Shutdowns and Unspoken Pain: The Weight of Repressed Emotions and Unmet Needs

For years I survived by shutting down and hiding my true self, but now I'm working to break free from shame and find emotional safety and acceptance.

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).

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about how much more I've been asked to "put away" and repress (because our world and the people in it don't understand NeuroDivergent People and often place unfair expectations upon us).

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).

---

---

A person wearing a box on their head that has a frown drawn on it.

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.

Paid subscribers have access to the rest of the story. Thanks to every one of you for supporting my work.

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 need it.

I hope this helps,
- Lyric