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How to Help Prevent Shutdowns in Your Child
#Teen autism meltdown youutbe plus#
As I can’t regulate my emotions very easily, talking plus conflict plus general burnout will result in either a shutdown or a meltdown.” But talking is one of the most complex things my brain does, and so just like you may not be able to analyze a marketing report when you get very upset (I can), I can’t talk when I get worked up. “I’m still able to hear, comprehend and see while I’m having a shutdown.
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She describes her inability to communicate during a shutdown.
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Katie Louise, autistic, writer, and contributor at The Mighty describes shutdowns as a way that her brain conserves her remaining processing skills and reboots. Their brain continues to process in shutdown mode until it recovers and resets. Lying on the floor or a flat surface and remaining very stillĪ person having a meltdown displays outward behaviors and may scream, attack people, hurt themself and break things, which often looks like a temper tantrum.Ī person experiencing a shutdown, unlike someone who is having a meltdown, is aware of self-control and that they are in the throes of distress, however, the individual is not able during a shutdown to control their muted internal response.Inability to move away (sitting or laying down in place).Withdrawing to a dark or quiet place (to break away from the cause of the shutdown).While both are reactions caused by sensory, information, or emotional overload, a meltdown consists of more outward behavior, and a shutdown is an internalized mode that is much less noticeable. The terms shutdown and meltdown are often used interchangeably. But what if we are autistic, and have crossed the threshold of overwhelm? When our emotional resources are tapped out, in exhaustion our brain may react by going into a protective mode called shutdown. When the world around us pushes us to stress overload, as it often does, we turn to our long-learned coping mechanisms to navigate the challenges.
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