Autism Shutdown Vs Dissociation - What's The Difference?

Autism shutdowns and dissociation can often be confused with each other as they may appear to be similar. But what's the difference between an autistic shutdown and dissociation? This is what we find out as I talk about what autism shutdowns are and what is dissociation.

🧠 Autism Meltdown Vs Autism Shutdown - What's The Difference:

Dissociation / Dissociative identity disorder resources:

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*ABOUT ME*
Hello indie people, I'm Andy and I have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I make videos on autism from the perspective of an autistic adult. Sharing my autism experiences to help other autistic people and autism families to improve their understanding of autism.

This channel is focused on raising autism awareness & acceptance of autism. To try and change attitudes towards autism, to educate people about autism for those who are new to the autism world.

So if you are on the spectrum, know someone with autism, or are working professionally in the autism field and want to learn more about autistic people then consider subscribing and turning on the notification bell to see all future videos.

#autism #shutdown #dissociation

[IndieAndy]

Hi guys, what do you want me to talk about next?

Here are some similar videos to these if you enjoyed this one:


🧠 Autism Meltdown Vs Autism Shutdown - What's The Difference:

[moonpriest]

I dissociate so much that I rarely have shutdowns or meltdowns. Every time I get overstimulated or stressed, all of a sudden if feels like floaty, my head feels like a haze, sometimes I’m on autopilot and other times I’m consciously there but I feel drunk, the world gets blurred and my head feels heavy, my eyes don’t feel that open and physical pain is more numbed, I remember slapping my face and not feeling much other than a small tingle and warmth on my cheek and my friends told me I looked crazy. When I’m on autopilot sometimes it gets so bad that I accidentally walk to places that I never planned on going or almost get run over while I’m walking to school. Not many people around me understand the experience so people usually ask if I’m on drugs because sometimes while I’m speaking my speech slows down and the things I say make less and less sense. It feels like I need to sleep even when I’ve had 9 hours of sleep. I’m convinced I have some sort of dissociative disorder

[jerseysquirrel]

I have PTSD and experience dissociation, but I also experience dissociation during sensory overload. I've heard other autistics have had similar experiences.

[teetrea]

I'm autistic and for me a sensory "seeking" mood is similar to derealization. I experience both from stress and needing to "ground" myself by using my senses. It's like I can't feel part of my surroundings even though I'm "aware" unless I engage my senses like touching a texture or crunching on food or running water over my hands. It's like my body becomes disconnected *from* my mind and harder to control.

[otakus]

I've always described my brain like a glitchy and slow computer, even before I knew about ASD 💀💀

My life makes so much more sense now.

[williamwehrli]

My reasons for my shut downs is because my brain does not process things as fast as others. And the more severe things that you feed to me, the longer it’s gonna take for me to get around that.

[steveneardley]

I had a lot of dissociation as a kid. My brain, senses, verbal center would shut down. I could be standing, sitting or lying, but I would be completely removed from my surroundings, with nothing at all going on in my head. This was a reaction to overstimulation. Later on I learned to leave stressful situations before I needed to "check out." I have never have meltdowns. My parents were always getting into dangerous rages, and I swore to myself that I would never be like that--and I'm not.

[jaelamaduin]

It seems common for people to start making this enormous leap from mild dissociation (feeling tuned out from your feelings when overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious) to full blown dissociative identity disorder which is an extremley rare and profoundly severe form of dissociation resulting from severe long term early childhood trauma.

One thing to keep in mind is that dissociation is a normal response to stress and or anxiety. Everyone experiences it at some point in their life.

Going from a normal fight flight or freeze response which can incude some emotional dissociation to serious dissociative disorders is like going from 1 to a million in severity of symptoms.

Dissociation (disconnect from feelings) is normal and can also be listed as a symptom of many different psychological issues including anxiety disorders which are common, and very treatable. I'm just hoping to reassure people with anxiety that they don't suddenly have DID or something, because DID is very rare.

Dissociative disorders are a set of severe disorders each distinct from the other, but all resulting from experiencing profound trauma. You can dissociate often and not have DID.

Speaking from many years working in mental health with a focus on trauma, and also as a person who has both autism spectrum disorder type 1, and ptsd.

[brianna]

I have quite a bit of experience with both shutdowns and dissociation and I find the main difference is I am far more self aware during a shutdown and don’t usually experience any lapse or loss of memory during a shutdown which I do when I dissociate plus when experiencing a shutdown I don’t get any disconnection from reality.

[Bexstarartist]

I have a severe disassociation disorder. It’s so bad I have seizures and I’m constantly semi conscious. Im convinced I’m autistic and have pushed myself too hard and the trauma has led to this…

[isaacw]

Does anyone have their brain basically force them to fall asleep for a few minutes to sort of reboot from a shutdown? Not like narcoleptic falling asleep wherever you are but needing to sit down and fully shut off to relieve the excess stress.

[sabrinaszabo]

That’s how I describe the way I was feeling like a computer on hibernation mode before I heard you say it, it’s difficult to do basic tasks and I feel like my mind is somewhere else

[lacyross]

From the constant gaslighting in my life, my body has gotten good at subconsciously convincing itself that it’s fine, when it’s not. If I don’t go out of my way to listen to when I need to rest, I can push myself past the point of shut down and basically it’s like someone else takes over my body for me. I don’t mean like to the point where I can’t remember, or can’t control my body, but like I feel like someone else is saying the things I’m saying, or doing stuff. Like sometimes when I’m speaking, it feels like someone else is speaking and I’m just listening. It’s very odd. It feels like a reroute to pushing past shut down. Mind you, not a very healthy one. So for me, shut down and dissociation can be hand in hand. Also, never diagnosed w autism though highly suspected by me, and nobody has listened yet enough to believe me when I say I dissociate, but like... I know that’s what that is lmao.

[defiantturtle]

I experience shutdowns and dissociation. After watching the video and reading some comments, I wonder if I tend to dissociate while having a shutdown. Usually during a shutdown, I have no awareness of what's going on around me or what anyone is saying to me. I go completely mute. When I come out of a shutdown, I never remember anything that happened. When I dissociate, it's more just like a sense of nothing around me being real, feeling like my name isn't actually my name, not recognizing my face in the mirror, and/or just a general sense of disconnection. After seeing some mention of loss of memory after dissociative episodes, I wonder if what I've thought were really short less extreme shutdowns were actually dissociation which would make a lot more sense since usually I know I've had a shutdown because I suddenly feel really "out of it" afterwards whereas there have been a few times where someone's said something that made me think "huh, I have no recollection of that, I guess I had a shutdown " but at the same time I wasn't feeling the after effects of a shutdown.

[austinbodiford]

Not sure if it's a shutdown, but when I feel overwhelmed, lost for words, and cannot process things that don't make sense. I can feel myself slowly staring off into the distance, breathing heavy, I go numb. The computer analogy is relatable. It does feel like "AN ERROR HAS OCCURED" 🤖

[dragonneaspie]

I just discovered that I dissociate a lot at random times. Well, that explains a lot of things and raises lots of questions at the same time.

[DeborahAnnsuperversatile]

In the last couple weeks I have had shut-downs, meltdowns, yet another meltdown, a short shut down, a meltdown, a bit of a dissociation, a shut down, a smaller version of a meltdown, more anxiety than usual, a couple "inward" panic attacks, and now I can feel I am heading into a shut-down and I am scared it might be for a longer period of time. I am also a mom, so can't really shut down all the way to fully recover (especially for a long period of time); sometimes I do need a long period of time, but that is beside the point. I wish there was some way to avoid all this from happening. There is a lot of stress in my life also.

[NayabImtiaz]

I've had a meltdown and dissociation together. I think. It was terrifying

[harmonyhope]

SUCH A HELPFUL video.... Having trauma therapy at the moment and my therapist has just suggested that some of my symptoms are like an autistic shutdown and not all of the symptoms I have are trauma based... I do experience dissociation for sure and it's exactly how you described it, but also experience what you described as a shutdown, so have potentially both things to contend with. Felt a bit confused after my therapy, so I'm so glad I can access this video to help me understand!!! (you have a new subscriber) :)

[anaisgeoffrion]

It was brilliantly explained, thank you. About dissociation, it's not necessarily linked to DID. You can also experience it if you have another form of dissociative disorder, if you have PTSD, borderline personality disorder, etc. But the way you described it is, according to me, pretty accurate.