Shutdown commencing...

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Hi. I have not posted here before. I have sought out this forum because I am going through things that I feel are not being understood by anyone in my life (granted that is not very many people) and as I have been mostly convinced that I have Asperger's/autistic tendencies since my early teens, I wanted to look for similar experiences among others with similar traits.

I am a student (undergraduate) and it is the third from last week of my Spring semester currently. I am under some stress because I am behind on some work and it is hard for me to catch up because I am a single mother of a four year old. More importantly I live across a parking lot from my mother and grudgingly depend on her for babysitting and some transportation. My mom does not share my autism spectrum tendencies but we do share problems with mood disturbances. She has problems that involve her getting depressed and becoming very angry and bitter, and for whatever reason I often seem to take the brunt of that. Lately I do not even know what I have done to upset her but she has been being very invasive, which is very stressful for me, and also very cruel. She has been talking to her friends, to my dad (from whom she is divorced) and to my partner (I am an American in a serious long-distance relationship with an English man) and saying that she is angry at me, that she does not like me, and that she wishes her therapist was her daughter instead of me. This is quite upsetting but I do not know how to respond because I am unable to function if I do not have her logistical support. I do not know anyone else locally and have no other support.

The point, however, is that all of this stress and disruption is causing many problems for me and my romantic relationship. As I say, I am in a long distance relationship which is conducted mostly via the internet, specifically Skype, although we have spent about three months together in person. Recently I have found that I am simply shutting off. I do not feel like talking to my partner or spending time with him. As soon as we start to have a conversation I start to panic and feel overwhelmed and overstimulated. When I try to say something, I stutter and can't speak, and I feel like I need to put my hands over my face and rock back and forth. I have begged him as best I can to give me space. I do know that I still love him and that he loves me and that I want to be with him, but at the same time I feel like there is nothing I can do to control what is happening. I just can not seem to handle any kind of interactions right now. I just want to be left alone. He is trying to be accepting but he has made it clear he is troubled by it and I do not think he really understands what is happening to me. He is a very emotive and talkative person and he does not understand why I am turning away his offers to be there for me and provide me company and talk about what is bothering me. I do not know how to explain to him because as soon as I try to think or talk about it, my brain just shuts down and wants him and everything else to go away and leave me alone. I am scared about how to deal with this and whether I am going to lose him because of my uncontrollable need. I start to think that maybe I am unlovable and not capable of functioning in a relationship. I wonder if my mother is right about me and I am a worthless disappointment who will never succeed at anything.

HAve you told your partner that you suspect AS or autism? That might be helpful, especially if you explain what a shut down is to him, specifically that it is a NEEDED period of resetting/recovery for your brain. If he knows it is a recovery mechanism, and that your mom and school situation is the cause and not him--- maybe you guys can work out a way for you to have space while assuring him you REALLY want him in your life.

I definately agree with what Bookworm said. It's really important that you explain to him that you suspect you may have AS or Autism so that he knows what's going on. This kind of thing can be extremely confusing for an NT if they aren't aware of how this affects you. I think that your partner should widen his knowledge about Aspergers or Autism so that he can understand why you need to shut down from time to time. It would be most helpful if you could explain to him why you do this, but if you are unable to put what you feel into words, there are plenty relationship books on Aspergers or Autism that can help explain why you need to shut down and what your partner can do to cope during those situations. It's vital that he gets as much knowledge about Aspergers or Autism so that it can provide him with enough understanding to accept that it's just the way you deal with stress. It can take a while for the NT to understand this, but with patience the NT will begin to have enough understanding that they will be able to empathise with you and begin to see both the NT and Aspie/Autie ways of thinking.

Also, it's important that you show that you still love him in order to reassure him that you still do love him and want to be with him. This helps a lot for the NT. My boyfriend always seems to make an effort to talk to me regularly when he's not in shut down mode and just the fact that I see he's making an effort makes all the difference! So I'd say try something like that, he'll notice when you go out of your way to do things for him and he'll appreciate it

I'm going to triple what the other responders said, and add:

Ever thought of copying your post here into an email to him? I find it just about explains everything, and explains it very succinctly and well.

I would find it hard to think that anyone who loved you at all could read that and not have the utmost empathy and compassion for you.



Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice and for your support. I had resisted telling my partner about my possible AS because I worried about what his reaction would be; whether he would dismiss it, etc. I finally worked up the courage to discuss the issue with him and he was actually surprisingly understanding. I still do not know if he understands my shutdown problem because we have not had much of a chance to talk about it, but he has said that he wants to know more and asked me to direct him to literature that might be of assistance. I have not spoken to anyone else about AS so it is strange sharing my real thoughts and feelings with someone but I hope it will work out, because I do really want things to work with him and he seems like he actually loves me and cares for me.

I agree with all the lovelies on here, and I'm glad your partner was so understanding. I'm a single mom, too, I know how hard it can be. {hugs}

BTW, BEST. Username. Ever.