Shutdown: the autistic implosion

Autistic crises are an integral part of life for many autistic people. After discussing them broadly in a previous article, it’s important to describe them in detail, starting with shutdowns, often described as autistic collapse or social withdrawal. A shutdown is also defined as autistic withdrawal, an involuntary response triggered by sensory or emotional overload. Yet the reality goes far beyond simple withdrawal — it is a neurological reaction in autistic individuals, designed to short-circuit an overload the brain perceives as danger.

Shutdown, the implosion

The shutdown is an implosion. When overload hits, the brain crashes. Before I called it a shutdown, I used the term “brain bug.” I simply stop functioning. There are two forms of shutdowns: partial shutdowns, which are more invisible, and full shutdowns. The first happens to me when I’m unable to withdraw or isolate myself. I struggle to communicate, and my sensory sensitivities intensify. Everything becomes too much, but I continue functioning at the bare minimum.

Comparison with freeze

Freeze is a common response to stress. It can manifest as stillness, inability to react, or a momentary block (Simply Psychology). This is why shutdowns are often compared to freeze responses. However, they are very different: a person doesn’t choose a shutdown — they experience a kind of “system halt,” making them unable to function even if they want to, as described by the NHS.

They may want to communicate with others but simply lack the capacity. Basic needs can temporarily shut down. The brain blocks everything it can in order to reset and allow the autistic person to function again. While freeze is temporary and stops once the danger is gone, a shutdown can last minutes or hours, even after the triggering context has passed.

In both cases, the brain prevents action, but the experience is completely different. Freeze is fear-driven, while shutdown feels like implosion: the person wants to act, but access is blocked. It can be destabilizing and leave the person confused.

Manifestations

Shutdowns manifest differently for each autistic person. However, there are common experiences shared across the autistic community, including stillness (being unable to move even when trying), partial or total mutism, and motor slowdown (slower movement). Mutism is not voluntary, it’s often caused by blocked access to speech. For example, when I experience a shutdown in public, I may hear people speak to me but feel unable to respond, or I respond with a delay — like a lag. I am slow and need several seconds to reply. Sometimes I simply lose the ability to speak entirely: I hear others, but no longer have the internal resources to communicate.

Shutdowns often come with intense fatigue affecting multiple domains: cognitive, sensory, emotional, social, and even physical. Cognitive saturation is often described as a glitch, a black screen, or Windows’ BSOD — the Blue Screen of Death. For those unfamiliar, that’s the error screen Windows shows when it encounters a critical failure. A shutdown is similar: the brain hits a critical error, often without clear warning, and crashes.

How I experience a shutdown

Usually, I have full shutdowns because I manage to delay the crisis until I’m home — at the cost of a longer and more intense shutdown. Sometimes, I have partial shutdowns, less visible but just as draining.

My experience with a partial shutdown

I didn’t see it coming. I was at a party, after a long day exploring the city while visiting a friend. The noise felt manageable, but I also had to socialize, which was more demanding because I barely knew anyone except my friend.

We eventually got back in the car, and I suddenly short-circuited. All my wires snapped and powered off. My friend was talking to me, I tried to rest leaning against the door, but I needed to respond. I didn’t realize I was having a crisis. I only felt a sudden struggle to function. She was talking to me, and I tried to reply, but it was as if my brain was glitching. It took me several seconds to respond. My answers were short. My hypersensitivities skyrocketed. I was well aware something was wrong in my brain because I struggled to understand what she was saying, and I just wanted to shut down. Not sleep. Shut down. Stop functioning. Because I was using the tiny bit of remaining energy just to function at the bare minimum and not seem weird.

We finally arrived at her place, and I was able to isolate myself, understand that a crisis had started, and that I simply needed to lie down and wait for it to pass. At that point, I shifted into a full shutdown.

My experience with a full shutdown

In a full shutdown, I no longer function at all: I sit or lie down, become still (and genuinely unable to move), and mute. I can no longer meet any basic needs. If I used to call it a brain bug, it’s also because my mind loops on one or several intrusive thoughts, as if I’m trying to organize the internal chaos. Nothing works anymore, and the brain needs to reboot.

During a full shutdown, my brain can even shut off parts of my sensory perception to short-circuit the overload. This is the thalamus — the brain’s sensory “sorting station” — acting as a filter between sensory inputs and the cortex: it slows down or blocks sensory messages to protect the system (MIT research: thalamus as sensory filter).

Sounds become distant, vision narrows into a tunnel, and I can no longer feel the vibration of my watch. A shutdown often leaves the autistic person fully drained of energy, and it’s not unusual for them to withdraw socially for hours or even days afterward.

Here is an excerpt from what I wrote in my journal after an extremely socially — and especially sensorily — overwhelming day:

Right after, I lay down on my right side, curled up, and I shut down. For almost an hour — during which I almost went into a meltdown when I felt the tears coming. My thoughts looped on different topics as if I were trying to reorganize everything, including the urge to call my friends for help.

It’s rare for me, but during this shutdown I repeatedly became completely disconnected from my hearing. I could no longer hear my friends partying outside, nor the fly buzzing in the room. I only felt my body curled up, and occasionally heard my own breathing, which helped calm me.

During this shutdown, I was unable to move, even though I wanted to. I felt trapped. I could have wanted to speak, but I wouldn’t have been able to. It was as if my brain had disabled that function, and I couldn’t understand why.

Typical triggers

As described in my article on autistic crises, shutdowns can have several types of triggers. As explained in an article from NHS, shutdowns are triggered by sensory or emotional overload. In my experience — and according to other testimonies — the triggers extend even further: cognitive overload, social overload, and intense emotional load.

The sensory factor

Several common triggers are reported in shutdowns. The most frequent is sensory overload. Usually, other factors precede the shutdown, but sensory overload is often the final trigger. Too much noise, too much light, too much movement, too many smells — all are common causes of shutdowns. I remember once being in a street in Paris and experiencing extreme overload: strollers, footsteps on the pavement, cars and honking. Everything became too intense and resulted in a shutdown, forcing me to sit on the curb, curled up, headphones on, and wait for it to pass.

Cognitive overload

Cognitive overload is also well known for triggering shutdowns. The first crisis I ever called a shutdown (before that, I described it as a brain glitch) was due to sensory overload. I still remember it clearly even though it happened in 2019 — and I always will. I was discussing environmental issues with my ex–best friend who studied in that field, and after hearing her dismantle everything I thought I knew, I collapsed onto her lap. I could still speak, but with difficulty; I couldn’t move and my thoughts were looping over and over. She was understanding and simply waited for me to get up after about 15 minutes. I was very confused because I had no idea what had just happened.

Social overload

Social factors are also widely known to trigger shutdowns: interacting for too long, being around people without being able to recharge. I enjoy being on the phone with certain close friends, but I know the risk of triggering a shutdown if the conversation lasts too long. The reason: phone communication requires much more compensatory effort to understand the other person’s mental state, because I cannot see facial expressions, something I analyze in real time during in-person interactions. Phone calls are therefore even more demanding.

Some excerpts from my journal speak for themselves:

Following the tears came the shutdown. I lay down in my bed when it happened. A volcanic eruption of my sensory sensitivities. Everything became too much. The dim light in the room, the noise from my fridge, the bathroom ventilation, the sounds from outside.
I found myself in a state I felt I had never reached before. Result: the blue screen of death. Everything short-circuited. One second, I could feel my cat curling up against me, trying to soothe me a little — the next, nothing. Blackout. Eyes closed, my thoughts sped up, no longer following logic or any clear path. My brain was trying to reboot, unsuccessfully.
[…]
I’ve been crying for hours because I am both hyper-activated and completely destroyed, drained of energy.

Emotional overload

Finally, there’s the emotional factor. It is very real — it often appears when negative emotions (anger, frustration) overwhelm the autistic person to the point where they are no longer able to regulate them. A crisis then occurs to short-circuit the emotion in question. I mention negative emotions, but crises triggered by positive emotional overload also exist. They are usually shorter and less intense, but I experienced this for the first time on June 30, 2025 — and it was extremely unpleasant.

What to do during a shutdown

During the shutdown

Here is a simple list of basic actions to adopt when someone is experiencing a shutdown:

• Let the person isolate themselves
• Offer a reassuring presence if they want it
• Offer practical help: stimming tools or comfort objects
• Do not blame them for anything
• Reduce sensory stimulation

After the shutdown

During a shutdown, the brain inhibits certain functions. This results in a neurological block that is extremely demanding. Even if the person appears motionless, there is often intense physical tension. This consumes energy. The massive release of cortisol (stress hormone) and adrenaline during the crisis also contributes to the exhaustion that follows. The autistic person should be allowed to rest — as much as they need (I sometimes need several days to recover from a shutdown). If they seem to have difficulty speaking, do not force them — respect their needs.

Above all, do not blame them. Once, someone reproached me for not managing my crisis and for affecting others, when the first victim of that crisis was me. It was extremely painful because I already felt ashamed and struggled to talk about it, and instead I was directly told I had been inconvenient. My functioning was seen as harmful to others. I was being told I wasn’t allowed to exist.

Seeking others during the crisis

In the middle of a shutdown, I sometimes want to isolate myself in my sensory bubble while also craving the presence of someone I trust. Unfortunately, I often feel guilty or weak for wanting that, and prefer (or have no choice but) to remain alone. Yet the presence of another person in the room is deeply comforting. In internal or external chaos, another human offers balance and removes the feeling of having to face the crisis alone.

As shutdowns became more frequent, I started fearing how others would perceive them — afraid they’d think I wasn’t trying hard enough or that I should manage everything myself. So I isolate, and wait for the crisis to pass.

A short-circuit of bipolar disorder

I’ll explore this more deeply in a future article, but here are a few words about how my shutdowns interact with my bipolar disorder. During depressive episodes, shutdowns happen less often — likely because I go out far less, and therefore face fewer triggers. During mania, shutdowns disappear. My brain runs at full speed and leaves no space for autistic crises… until it crashes. A manic episode usually ends with a heavy, intense shutdown.

It’s especially during hypomanic episodes that the alteration of my shutdown response is the most noticeable. It’s important to remember that (hypo)manic episodes damage the brain just like a toxic substance would. Thought flow becomes extreme. For me, this leads to more frequent crises — as if my brain were trying to short-circuit an internal danger. Hypomania also amplifies my sensory hypersensitivities, which is why crises appear more often during these phases. A testimony on Reddit also mentioned hypomania as a trigger for shutdowns.

However, all of this is recent. Before my first autistic burnout, I experienced shutdowns only occasionally. They became increasingly frequent, to the point where they now attempt to short-circuit my hypomanic states regularly. To symbolize this short-circuit, I often compare my brain to a light bulb overheating until it burns out and suddenly shuts off.

Understanding shutdowns means understanding that they are not a weakness, but a neurological response. And sometimes, it simply means accepting that the brain needs time to reboot.

For those who want to explore the topic further, Reframing Autism offers a dedicated resource page explaining autistic shutdowns, the sensory experience behind them, and how to support a person going through one. The blog Catalyst Care Group also discusses shutdowns and how they differ from meltdowns.

Originally published in French on: 2 Nov 2025 — translated to English on: 20 Nov 2025.