What an Autistic shutdown feels like in real time.

I just wanted to get a video filmed about pastels. That’s all.

One Saturday recently, I was trying to film some footage for my new YouTube channel, when it went wrong. I should have known better, even in the moment I knew I was too overwhelmed to film, but I tried to push through.

I doubt there are many late diagnosed autistic or ADHD people that can’t relate to ‘pushing through’ something they really didn’t have the juice for.

It started chaotically, then it got worse, which lead to fatigue and eventually a shutdown. As I had been trying for nearly an hour to film something, each attempt to restart only made it worse. In hindsight and in the moment, I knew I should have called it a day, but I didn’t. I could have also deleted the footage and the worls would be none the wiser. I chose instead to edit the footage into a reasonable amount of time, and release the video.

Needless to say, this is a very vulnerable video. I’ve already had a few people reach out to thank me for making it, so I feel like its worth it.

Consider this your trigger warning, the following video features a real autistic shutdown.