Isolated. Hurting… Ashamed.
I’ve spoken about the reasons I feel that Autistic overloads are not that different from overloads in non-autistics in the past (on multiple occasions).
I’ve been thinking similarly about all of the feelings, needs, and ideas related to my various Queer identities that I’ve been forced to repress over the years (because I could not find the words, and I felt that even if I had the words, sharing was pointless because nobody would understand).
Keeping the peace (by starting a war within).
For most of my life, I “kept the peace” by turning all my pain, rage, and sorrow inward on myself, creating a battleground within my own mind to keep myself safe from rejection, ridicule, and punishment from others.
I learned early on that melting down would get me in trouble (and could even be dangerous), but this knowledge didn’t stop the intense feelings and reactions I would have whenever I reached my breaking point.
Before I learned to shut down, freeze, implode on myself, and take all the pain inward, I would ruin things when in meltdown mode (which I will now refer to as “my fight state”).
I would throw, break, and smash important objects (if they got too close to me or were part of what triggered me). Similarly, because in this “fight mode,” everything (and everyone) feels like a threat, I would also break apart my relationships and people (who didn’t know how to handle me when I was at my worst).
If nobody was around, and the pain became too great with no other outlet, I would even break myself (in violent physical acts against my own body).
Melting down, flipping myself into a fight state, allows me to vent the anger and intense emotions that welled up inside me, but shutting down does not give me that same release.
Shutting down (for me) is silencing and repression. It’s unshared feelings and unresolved hurt.
Shutting down is me making myself small to keep the peace. It’s playing dead to not draw the wrong kinds of attention from the people around me.
Shutting down does not resolve the issue; it only pauses the pain that will eventually come out (often at an inconvenient time).
Learning to repress (instead of express).
Shutting down is starting a war within myself, stopping myself from starting wars outside myself (as meltdowns/fight states do).
People have more space for shutdowns because my “going quiet” is less inconvenient to them than my outward explosions are (even if shutdowns are worse for me in many ways than meltdowns/fight states ever were).
When I was younger, and my feelings became too big, I would erupt, exploding outwardly, but as I grew older, the way I expressed (or didn’t express) my emotions changed.
Instead of bottling up all my emotions until they eventually burst out of me like a volcanic eruption, with an intense pressure I could no longer contain (which often got me in trouble with people around me), I learned to turn that pressure (and pain) inward on myself.
This inward pressure, known as a ‘Shutdown’ in Autistic spaces, is a coping mechanism where I retreat into myself, often becoming non-responsive and uncommunicative. I may also cry (quietly so as not to attract attention to myself).
When I shut down (because shutdowns still feel like a fight, even though the fight has become internal and mostly invisible to onloookers), I still feel like I’m in a battle. However, because I’ve learned that “battling other people” will hurt me more than help me, I learned to take this battle (and my weapons) inside (and aim them at) myself.
Additionally, when I shut down on myself if I’m upset about something (like how another person is treating me), instead of “getting the hurt out” and expressing my upset with the person at my perceived bad treatment (or other violation) when I shut down, I tend to accept how I’m treated as something “I deserve” (shifting blame away from external people and circumstances) and placing the blame for my own poor treatment on entirely on myself (even if I don’t deserve that blame).
Shutdown Shame Spiral
In my case, shutting down is a result of shame and the lack of emotional safety I’ve experienced with (most) other people over the years when trying to express myself.
Eventually, after enough rejections, I reached the point where sharing no longer felt worth the risk, so I stopped sharing.
For most of my life, people failed to view me with compassion when I became overwhelmed, so I became deeply ashamed of “my behavior” and my feelings.
When I have a meltdown, I need to be treated with kindness (not judgment). I also need to be loved, accepted, and made to feel safe.
Unfortunately, people’s reactions are often the opposite of what I need, telling me I “should be ashamed” for “the way I was acting,” that I “need to get ahold of myself,” and that my reactions are “unreasonable” or “out of proportion” to the situation.
This has been an excerpt from a longer Substack post.
The full post is available for paid subscribers on Patreon and Substack.
To receive new posts (like this one) delivered directly to your inbox 2-3 times each week (and support my work), please consider becoming a subscriber.
I’m creating a new community on Substack, and I hope you’ll join me as a free member (but I also have paid subscriptions that are only $5/month – less if you subscribe annually if you want access to bonus content).
FREE subscribers on Substack get content, too! Everyone gets something (because I believe education should be accessible).
NEW!!! Half-Priced Low-Income Substack Subscription Available
If you are in need of a discount, please use the link below to get your subscription at a deep discount (because I don’t want money to be an obstacle to people):
https://neurodivergentrebel.substack.com/LowIncomeDiscount
For readers experiencing financial hardship, please note that this offer is exclusively for you. This discount is offered on the “honors system” – I am not going to ask anyone for proof.
Please, kindly refrain from taking this offer if you do not fall under this category.
Both Substack and Patreon offer a free one-week trial on paid subscriptions. If it’s not for you, you can cancel at any time with no obligation.
The NeuroDivergent Rebel Blog is a reader-supported publication. Without the help of my readers, free resources LIKE THIS ONE wouldn’t be possible.
To receive new posts (like this one) and support my work, I ask that you please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber on Patreon, Facebook, or Substack.
Another great way you can also help support my work is by sharing this post.
That’s the kind of help you can’t put a price on.
It would mean a lot to me,
– Lyric Lark Rivera
Ok, well you are writing a blog, not a diary, and you have a comments section, and it appears you want to live with folks and not all by yourself isolated. You never reply so no idea if you ever consider what I say. I have some form of depression, not severe, don’t know what kind. I have a son with Downs, and several relatives with different degrees of autism/Aspergers. My best friend was schizo-affective and an alcoholic. Bi-polar, so they said. So I know a lot about these issues (not everything) and I’m a lot older than you are.
You SHOULD express yourself, but part of life if you want to hang with people is “repressing” socially unacceptable behavior. We all do it. Now my good friend had bi-polar and she did some things sort of like you describe. So I’d say to her, “ok, you can’t help it. We won’t expect normal behavior from you.” She didn’t like that, either. She didn’t want to think she had NO control over what she did. So it was often hard to deal with things. I told her I would always love her no matter what, but I told her when her behavior was unacceptable. She slowly improved before she finally died of alcoholism.
I truly believe you should write about this — that IS acceptable way to deal with it and you probably will help other people. I also believe you should remove that label on your blog and sometimes do subtitles that deal with all this. But if you continue to see yourself as this illness ONLY and these labels ONLY, you will not progress in your life.
Do you really want everyone else to ONLY see you through this lens? I wouldn’t.
My son has Downs and I know much of his behavior is because he doesn’t understand as much as others, but I still expect appropriate behavior. I don’t always get it, but he likes being a regular part of our family. He’s a person with Downs and some issues (God help us we all have them); he’s not ONLY this illness. We stopped thinking that way when he was about 8 and things have been much better for all of us since.
Your blog should be an outlet enough. If you truly want people to see you as someone who cannot act appropriately, they will patronize you. And of course if you believe you can’t ever get there, it will be a self fulfilling prophesy.
You live in a world where there IS no “normal.” But that doesn’t mean there isn’t appropriate behavior none the less. You strike me as able to get there. You are intelligent and have a lot to offer. But you know your readers want to hear about your successes, too. I suspect you have them, though you rarely write about them. Write about it all. You are good at it.
And all my good thoughts go with you. Lynn
I wish you the best throughout all this, thank you for sharing!