struggle to understand, categorise and notice emotions. So this leaves a good 60-70% of feeling and emotion that is very very difficult to notice. So if we take the typical example of anxiety and perhaps overload for a good 60-80% of that, I keep going up in the percentages, you don't really notice that. And there is a very small window between not noticing it and having a shutdown. So this means that shutdowns are quite common. They usually proceed a meltdown. So you have the whole not knowing and you have a small window to kind of notice something, do something about it, then you have a shutdown. If that doesn't work, then you have a meltdown. Obviously it doesn't happen like that each single time, but there does seem to be somewhat of a trend when our emotions get too out of control and we can't regulate ourselves. So what exactly is a shutdown? Well I'm going to try and explain it from my own personal experience, because the most interesting part is trying to understand what it would be like for you. If you're an autistic person, you may not know about it. And if you're the partner of an autistic person, it may be very difficult to get your mind in their head and really understand what's going on. Shutdowns are usually characterized by a very, very heavy amount of dissociation. Now what is dissociation? If you have not experienced it, if you don't have mental health problems, you probably won't experience dissociation a lot. But one of the surefire ways to know what dissociation is like is to consume everyone's favorite recreational legal drug, alcohol. Alcohol is dissociative in nature. It tends to make you feel a bit out of your body. You kind of feel like the environment around you isn't particularly real. And that kind of incorporates two of the main types of dissociation that occur for me when I'm having a shutdown. Derialization, not really feeling like your surroundings or life is real. And depersonalization, not feeling like you're real, feeling like you're viewing yourself in a third person view. And the reason behind this, the reason behind this high level of dissociation, it's because your brain getting overwhelmed by something or feeling a really strong emotion. It's kind of a breaking point. And in a way, the shutdown is a way for your brain to stop you having a meltdown. You detach from your thoughts, so you don't think very much. You don't process a lot of what's going on around you. You may become selectively mute or just mute in general. Very quiet and very unresponsive. You may also have a significant drop in your nonverbal social skills. So that means facial expressions, body language, tonalities tends to be down regulated in a sense, so you're not as expressive as you usually are. Very monotone. A lot of the shutdown basically happens inside someone's head. So there's not a lot of effects on the outside world unless you have a romantic partner or you have a friendship or you have a family member, or you're in a compromising public position like at a very big social event. That's when the problems tend to come in because it's not the actual shutdown that's the issue. Sure, it doesn't feel great. It's not very fun. It doesn't lead to you being very productive. And you also feel like a bit of a downer. You're on a little bit of a downer after you have a shutdown. Not as much as the meltdown, but it's still not pleasant. The real issue comes in when you have people who don't understand what it is. What does it look like? I mean, I've kind of gone over what it looks like, just from explaining my experiences. But you may find that when you are having a emotional discussion, if your partner is very burnt out from the day, you're having an argument, something where they have to put a lot of thought into what they say. If there's a lot of emotions going up in the air, it can be quite hard for us to manage that. For me, I tend to be a bit of an emotional sponge. So if someone's not very happy with me for a long period of time, and it's a very intense emotional discussion, it's going to make me have a meltdown or it's going to make me at least have a shutdown if that continues and I don't have a break. So let's go over some of the scenarios that may occur. Obviously, the argument is a big one. When someone's in a neurodiverse relationship, particularly autistic, neurotypical, non-autistic, there tends to be some level of cross-wires when you're talking about something important to them. They may have had a hard day, but they just go completely mute and they don't respond to you or they give you very short answers and they don't look like they're engaged or they look spaced out and you're wondering, why have they been so rude to me? How dare they just not reply to me? It's so rude. It's so horrible. Sure, that may happen at some point, but if they are going through a shutdown, this may explain that behaviour. When it comes to trying to help someone who's having a shutdown or when trying to avoid a shutdown, it's better to avoid the things that will make it worse rather than do the things that will make it better. So that brings us on to the how can you help part. The most important thing, as I've said, don't do the wrong things. If you can see that they're getting quite dissociated, they're not being as communicative, they're being quite short, even though you may be feeling a lot of feelings and you want to explain and you want to get a lot of your thoughts, don't pressure them to communicate. The shutdown is a protective mechanism to prevent them having a meltdown. It's semi voluntary, so it's kind of like there is a part of you who, you know, you feel okay, right, I'm overwhelmed. I'm just going to let myself just stew a little bit in my own brain and dissociate and perhaps feel a bit better, but it's another part of it, you know, it's kind of needed for the situation, because meltdowns are not a fun experience at all. They're pretty horrific experiences, just in general, as a general rule, they're not the most fun thing in the world. Apart from if you're having a happy meltdown, I've had one of those. I've got so, so happy and just feeling so great that I had a meltdown over it. Very strange experience, but let's move on. So if we were to avoid the things not to do when someone's having a shutdown, the pressure to communicate, the emotions, they're not giving them a break, not understanding the increased processing time to understand what you're saying, what are the things that you can do to help? The number one thing that you can do is ask them. If you are in a relationship with an autistic person and they don't know what a shutdown is, maybe the next time that they have one, or you know, once you've explained to them, you've shown them this video, once you've explained to them what a shutdown is and they can, they have a picture of what it's like, then the next time that they have one, if they do have one, they can write about it, they can think about what it felt like, what led up to it, what helped, what didn't. So you've got a good idea of what kind of state they're in, what they can and can't do, and what you can do to try and help in that situation. Perhaps the best, you know, pot of coal is just, if you're having a quite heated discussion, something quite emotional and perhaps a bit confrontational, then maybe it might just be worth taking a breath and just saying, okay, you know, we're not getting anywhere with this at the moment. You seem like you're quite stressed. Why don't you, you know, why don't we lower the lights in the room? Why don't we put on some of your favorite music? Perhaps get some of the stim toys that you like out? Perhaps go out and go outside and just try and chill out and be in the nature, the nature thing. You know, there's a lot of different things that could work, but it's very individual to the person. Of course, the bog standard things to do would be to stop having the conversation for the time being, which can be a very, very difficult thing to do, depending on the situation. So that's all the information that I've got for you today. And I hope this has helped. Shutdowns are a very strange phenomena, and it's not really that known about. So if, you know, as I said, if you're an autistic partner, just not know about shutdowns, maybe encourage them to do a bit of reading into it. And if they don't want to, then obviously you can. And I hope that these little tips and tricks for both noticing, understanding what it's like, and also trying to help someone having a shutdown. I think I said that right. Possibly. So if you want to stay up to date with any new autism-related dating videos coming out, make sure to stay subscribed to the channel and click the little notification bell. It really does help out a lot. And of course, if you want to stay up to date with all the wonderful work that I'm doing, I'm not putting on YouTube because I'm a strange creature. I have my Instagram account up right here. As you can see the lovely picture of me looking, I don't know what that is actually, but the social media's Instagram being the main one that I tend to focus on. Anyway, I hope that you have learned about the wonders of the shutdown, the little brother of the meltdown, the kind preventative brother that kind of talks you down, doesn't quite agitate the older brother. The shutdown's cool in a sense. It's a good thing. But you do tend to feel a bit down afterwards, even so. Exposure to that level of stress is quite difficult sometimes. So make sure you control your stress levels. Take some omega-freeze, go out for a walk.